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Any Old Music

George Marshall

Hello. My name is George Marshall and I am the founder of Any Old Music. I am a composer with over 10-years of experience, having completed work on 50+ projects for video-games, films and the concert hall. In 2020, I completed my doctorate in Music Composition. My PhD was on constraint and how it emerges in creative projects. For example, team discussions in video-game projects. If a video-game team presented a mood-board and certain briefs, these constrain and challenge the composer to compose in a particular way or style. Less quantifiable than, say, the application of serialism, but probably just as (if not more) constraining and creatively directing. It was during my PhD that I realised that there would only be two outcomes for me as a composer: I became a professional composer who needed to compose lots of music in not enough time. I became an amateur/hobbyist or semi-professional composer who needed to compose less music but still with not enough time. With this in mind I eventually opted for something more along the lines of semi-professional, but with an ambition of setting up Any Old Music as a means of helping similarly time strapped music makers. Particularly those in the second group, the hobbyists and semi-professionals, whose composing competes much more for time against other aspects of life. Composition is incredibly rewarding. You never stop learning and developing as a composer. Furthermore, many of us boast renegade autodidactic personalities to a certain extent. My hope is that Any Old Music’s self-paced composition courses can help composers to continue growing, by learning through creating and doing so in their own time.

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Featured Post

Ase’s Death: the anatomy of melody 1

We discovered a couple of weeks back that Edvard Grieg’s Ase’s Death is a binary form composition built around two melodies, with each section having its own material. In section A there is melody 1 (T1), and in section B there is melody 2 (T2). Today I want to look at how Grieg constructs melody 1, breaking down its phrase structure, the sub-phrase structure that I will call ideas, and the motifs that comprise and distinguish those ideas. Here is a PDF that includes annotations and analysis...

13 days ago • 2 min read

One thing I have never really liked about some theory, analytical, and pedagogical composition books that deal with form is how they present it. They will often tell you that a piece uses ternary form. Or sonata form. Or, as we discovered with Grieg last week: binary form in Åse’s Death. This week's annotated score/analysis: Arrangement - Åse's Death.pdf The Problem with How Form Is Often Taught However, for the student, this can create false understandings, misconceptions, and...

about 1 month ago • 2 min read

The longing son, weeping for a dying mother: Åse’s Death is one of the most moving moments in Grieg’s music. Yet the music avoids the melodrama we often associate with the Romantic era. Instead, it is restrained and respectful: music that mourns quietly while still expressing deep emotion and yearning. Background: Peer Gynt Åse’s Death is the second movement of Grieg’s Peer Gynt Suite, drawn from the incidental music he wrote for fellow Norwegian Henrik Ibsen’s play of the same name (first...

about 1 month ago • 3 min read

A simple but significant change has happened in my Winnie the Pooh arrangement. The whole piece has been transposed down a tone (major 2nd) and the arrangement is now beginning to take shape in full concert band score, having reached a level of detail in the condensed sketch that felt solid enough to build from. So today, I thought I would share how that move is going: what seems to be working well, what seems less convincing, and why. Down a tone First, the decision to transpose the score...

about 2 months ago • 4 min read

After a steady run of Winnie the Pooh updates over the past few weeks, I thought it might be a good moment to give the Hundred Acre Wood a brief rest. In the background, I have been quietly working on something many of you will recognise. Over the years I have shared various videos, notes, and course materials analysing Grieg’s Morning Mood. Several readers have asked for something a little more concise and easier to revisit without digging through full lessons. I have finally turned that...

about 2 months ago • 1 min read

Perhaps it is the sickness bug talking, and I am delirious!? But, I think I may have nudged my Winnie the Pooh introduction a little further forward simply by sitting down to write to you. I had intended to report that I was stuck. Instead, what has emerged is a clearer picture of three developing versions of the opening, each revealing something useful about the direction of travel. I think they also each get closer to the introduction I would like. Below you will see extracts from each...

2 months ago • 2 min read

Sometimes you just don’t get it right Or at least, that’s what I thought I was going to discuss in this email. Having revisited my first attempt at arranging the Winnie the Pooh theme, I think I may have been unduly hard on myself. The first effort wasn’t bad at all, and I now find myself wondering whether it could work as a contrasting version of the theme in the new arrangement, or whether I should simply strengthen the orchestration of the newer version, which may be scored a little too...

2 months ago • 3 min read

The initial work on my Winnie the Pooh arrangement has gone well. Which, I’m sure you’re pleased to hear!? But before you respond sarcastically with: Oh, gee wiz Mr George—go you! Such great news to hear your creative endeavours are proving so prosperous! …let me say what I actually want to say. The sketching change I’m sharing my optimism because I want to reflect on one practical thing that’s already improved the writing process: my sketching approach for concert band. I still feel I’ve a...

3 months ago • 2 min read

I have just published a new article on orchestration that distills a question I hear (and feel) a lot: When you have a good melody, how do you actually decide how to orchestrate it? 👉 How to Orchestrate a Melody – There Are Only Six Wayshttps://anyoldmusic.com/how-to-orchestrate-a-melody/ How to Orchestrate a Melody? The main idea is simple: instead of thinking in endless instrumental combinations, it’s often more helpful to think in a small number of perceptual categories: solo, unison,...

3 months ago • 1 min read

Last week I learned that Christmas Eve 1925 marked the very first appearance of Winnie-the-Pooh in a British newspaper, before the character appeared in book form the following year, in 1926. Which means we are now approaching 100 years since the publication of the first Pooh story. With that in mind (given I loved Winnie-the-Pooh as a child, and now have young children myself), I thought: why not arrange the Disney theme for the concert band I play in? The tune most of us know, comes from...

3 months ago • 2 min read