Fully notated pieces

It's tempting to call it “classical”. I don't feel like it though. Simply being fully notated doesn't make it classical. “Classical” implies at least conformance with the common practice period traditions, or certain artistic merit, or both. Then again, a lot of contemporary classical music ignores the common practice period rules or breaks them on purpose. A lot of contemporary classical music isn't very good, to put it politely. On the other hand, a lot of common practice period music wasn't all that good either.

Still, I'm pretty sure if I call these exercises in composition “classical music”, real academic musicians will give me very odd looks. I'll stick with “fully notated” which is vague enough to cover everything and not offensive to anyone.

I notate all my music using MuseScore, which is free and open source. You can download it from musescore.org.

Fake Folk Dance #2 (flute and piano)

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MIDI
MuseScore file
Date: January 2018
Original key: A major

From an imaginary fake dance suite.

Sarabande (violin and piano)

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MIDI
MuseScore file
Date: December 2017
Original key: B minor

By the romantic era, the word “sarabande” lost all connections to a particular baroque dance. Minor key, triple meter, let's call it a sarabande.

Fake Folk Dance

PDF
MIDI
MuseScore file
Date: August 2017
Original key: C minor

More of an exercise in using the leading tone chord than anything.

Waltz for a double bass solo

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MIDI
MuseScore file
Date: June 2017
Original key: F major

I could not come up with any accompanying parts that I would really like, so I left it solo.

There are quite a few up strokes if you read it as written, adjust the bowings to taste.

The Ballad of an Epic Fail

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MIDI
MuseScore file
Date: May 2017
Original key: A minor

It would make a good fantasy RPG theme I suppose, even though I didn't set out to make one.

Rhythm Changes Prelude

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MIDI
MuseScore file
Date: April 2017
Original key: C major

The harmony of George Gershwin's song “I've Got Rhythm” is immensely popular with jazz composers, and served as a basis for numerous compositions such as Charlie Parker's “Confirmation”.

I thought it would be fun to write a classical period style composition based on the same chord progression, for me it was also an exercise in writing Alberti bass. The main challenge for me was to connect the B section chords smoothly as it consists entirely of secondary dominants (ragtime progression) and doesn't have obvious resolutions.

Awkward Waltz for Ann

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MIDI
MuseScore file
Date: March 2017
Original key: E minor

The initial idea was to descend from the I to the V by major seconds. Funnily enough, later my friend pointed me to a very dissimilar song with similar harmonic idea, “Stray Cat Strut” by Brian Setzer.

The other idea was to write a piece that can be viewed as a jazz piece with an overly elaborate intro, or a fully notated piece with improvised sections. Something of a third stream perhaps.

The dedication was added after writing, to make it a last moment gift. Ann is cool, she plays double bass.

Trivial Prelude

PDF
MuseScore file
Date: January 2017
Original key: B minor

An example of constrained writing. There was a guy who wrote a book of scifi short stories and he wanted to include some “theme music” in it, encoded in ASCII (e.g. ABC notation) as a nod to early personal computer magazines and type-in BASIC programs they published. He ultimately scrapped the plan though.

It was a fun project nonetheless. Due to the limitations of the medium, it had to be short and rhythmically trivial. I tried to convey the sense of emptiness and uncertainty, in line with the mood of the stories.

This page was last modified: 2018 January 28