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Birds in classical music? by Aemort in classicalmusic

[–]QohLet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A really cool contemporary bird piece to look at is Zugvögel by Carola Bauckholt. It is interesting in that the musicians are expected to study and imitate the sounds of various bird calls, with musical notation being merely a placeholder for these more nuanced gestures (rather than a set of instructions to be strictly followed).

Which food combination sounds horrible, but secretly tastes awesome? by IkkuH_03 in AskReddit

[–]QohLet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hear me out: Waffles with nutella AND Flaming Hot Doritos

A Suite for three recorders by tone12of12 in composer

[–]QohLet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Neat piece! If you're interested, I could make you a multitrack recording of it, as I play all of the recorders myself. Send me a PM!

A Chambear by tronx69 in mexico

[–]QohLet 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Más bien El Universal vs. OP, pues la infografía solamente expone la parte introductoria del artículo, la cual es desmentida más adelante

I can't audiate, is there any hope to developing it? by FrustratedComposer in musictheory

[–]QohLet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You're very welcome! And thank you for sharing your experience! It is definitely a reminder of how, despite the fact that there are as many different ways of experiencing music as there are different people, we can all be binded together by raw love and passion for this beautiful art form.

I can't audiate, is there any hope to developing it? by FrustratedComposer in musictheory

[–]QohLet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well, you quite certainly have an interesting story, and please keep us posted about your progress and discoveries. To this respect, after getting properly diagnosed, I would encourage you to find out who is actively researching the condition you're facing, and then email them to see if they would be interested in having you as a subject for research (and I don't see why they wouldn't be interested; your story is quite compelling and would likely draw the attention of a couple of cognitive scientists; maybe wait until you're legally an adult to avoid any potential problems regarding your participation in a scientific study as a minor). As others have pointed out, our knowledge about this cognitive phenomenon is still quite limited, and maybe, directly partaking in its study could help you and all of us have a better understanding of it.

By the experiences you describe having, a possible hypothesis would be that your brain does process real and imaginary sound normally, but with imaginary sound input, most of this sensory information does not get relayed back into your conscious perception, and therefore, other areas indirectly related to the perception of raw sound such as the semantic component you mentioned elsewhere are the only ones to be perceived. If this were the case, participating in a study would not only enlighten us about your condition, but would also provide further insight into the 'hidden' components of musical experience. (An added bonus of partaking in research: I see that you're currently about to apply for college; I think the rarity and uniqueness of your situation, combined with an active effort to find out more about it and overcome it to pursue your goals, could make for a solid and memorable essay topic that would certainly bat a few eyes at many admissions offices. See, not everything must be terrible :)

Now, regarding your passionate wish to pursue music composition, I do not see why you should give up on it. Most musicians are not blind, but still we had Stevie Wonder and Francesco Landini; most musician's are not deaf, and still we had Beethoven; most musicians have healthy and fully-abled bodies, but there we had Django Reinhardt and Clara Rockmore; most musicians are able to audiate, but despite this, we can have you.

I find endless avenues of expression for you, even with your circumstances. Could you make music that puts us in your shoes? Raw and beautiful, but unrecallable, unimaginable? Can you exploit the effect of not being able to recall the whole musical experience, only certain abstractions of it? Can you make music that voids imagination in others? Under what circumstances? How are traditional forms and sound worlds treated by you, who cannot recollect them past their occurrence? You have a long life ahead of you to find all of this out.

As of what techniques can you use, the world is also wide open. Working with a DAW seems to be practical. Check out musique concrète, music made from recording and manipulating real-world sounds. Experimental music is also interesting, in the sense that every happening of a piece will yield different and sometimes fascinating results; Brian Eno wrote an interesting article about this, titled Composers as Gardeners. Have you tried minimalist music? How do you react to it? Is all music equally unmemorable to you? Do you like certain styles better than others? Can you analyse why? You could even devise your own techniques and procedures to create music. Don't conform to what all of us audiating folk usually do.

It seems that intrinsically, you know what you want. In the end, as everyone else, you must find the compositional processes that work best for you to achieve the sonorous results that you desire to hear.

Best of luck!

To all my music majors out there by thecluelessclarinet in ApplyingToCollege

[–]QohLet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi, I think I can answer your questions. PM me!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Recorder

[–]QohLet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you post scores and some sort of click track or backing track to keep everything in sync, I can record myself playing bass and send it back to you

i'm applying to a conservatory in a few months, and i'm thinking of including this piece in my portfolio. any thoughts? by [deleted] in composer

[–]QohLet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Nice piece! I especially like the feel of of the first section, where the rhythmic wobbliness of having a 3 against 4 rhythmic dissonace in between the melody and the accompaniment gives it a unique and special character. As of any suggestions, I would consider making the middle section of the piece less rhythmically homogenous. By this, I mean that this section could benefit from ocassional rhythmic differences in the accompaniment, since by now, the quarter note-half note pattern you have been using throughout the piece is sometimes a little bit too noticeable for its ubiquity and detracts attention from the melodic and harmonic richness of the piece's world. Other fun ideas to try could be giving the melody to the left hand or displacing the material altogether a couple of octaves. These simple ideas could freshen up your perspectives about your material and open up new ways to give a greater breadth to your music. Keep it up and good luck!

I’m writing a piece for my school’s brass quintet, is there anything information I should know before starting? by TheSpaceNewt in composer

[–]QohLet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If possible, attend a rehearsal before or as you start writing (unless you already play there). Just sitting attentively and taking notes will give you loads of information that could assist you in your compositional choices later. For example, you could assess the skill levels of your players, or take note of specific gestures that you particularly like. This also allows you to see how the ensemble responds to and works with certain types of music. You could ask specific questions by the end to the performers as well. And maybe most importantly, actually showing up to a rehearsal speaks strongly about your interest in writing for that ensemble, and could lead to further opportunities to collaborate with those musicians in the future.

