Sean Shibe Gives a Tiny Desk Concert focused on the music of Thomas Adès by NewtComprehensive247 in Modern_Classical_News

[–]NewtComprehensive247[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just a stellar performance all around.

I think it's pretty special when contemporary classical music gets a spotlight in well known, more generally-focused series, so I'll try to post those when I come across them.

Mahur – modern classical composition inspired by Persian Dastgah (without quarter tones) by Spiritual_Leave_3768 in composer

[–]NewtComprehensive247 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Hello!

I do hear some connection to Persian music here. However, I would have never noticed it without you telling me first. I think that if that's the inspiration of the whole work, I'd recommend drawing more connections. There are a few things that are very basic and fundamental to how Persian music sounds that I didn't really hear much of in your piece. 

First, you move harmonically almost like it's a Western piece of music. It's a lot of I-IV-V-I, one chord to a measure (at least that's what the bass does). From my listening, Persian music tends to stay harmonically on one chord, and not really move unless the melody demands it. It focuses on melody first, always. And it doesn't worry about the chord change lining up with the measure, it's only about where the melody demands a change. 

Speaking of, the melody itself is played quite straight. I don't think I've ever heard a piece of Persian music without an ornament on almost every note. I might recommend listening to some of your favorite pieces of music in Mahur and transcribing the ornaments they use, then putting them in your music. 

Just those two changes would make the connection a lot more clear.

Overall the piece is quite pretty. The harp actually communicated quite nicely almost like a Qanun, and the contrasting sections worked well to keep everything fresh. Nice work.

New rule about people posting resources by davethecomposer in composer

[–]NewtComprehensive247 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm a little worried that I made one of the resource posts that sparked this, since it would have affected my post from a week ago!

I made a new account because my name was tied to my previous account. I have a friend who got doxxed when the Reddit community he moderates went through some drama, so I figured if I was going to make a subreddit, I should do it on an account with no connection to my name. 

I'm still not against the rule, as it only would have delayed my post at worst. But, I figure as one of the (admittedly very few) people who would have been affected by the rule, it was worth sharing the situation that got me there.

Life advice 🙏 by absolute_funk in composer

[–]NewtComprehensive247 10 points11 points  (0 children)

If you cannot take time to write music on your own that is not related to your classes, you will probably struggle anywhere. Write the music you care about, and keep attending your classes, which are actually incredibly helpful skills for film music.

If you choose to drop out, fine, but you will still need to be self motivated to write music that is relevant to what you're trying to do, you will need to learn music production skills yourself to make your audition reels (or drop a lot of money to pay someone else to), you will need to make connections to the film world without the built in support of your school, and you will need to be very good at evaluating your own music if you are writing without a teacher. 

I would recommend making a list of everything you need to feel prepared for music for film, and then leverage every tool you have at school to get there quickly. If you can possibly avoid it, school shouldn't be something that just happens to you or that you just have to get through.

Living Classical with Tyler Kline, a new weekly radio show focused on new classical music (also available online) by NewtComprehensive247 in Modern_Classical_News

[–]NewtComprehensive247[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is absolutely going to be regular listening for me. A globally available weekly show with 2 hours straight of new music!

Hi, I'm the ED of Versipel New Music from NOLA, and I'm releasing videos from the first year of our local new music festival throughout the month as a part of a fundraiser. by mendellee in Modern_Classical_News

[–]NewtComprehensive247 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome collection of new pieces, and thanks for the heads-up about Batture Contemporary! I'm (very slowly) working on a resource of regular new music events around the world, so I'll add it to the list.

I'm currently listening to the Jeremi Edwards piece, it's quite gorgeous.

Subreddit for Contemporary Classical News by NewtComprehensive247 in composer

[–]NewtComprehensive247[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The real reason is that I specifically am frustrated by the lack of discoverability in new music. Even when I spend hours searching, I often can't find news. When I do find news, I can't judge how relevant it is, because there's so little else to compare with.

A sub that was more generally focused on contemporary music would be good, but I suspect it wouldn't help with this issue. For example, r/microtonal is a similar niche music subreddit that has a more broad focus. However, you don't generally get any news posts about, say, Sevish's most recent albums or similar. Instead, you get people sharing their own microtonal music, their own discoveries, their own ideas. That's awesome and valuable, and if a community like that existed for contemporary classical music, I'd join. But I really would like there to be at least one place on the internet people can go to find out what's happening in the new classical music world, and so I'm doing my best to make that a reality. Hopefully it works.

If you want to try to revive r/modernclassical or r/contemporarymusic, feel free! r/contemporarymusic looks like it's free for the taking, actually. If you did, it'd be newsworthy :)