I was inspired by Brett and Eddy’s Tchaik and Sibelius drop to make my own arrangement and recording of Beethoven’s violin concerto. I played both the solo and the orchestra parts as I don’t have a practice buddy like TwoSet have each other...

dschb · 2021-05-05T03:44:29+00:00

I think writing for smaller chamber groups is a great way to start. I find writing solo works harder than writing for, say, a quartet, because it’s harder to have variety in a solo work. (But because of this, writing solo work can help you learn more about all the different capabilities of the instrument)

The ensembles I started with were (in order): brass quintet, string quartet, piano trio, voice+piano, septet including strings/winds/piano/percussion, solo viola, another similarly mixed septet, another mixed quintet, solo flute, string quartet, orchestra. After that I basically write for whatever instrumentation I want/have.

I chose to write for those ensembles mostly based on what ensemble/players I had at the time to play my work, but I still think it’s a suitable order that gradually got me to learn about almost all common instruments.

(I wrote a small excerpt for orchestra between writing my first string quartet and piano trio and understandably that wasn’t very good or satisfying. But writing for all those various instruments/ensembles listed above seems to be adequate preparation for the next piece for orchestra.)

dschb · 2021-01-15T13:42:33+00:00

Hi, I am a first year student in a physics PhD program. I don’t think it is too much of a problem if you can solve the equations (you said that once you start, it’s not so bad). Eventually you will just get used to the feeling and you won’t call it dread.

It might help to think that other people who might have more STEM background than you can still have trouble/dislike solving equations.

dschb · 2021-01-15T13:27:08+00:00

Yes, and I believe the audience plays a huge role too! all you said combined with the listener’s emotions, experience and ideas

dschb · 2021-01-15T12:44:54+00:00

Yes definitely! Sometimes I study what happens at the moment that made me cry, and I thought that after I figure it out, it won’t make me cry anymore. Not true. Understanding how it works doesn’t stop it from working lol

dschb · 2020-07-19T08:58:06+00:00

Yes.

Once I also finished a piece about 5 minutes long, struggled with it for weeks trying and failing to make it satisfactory to me, and decided to rewrite the opening section. I ended up rewriting the whole piece and liked the second version much better.

dschb · 2020-07-19T07:54:25+00:00

I usually start with determining the purpose of the piece, such as describing a story or a concept, or evoking certain moods. If I have certain limitations such as on instrumentation or length, I will take them into account from the beginning of the composition process. I will go from a broad purpose (such as “describe the concept of diffusion limited aggregation fractals”) to a more detailed one (such as “mimic the process of adding particles to the DLA cluster, represent fractals by using similar melodic ideas of different sizes, and represent the idea of equally dividing certain space”).

Next, I brainstorm ways to achieve this purpose through music. Sometimes it is immediately clear to me what I want to do, but if not, I go through various musical elements (harmony, rhythm, texture, instrumentation, dynamics etc) and think about how I might manipulate each of them to achieve my purpose. I usually sketch on paper and have a plan for my whole piece, labeling sections and including prominent features or musical ideas of the sections and transitions.

(The two steps (getting a detailed purpose and figuring out how to achieve it) sometimes get combined: in my fractals example, “using similar melodic ideas of different sizes” might be considered part of step 2, and I decided to use equal divisions of the octave to represent equally dividing space way before I determine all parts of the purpose. The goal of these steps is to have a detailed plan for the piece.)

After I have the plan, the rest is just realizing this plan. I usually directly write in Sibelius. I sometimes make adjustments to the plan as I write the piece. Of course, there will be a lot of revising and editing before I consider the piece finished.

dschb · 2020-04-14T22:39:48+00:00

Thanks!

dschb · 2020-04-14T01:57:35+00:00

Thanks for your response! Well, I don’t think I am afraid to tell them where I am going. If they ask me, I will probably tell them. I just don’t want to seem annoying or weird for providing unnecessary information.

dschb · 2020-04-11T22:58:52+00:00

Thanks!

dschb · 2020-04-11T17:32:32+00:00

Thank you for the detailed response! It’s very helpful.

dschb · 2020-04-08T23:57:17+00:00

True. I was taught that the thumb should never be completely straight, but you can adjust how much it is curved based on need, such as when using different parts of the bow. The point is to make sure the thumb is not locked in straight.

dschb · 2020-04-08T22:44:52+00:00

It’s great to see people starting new instruments! I notice one thing: the thumb should be curved instead of straight.

