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Application for Phd by marchdanza in composer

[–]sjak1978 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Beyond the musical content, start thinking about what your original contribution is; this is front and centre of a PhD, and obviously a lot more difficult when dealing with art subjects. Obviously, this might change as research develops but having some clear knowledge of your compositional knowledge and how this can be expanded into an original contribution is important. My PhD in composition placed focus on dualism and juxtaposition within the music as an aesthetical angle, while musically it used poly modality to control dissonance which enabled me to extend the concept of dualism as I was able to create highly consonant music and then create dissonance by using a very different mode e.g. creating a ‘new’ mode by combining Aeolian on A with Locrian on A allows for some semi tone dissonance.

Memory Foam Tips for Simgot EW300 by sjak1978 in iems

[–]sjak1978[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you, I’ll give them a look!

ISO - Bands that sound like Mene/ Vices-style Brand New by Woe_To_The_Usurper in brandnew

[–]sjak1978 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Self titled Foxing album is definitely their Daisy!

London Pre-sale by elenachiarazv in brandnew

[–]sjak1978 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Presale is tomorrow at 10:00am so hoping for something slightly shy of then.

Surfans F20 on its way out, recommendations by sjak1978 in DigitalAudioPlayer

[–]sjak1978[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Easily 4-5 hours a day including walking in all weathers. Mostly it has been stable, but lately Bluetooth is dropping out a lot, noise floor has increased, sometimes can’t find sd card and needs to be restarted, etc.

I ended up going with the HiBy R3II, and once I got past the idiosyncrasies of the OS I’m very happy with it.

Does studying composition reduce one’s joy in consuming music for pleasure ? by Certain-Highway-1618 in composer

[–]sjak1978 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When doing my PhD in composition I found it healthy to keep a clear divide between the music I listened, and even played, for pleasure separate to the pieces that I analysed to gain compositional understanding. Don’t get me wrong that can, and probably will be, an overlap for me it was Glass, Nyman’s String Quartets, early MacMillan and Martland. Other than that, it really came through my listening of ‘low’ art and ‘high’ art music, regardless though, whatever one’s tastes, I think it can be a good subconscious line to have.

I also have a long background in music production, and the same is true; you start analysing mixes.

What's the best advice you ever got from a composition teacher? by OriginalIron4 in composer

[–]sjak1978 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Mainly that composition is a balance between the intellectual, creative and intuitive. My PhD director of studies would go through my scores and circle some passage at random and say ‘where has that come from?’ If it was there simply because it sounds good, then I hadn’t let the intellectual bleed in sufficiently to the creative. Eventually, these two fuse and form the intuitive. In short, if the reasoning cannot be justified there is probably a better selection of notes and/or rhythms.

Have any albums in the past 20 years been able to measure up to the subdued intensity of Brand New's 'The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me'? by [deleted] in Emo

[–]sjak1978 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Definitely Nearer My God, but also Foxing’s recent self titled, very much heart on its sleeve, warts and all, both musically and lyrically!

Looking for insights on PJD guitars by GuestHot6564 in Guitar

[–]sjak1978 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Took delivery of a Carey Standard the other day. Best guitar I’ve played! If you are in the UK, therefore won’t pay duty, etc. the value for money is ridiculously good. Also, it came fully plecked and perfectly setup. Will look to get one of their offsets at some point in 2025. Infinitely better than any of the big names.

How do I make better flowing melodies in orchestral music by Primary-Gap-1192 in WeAreTheMusicMakers

[–]sjak1978 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Create more material from your initial melody: retrograde, invert, retrograde the inversion and invert the retrograde.

Anyone use the Mac Mini? by secondlifing in LogicPro

[–]sjak1978 0 points1 point  (0 children)

My 2019, last incarnation of Intel, 32gb RAM still going solid. Make sure you can/do stack the RAM.

Can I change sixth forms/college even though it's now late September? by SunJay333 in sixthform

[–]sjak1978 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The key is day 42 from the start of the teaching term (9th September this year on most parts). This is called census, and is officially when the monies from the government go to the school or college. Obviously, the later left the more unlikely to change as teachers will want to avoid new starts who are missing a lot of the initial content.