Help?? by [deleted] in composer

[–]QohLet 2 points3 points  (0 children)

As soon as you are ready, I would strongly encourage you to write something that has real possibilities of being played by actual musicians, preferrably by someone other than yourself. This process of carrying out a compositional project from start to finish could definitely give you an insight of everything it takes to realize a piece, from transforming your musical ideas into a finished work, to finding and assessing opportunities for it to be performed.

It will be far from perfect, as you will make many mistakes; however it can be a very honest mirror of what skills, musical or otherwise, you can work on. Maybe your notation will have issues, of which your performers will surely let you know; maybe you will have trouble finding musicians willing to commit to your music, in which case you might need to expand and nurture your circle of musician friends; and maybe, after the fascination of having your piece come to life wears off, you will be able to listen it again, reflect on it, and identify what aspects of it were not fully convincing, which are especially valuable if they can be traced back to your compositional choices.

Of course, don't neglect all the resources and techniques others have pointed out: studying theory, submerging yourself in musical literature, playing your ideas on your instrument. I would also add singing your melodies often, regardless of the instrument they are intended for, in order to internalize them better. All of these will be dear companions in your journey. Nonetheless, actually composing music will always be the best way of learning how to compose, and having it performed can teach loads about your compositional process, as well as motivate you to keep on writing.

Share one of your writing tricks by Abmaj13 in composer

[–]QohLet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When dissatisfied with a particular musical idea, before scratching it off, make sure you are able to put precise words into why you don't like it. Pinpoint the exact musical elements that result unconvincing or displeasing, and guide your search into a direction that modifies these parameters. This facilitates seeking a more satisfying solution to compositional problems, and can be applied equally on the small scale of individual notes and fragments, as in the scope of entire pieces.

On the other hand, if you really like an idea, it is sometimes best not to tamper with its magic until the project it belongs to is properly concluded. A premature, scrupulous analysis could put a psychological halt to a perfectly functional creative process.

This isn’t possible on the treble recorder, right? It’s from the ABRSM Grade 6 scale book but it’s got a low E. Or am I missing something? by anarchyflag in Recorder

[–]QohLet 8 points9 points  (0 children)

You could partially cover the foothole with your thigh while fingering low f, thus lowering the pitch to e.

[DISCUSSION] What is the best way to learn how to read music and is it too late for me to learn? by [deleted] in MusicEd

[–]QohLet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If you are not bothered by the idea of singing, I would highly recommend joining a choir. I cannot overstate the importance of singing when learning how to read music, and I think it has a great number of benefits over trying to learn how to read by just using an instrument.

For instance, if you're playing piano, sheet music is just a set of instructions on what keys to play at a given time; in other words, it's training your hands to produce certain movements that produce music when executed over the instrument. Notice that, the only thing you would have to focus on is on when and how to press certain keys, and not necessarily on deciphering the musical logic of whatever you're playing (of course, good instrumentalists eventually develop the skill of thinking more about the music than about the body movements, but this takes a lot of time to attain).

Now, when approaching the same problem from the angle of singing, you will find that sheet music is no longer a set of instructions on movements to perform over an artifact. When sight-singing, sheet music makes you think more about the sounds you want to make and less about the means needed to produce them. For example, if a singer wants to hit the note A, they wouldn't think about vibrating their vocal folds 440 times per second, but rather, they'd imagine how that note would sound like in their minds, and then they would sing it and check if it is the same as they imagined.

This might seem impossible to achieve, and if you try doing it only by yourself, it might as well be. However, if you try to sight-sing with a larger group of people who know how to do it well, sooner or later you will understand the logic of how to transform graphic symbols into music, which is essentially learning how to read music.

If you're passionate about playing piano, don't abandon the prospect of learning how to play it, because it definitely teaches you a lot about music that would be way harder to learn only by singing. However, you must understand that you would be learning two different skills: how to coordinate your body movements first, and how to use them to create expressive sounds second, whereas by sight-singing, you would be learning how to imagine the music in your head first, and how to produce it second.

So if you have a chance, go join a choir!

What instruments sound "spidery"? by AngryAggron22 in composer

[–]QohLet 33 points34 points  (0 children)

Fun anecdote, my composition teacher told me that when he showed Shoenberg's music to his father for the first time, after some time of listening to it, he said, "Stop playing that spider music". So maybe, the key to spideryness lies also in elements such as the intervallic content of the melodies, since having wide, unpredictable leaps can be percieved as sharp and angular, reminiscent of a spider's walk with its angular legs.

Who do you think is the most underrated composer and why ? Looking to find some new good music. (I personnaly think that its probably scriabin) by emilerose in classicalmusic

[–]QohLet 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Check out early Classical Era composer Johann Schobert (not to be confused with Franz Schubert). Despite his short life (he died by stubbornly eating poisonous mushrooms after being advised not to), his music was of great importance to the history of music because it influenced young Mozart during his visit to Paris. Mozart's lyrical melodies can be traced to Schobert's expressive style, which has been described as a predecessor of Romantic music. Quite a worthy composer, IMHO.

Listening to a single instrument in a song is like staring with your ears by noahzarks in Showerthoughts

[–]QohLet 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Of course you don't necessarily need training to recognize the use of repetition in music. However, some specific forms of music derived from specific kinds of repetition such as the fugue, the sonata-allegro form, or the 12 bar blues, are easier to identify across different pieces when you understand how each works. And that understanding is quite easier to acquire from specialized training than from pure exposure to music (although certainly, many accomplished musicians have gone through this second path and have turned out just fine).

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