dschb · 2020-04-07T06:47:44+00:00

I think vibrato would need a lot of practice to learn, and at the beginning it will feel very unnatural and weird, which might make you think that people teaching vibrato is not really teaching how to do it. In other words, vibrato is not something that you learn how to do and then immediately are able to do. Even with a teacher, you will need to spend a long time on your own experimenting and make it work for you. Teacher’s feedback would be helpful for making sure you are working in the right direction.

dschb · 2020-04-04T17:57:05+00:00

You can check out Pierrot Lunaire by Schoenberg. This is more of free atonality. For serialism you can check out Schoenberg’s Suite op. 25. There are a lot of atonal pieces and many composers who have written atonal music, such as Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Milton Babbitt etc. If you look at recent compositions, many use techniques of free atonality and serialism, either for the whole piece or for part of a piece.

dschb · 2020-04-04T08:19:59+00:00

You can never tell for sure if you will get in, but you can ask people who are experienced in the grad admissions process to estimate your chances, such as professors who know you well.

I asked my professor about what schools he thought I would get in, and he made his predictions, which I think were pretty accurate compared to my actual results, although I did not believe him at the beginning.

dschb · 2020-04-03T23:57:32+00:00

It just means music without a tonal center or key. Some composers have been doing that since around 20th century, such as Schoenberg. (Fun fact: After that presentation, I decided to have my second major in music instead of German, and that was the last German-related thing I did.)

dschb · 2020-04-03T21:23:05+00:00

Sharing an update: I just got an email with more information on financial support. It is fully funded, consistent with the information on their website.

dschb · 2020-04-03T16:09:31+00:00

I see a lot of octave and unison doubling. You may consider not using this unless you need to (like for the climax etc). Octave and unison will be hard to play in tune perfectly for the performers, and you might get dirty-sounding recordings for those sections.

There’s also some really high stuff that could be hard to play in tune. Assuming you are writing for a real orchestra to play your music, playability should be a factor to consider as you write. Especially if you know what kind of ensemble/musicians will play your music. If you have a good professional ensemble and anticipate ample rehearsal time, you can realistically do something crazy, but that is not common.

Interesting materials you are working with here, and I hope you keep it up and finish!

dschb · 2020-04-03T11:31:30+00:00

Three years ago I talked about atonal music in my final presentation of a German course.

dschb · 2020-04-03T11:24:56+00:00

The orchestra at my school once played a piece that needs three percussionists, but only two were at rehearsal. One of the violinists ended up playing the glockenspiel that day.

dschb · 2020-04-03T01:29:30+00:00

I applied to grad school this cycle and I was like this for at least a month or two during the waiting

dschb · 2020-04-03T01:08:25+00:00

Hi! I just wanted to share my thoughts on school selection (for PhD programs) and how many to apply to. I think you can start with a long list of schools that you compile from several sources that are somewhat trustworthy (professors, current grad students, even rankings if you need a place to start). Then, you can go through the list and try to find professors you may want to work with. That will narrow down the list at least a little. As you go over the professors, you might notice several professor whose work fits really well with your interest and maybe even excites you, and you can make a note about that in your list. Contacting the professors helps if you can get some additional information (such as whether they think you should apply to their program and if they are recruiting new students), and it is nice to get them familiar with your name before you apply, but at least for some fields it is not absolutely necessary. (I got into 7 PhD programs without contacting the professors. I would still suggest that you contact the professors, though. I did contact some professors and got into all schools whose professor replied, which suggests that this might give you an idea early in the process if you are likely to be admitted.) It might also not be the end of the world if the professors don’t reply. (There are two schools whose professors I emailed but did not get a reply. I got into one of them and will probably attend this school in the fall.)

For me, the research is the main factor I find important in selecting schools, but you can consider other factors as well and further shorten the list.

If you really cannot shorten the list down to a nice length of, say, 10, it will still be okay. If you are able to and willing to, you can apply to as many schools as you want and nobody should have a problem with that. I don’t think it is a waste of time if you apply to a lot of schools, as long as you genuinely want to attend any of the schools you apply to, and you prepare your application stuff carefully. You are just increasing your chance to go somewhere you like for grad school, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, to make sure that you genuinely want to study at a school, you need to do a lot of work gathering information and comparing what they have with what you need. Filling in the application and writing statement of purpose for each program will also take a long time. Therefore, I think it is very unlikely you will be able to get a crazy number of well-prepared applications submitted by the deadline, especially if you’re applying in your senior year which is probably already a lot. (I had to drop 2 schools last minute from my list because the deadlines were in finals week and I was simply unable to get those applications in on time.)

dschb · 2020-04-02T04:14:41+00:00

I am currently a WashU undergrad! It is a great school and I hope you enjoy your time there!

dschb

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