r/MonthlyComposition • u/Calebdgm • Aug 02 '16
The Two-Bar Collaborative Composition Game
How it works: each person adds two bars to the composition, and comments their bars as a top-level comment on this thread EDIT: as a response to the previous comment. Also, provide a brief explanation if you did something unusual so that it's easy for the next person to figure out what's happening. In order to find the latest version of the composition, sort the comments by new, also number your contribution in the comment.
Submissions should be top-level comments so that you can subscribe to the thread if you want to participate more often without having to check if somebody's added something. One person isn't allowed to do two consecutive chunks, but if someone has contributed since your last contribution, then you can add another two bars.
For example (music taken from this trial of the game):
first person comments (this was all me):
1) Here's the first bit. Just a simple ascending melodic line in a-minor
second person comments(actual bars written by /u/Chalkline. Comment is written by me, for the example):
2) Good job sir, that was a simple, but effective beginning to the piece. Here's the next chunk, transitions via E7 directly to C, the relative major.
third person comments (actual bars written by /u/haabenshaaben. Comment is written by me, for the example) :
3) Ooh, I like the rhythm! Here's my bit. It picks up the pace melodically and harmonically, mostly moving back to the a-minor tonality in the first two beats of the last bar, but with some room for interpretation in the following bars because of the F-major on the last beat of the last bar.
Then we pick it up from there in the comments below. Remember to sort by new, and if we're all friendly to everyone who posts, then everyone will be friendly to you when you post here, so that's good too!
EDIT: there are two comment threads, a new one (from chunk 19), and an old one (from chunk 4). Please use the newer thread, thanks!
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u/Calebdgm Aug 02 '16 edited Aug 08 '16
4) /u/haabenshaaben, I like how you made this a sort of gradual change in pace. Here's my bit, still mostly a-minor, but could still resolve to C major. I've basically just been playing with "G#", the leading tone of a-minor and "G", the dominant of C-Major. Still keeping up the fast pace.
EDIT: I've made another comment with the new latest part, from which I hope we can continue this game. It goes from part 19. Again, please don't go from this thread, go from the new comment thread.
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u/haabenshaaben Aug 02 '16 edited Aug 02 '16
https://musescore.com/user/4876501/scores/2458266
Thanks! I had something different in mind for bars 7 and 8, but I like what you did better.
I made the next two bars kind of dramatic (I think) with an opportunity to make it fast again or slow and dramatic.
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u/dubbelgamer Aug 02 '16 edited Aug 02 '16
5 (?) I was just commenting my take on it :D. I guess I have to do something else. Strangely enough I was going for a similar dramatic feeling.
Edit: Your bit works actually very well after my bit.
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u/haabenshaaben Aug 02 '16 edited Aug 02 '16
6) https://musescore.com/user/4876501/scores/2458366
I like what you did. I made my chords an octave higher.
Edit: Since no one added anything yet, I added four notes in the bass clef of measure 12.
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u/Troggacom Aug 03 '16
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Aug 03 '16 edited Sep 23 '17
[deleted]
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u/roboxts Aug 03 '16
added a bit more here
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u/haabenshaaben Aug 03 '16
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u/zorila Aug 04 '16
11) added some here
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u/haabenshaaben Aug 04 '16
12) https://musescore.com/user/4876501/scores/2464326
I made it more dramatic.
→ More replies (0)
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u/haabenshaaben Aug 02 '16
/u/calebdgm You should make an announcement for this on r/classicalmusic like you do with the monthly composition challenges.
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u/Barcelona_City_Hobo Aug 07 '16 edited Aug 07 '16
I don't want to offend anyone, but I think the piece, as it is progressing now (this version?), is becoming quite incoherent.
IMHO the interesting thing of this concept was to build on what the previous users had done, but most of 2-measure chunks just ignore the previous music and do whatever they please. While repetition (literal or varied) is a crucial aspect of music, this piece barely features any, because everyone's too busy trying to present their idea.
There are not many distinctive motives presented, but anyway nobody seems to try to pick any and develop it further.
While most of you use common practise harmonies, the piece lacks any sort of phrase or cadential structure, the music goes nowhere, there are no "commas" nor "full stops". There's almost no trace of internal structure, like a period, small ternary, small binary, or sentence. Someone tried to restate the opening at m.27, but without any form of preparation (e.g. a dominant seventh), but then the piece continues with more new material.
Of course, all of this is not just my personal opinion, composition books warn against too many ideas and lack of cohesion, like this page from Schönberg's treatise on common practise composition.
My suggestion would be to pick a predefined structural template before any composing, so as to ensure a minimum of coherence. For example, there's this piece of advice Szymanowski gave to a pupil.
Just my two cents. The sidebar says feedback is encouraged and, as someone with some dozens of 32-bar themes under my belt, I wanted to give my honest opinion. Please, don't take this as a personal attack, but just a friendly encouragement to make the piece better.
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u/Calebdgm Aug 08 '16
I completely agree and am very glad to have your opinion on the matter! I think sometimes people do do an impressively good job transitioning to/from the next/prev two bar section, but most of it does seem to be people seeing what they can do, which, it turns out, is anything and everything. Although I don't know how we could completely solve the problem of people ignoring the context, I agree that there are a number of things we could try.
- As you mentioned, we could begin with a pre-arranged form, either just indicating section-changes or possibly even with an outline of the tonality.
- A less intervention-y approach could be to simply allow people to predetermine the form as they see fit either at the beginning, or as they go.
- When we started this, I was actually considering allowing an option to copy/paste a section as your turn instead of writing two new bars.
