Tonal Chance Music?

I've been toying with an idea in my head for a long time now, and have started to put it into conception:  How could I write aleatoric music that sounds tonal? When I thought about it, the answer was quite obvious:  if I control the possible elements that are going into the piece, I will control the tonality of the piece.  Not only that, I could 'write' a composition with largely chance elements involved, but sculpt them in such a way to make something that may even sound melodious, and might even have classical forms in it.

To this end, I've started putting together some different ideas for a 3-movement piano sonata that will be written as a chance piece.  I will strive to incorporate the appropriate form by controlling elements in each section.  For my first attempt, I am going to use two different chance mediums:  rolling of dice and a chess game.

For rhythms, I will use dice to determine which of several sets of measures to use for different sections in the piece.  I will create different charts with 11 different possibilities (numbers 2 to 12) and have each rhythm represent a possible number from the dice.  As certain numbers are more likely and certain numbers less, I will strategically place the rhythms to help define certain sections.  For example, in the 2nd movement, I want to create the Da Capo Aria form, and so the A section will have the least likely rhythms for this section be faster rhythms.  These will correspond with '2' (snake eyes) or '12' (double six) which each only have one possibility of being rolled.  To contrast, the B section will incorporate different rhythmic styles and will place some faster rhythms in more likely spots.  In the first movement, the first theme will use one set of rhythms and the second theme another contrasting set.  This will help give the contrasts between these two sections.

The chess board will be set to have certain pitches represented by where a chess piece lands.  White will be top hand and black will be left.  Since a chess board is 8x8, it will be perfect to use to make a tonal piece:  one full octave across the board.  After doing a little reading, it seems that the most likely positions for pieces to move will be toward the center, and so important pitches (DO and SOL) will be placed mainly here.  In addition, different pitch sets will be used to create the different tonal areas that are used in Sonata-Allegro form to help define themes.

Results will be posted soon on how this all works!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Harmony Postlude: Mary Had a Little Lamb in Minor

Image
As a precursor to an upcoming discussion on harmonies (or a "postlude," if you will pardon the musical pun), I wanted to rewrite "Mary Had a Little Lamb" again with the same melody but different harmonies, placed in such a way to put it in a minor instead of a major key.  This wasn't too hard, as there are only three notes (4 notes in some versions) in the whole song.  Here's the minor version of "Mary Had a Little Lamb:" While this is the same exact melody, a change in the harmonies can give the song a different feel, in this case quite sinister and very dark.  Since the melody used only DO, RE, and MI in the original key, I turned these into ME, FA, and SOL for the minor version. I've utilized a similar technique for my Piano Sonata to help change the feel of different movements but to connect them together.  The first movement is in A minor and starts out in the melody with a B-flat grace note going to the tonic, A.  The second move...
Read more

Playing with Legos: My approach to teaching the major scale pattern

Image
I've recently been using a technique for teaching whole steps and half-steps with my students that I feel has been pretty effective, and I wanted to share what I do.  I mention this to my violin students after they have been playing for a little while.  I have students start with a simple tetrachord pattern (what I call the mini scale) on just one string, and from there we progress to a D major scale on the D and A strings.  When they are starting to play on more than their D and A string, I introduce them to the fact that they can do a bigger scale on their whole instrument.  At this point, I mention half steps and whole steps. I start by having students listen to the difference between half-steps and whole steps.  I currently have a piano in my teaching studio, and so I'll play them the a half-step lower down on the piano, and tell them how it is like the "Jaws" theme. I then show them the contrasting sound of a whole step and mention how in music we ha...
Read more

First Composition: Concerto No. 1

Image
Here's the first thing that I ever wrote:  Concerto No. 1.  This was a class project for my 7th grade orchestra class.  My teacher asked us to write an 8 bar melody on your instrument to be played in front of the class.  I had recently seen the movie Amadeus, and it fascinated me that someone could do what they were doing in that movie:  writing music.  I decided instead of 8 bars, I would write a full length piece for the class.  What it ended up becoming is this work: Concerto No. 1 1st Movement 2nd Movement 3rd Movement In seventh grade, we had played an arrangement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 5.  The influence from this piece can be very clearly seen in the 1st movement, as well as somewhat in the the third.  I wasn't sure what a concerto was at this time, and so it ended up being more like the original Baroque concertos.  In fact, the original meaning of concerto comes from the latin conserere , meaning to join ...
Read more