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.
Beyond binary form in Åse’s Death
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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 TaughtHowever, for the student, this can create false understandings, misconceptions, and misinterpretations. Because so often these forms are reduced to something like: Ternary: ABA Sonata: exposition, development, recapitulation Binary: AB Where the Real Composition HappensYet, the real composition often happens within these sections. An A and B section of a ternary form can contain multiple iterations of an idea: sometimes repeated directly, sometimes subtly varied. Similarly (and slightly off topic for today, though we will come to this next week), a book might say that an idea is “developed” in a sonata form. Well… care to elaborate? How does Beethoven actually develop his ideas? Do you really know? Have you analysed the piece, or not? This Week: Looking Inside the StructureTo make sure I do not leave you feeling this way (following last week's analysis of overall form), this week I would like to look at the internal structure, or what I call the arrangement, of Grieg’s Åse’s Death. If you open the PDF below, you will see a more heavily annotated score than last week. Arrangement - Åse's Death.pdf While it still includes the binary markers (A and B), I have added further annotations in the form of: T1-1, T1-2, and so on Alongside this, there is a table that breaks down the arrangement of the composition in a more structured way. This is something I may elaborate on further in the coming weeks as we move into smaller and smaller musical units. The A SectionAs you will see, each section contains multiple iterations of its theme. T1-1 T1-2 T1-1’ This is quite straightforward. The transposition creates a simple modulation to the dominant minor and uses the same approach Grieg employs in Morning Mood: varying material through transposition rather than rewriting it. The B SectionThe B section follows a similar idea, but in 4-bar units: T2-1 T2-2 T2-1’ T2-2’ T2-2 (f, a) A Simple Form, Richly UsedThe overall effect is one of great economy within a simple design. This is not simply A (one theme) and B (another contrasting theme), but rather two sections built from carefully varied iterations of their material. A Missing Layer (For Now)One important aspect not captured here is orchestration and dynamics. We will return to these in a later week. Next WeekNext week we will take a closer look at the melodies themselves: How they are structured Questions or Comments?As always, if you have any questions or thoughts, I would be delighted to hear them: please do get in touch. All the best, George P.S. If you are curious about the full course, you can preview it here for a reasonable price: https://www.udemy.com/course/music-composition-with-grieg-orchestration-melody-form/?couponCode=5ADB3DAED3790066DC12. P.S.S. If you have had enough of hearing from me, please unsubscribe using the link below, cheers and cheerio: |
Any Old Music
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.
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...
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...
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...