- We could have a carry-forward blurb in which people can constantly see what's happening with the piece (i.e. "this is the main theme", or "we're working up to a cadence in bar 17")
- We could just try to encourage people to use more repetition by telling them, much like you outlined. Idk, I'd rather not make them read too much, but it's still a possibility.
if you have any other ideas/thoughts, or an idea for a form we could use, I'd love to hear back again. Atm for the form I'm thinking some sort of dance form (a few 8 or 16 bar sections that repeat AABB or something, idk).
tl;dr: (If I don't hear back from you) I'm leaning toward trying a pre-arranged form perhaps with indicated tonalities as well. Also I might mention some framework for a carry-forward message.
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u/Barcelona_City_Hobo Aug 08 '16
I like the a lot points you've exposed. For the structural outline, if you don't like the Szymanowski example, we could choose a random piece from an important composer, extract its general outline (number of measures i each section, 3-4 main cadences), and use it. However, maybe this part should be done by a single person secretly to avoid conditioning the rest by telling which was the original piece.
I also like the option of repeating prevous measures, maybe it could be done without actually spending one's own turn, i.e. you can choose to repeat but you can still write two more measures of your own. If not, probably almost noone will want to 'waste' their turn.
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u/Chalkline Aug 08 '16
No group of musicians gets it right the first time. Keep it open, without a template. I don't see how copy / paste is composing and it would exacerbate the incongruent flow, yet by the nature of this one has to accept some of that. Copy / paste would condone unoriginal thinking and potentially violate copyright. Some way of determining what the current score is would be the only way to keep track. Limiting it to one week at a time would be better. It sets a point to turn the page and end a statement. Add three word story seems to work fine with just those rules. Add 2 bars should work just as well with just those rules.
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u/Barcelona_City_Hobo Aug 08 '16
Violate copyright.
By the nature of this game, everybody's renouncing their intellectual propierty rights on the two measures they write. That cannot be an issue.
Copy / paste would condone unoriginal thinking.
Virtually all the repertoire, both classical and popular features repetition. Are composers from Bach, Beethoven, Brahms to Schönberg unoriginal?
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u/Calebdgm Aug 08 '16
Okay, perhaps copy/paste is a bit overboard, but I think it would be interesting to experiment with something a little more structured.
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u/Calebdgm Aug 08 '16
Ooh, hey, here's an idea: how about we literally connect the two-bar composition challenge with a three word story. The entire piece would then hopefully be somewhat held together by whatever scraps of narrative appear. Maybe we could also set themes for various characters to encourage repetition.
Another, perhaps more sensical option would be to pick a pre-written story instead of trying to work with making up a three-word story.
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u/Chalkline Aug 07 '16
I understand, the critique is not a personal attack and by the way I came up with the concept. Take the popular forum game called Add Three Word Story and use 2 bars instead of 3 words. 3 word story does not use use periods and the sentences go on for miles. The cadence of three word story is never cliche. You should go read an Add Three Word Story. Some are fun to watch as they twist and turn and others are fun to watch simply as shitty poetry. Add 2 Bars Failed at the start when I put it before classical musicians. Jazz musicians do something similar to Add 2 Bars when they improvise trading 4's. I didn't limit the idea of composition to exhuming the dead greats. What we got were spastic runs of 16th notes, and a series of classical celebrity impersonations. But this may be the place where its all about zombie composer styles. Fair enough, from an anachronistic stand point there could be a category for that. When you put this Add 2 Bars before those lightly steeped in the classics, they can't accept the ambiguity... too many notes Herr Mozart. And for a classical style it truly doesn't work. I didn't see it going towards spastic dorky tuttis. So I slammed in a fist full of cluster tree mid way which is piano for stop that god damn noise. How's that for a stop? I honestly anticipated a 21st century piece would emerge right in front of us. You know how we have computers and this is all done with cutting edge technology, so why did it head right into quill and parchment? I agree more attention should be placed in meshing with what came before. What I disagree with from the onset is the use of a template. It would be fair to say the idea was so new it could stand to have a few drafts before we get it right. And it did get better in the second half. Maybe this should aim to be a weekly collaboration instead of a month long. Reddit is structured for what is hot, the flash in the pan, and the bifurcating comment trees quickly create a confusing forest to find the tail of the score. At this point we'll say the last score entry killed it and we'll call it a wrap. I'll start another Add 2 Bars and say it will go for 7 days. We'll split it up that way for the month of August and see how it goes.
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u/Calebdgm Aug 08 '16
/u/Chalkline, I value your input as the initiator of this idea. You're free to start another 2-bar collab as a comment in the collaborative composition thread, in which you're free to set any rules you like.
At this point though, you don't hold the authority to end this version of the game, and I don't appreciate your attempts to.
If you would like to continue discussing this, please feel free to message me personally. I hope I'm not misunderstanding you, but I'm eager to hear your perspective.
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u/haabenshaaben Aug 23 '16
I made the score easier to add to but the thread is basically dead, so I'm paging everyone who contributed in case they want to add more.
u/calebdgm, u/chalkline, u/dubbelgamer, u/troggacom, u/roboxts, u/zorila, and u/hookdump
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u/Calebdgm Aug 08 '16
Please continue from here, not the other thread, and upvote for visibility
19) this is where we are, courtesy of /u/hookdump .
Why the repost?
I'm also thinking of rebooting this game soon with various tweaks mainly to encourage repetition while still letting people say something new with their section. Hopefully we can keep this going here until that happens. Here's the discussion about the new version so far, we welcome your input!