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.
How I’m keeping my band arranging process from turning into chaos
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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 changeI’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 lot to learn here, despite having spent most of my playing life in bands, and this is one of those small workflow changes that has (so far!) had an outsized effect. Learning from my Christmas Carol Suite that was written about 18 months ago, one of my first steps this time was to revise how I sketch. Given the scale of the ensemble (and how quickly things can get messier than orchestral writing), my instinct with concert band has often been to produce a piano sketch. Creating a piano sketch is a fine approach: particularly when you’re composing at the piano, or composing for piano. But it’s less effective (in my experience) when you’re working from existing material, especially material that’s already for piano, which is exactly what I’m doing for this arrangement. In that situation, a piano sketch can quietly keep you trapped in “piano thinking”, rather than nudging you towards texture, balance, and section-writing. Why I didn’t go straight to open scoreIn contrast, I also don’t like composing straight into an open score. Not because it can’t work, but because it can get messy. It is visually harder to manage and, perhaps more importantly, it subtly switches my brain from composing to orchestrating. You stop thinking in broad musical gestures and start thinking in instrument logistics or colour exploration. A creative work can lose its focus very quickly when approached this way. (At least, it can for me!) My middle path: reduced sectional scoreSo, instead, I’ve produced a reduced score built on sections. I’m using a two-stave “piano” layout (treble and bass) for each choir: woodwinds, saxes, brass, and percussion. It gives me the best of both worlds: I can think in broad brush strokes for orchestration (possibly adding specific lavels), but still keep the piece under visual control. One detail: giving horns their own laneOne small but important detail that you may have noticed: in the brass system, I’ve given the horns their own staff (a third, treble staff). Yes, horns sit in the brass family but in concert band (and many small and large ensembles for that matter) they occupy a special position in the overall sonority. They are versatile, they can take centre stage, or provide the glue that makes the whole band feel like one instrument. This reduced sketch layout has already helped me think sectionally, without losing the thread: something I have, at times, lost when leaping from a piano sketch straight to full score in this medium. Takeaway (for future me)
Free download (if you want it)If you’d like to try the same approach, below is a PDF showing how I set up this sketch score in Sibelius. (Even if you don’t use Sibelius, the idea should translate: it’s the layout and the thinking, not the buttons.) Setting Up Band Staves in Sibelius (and other notation software).pdf Next week I will share what happened after this: my first orchestration pass, which was… less good. But, my second pass was the feeling I wanted much more. In the meantime, as always: if you have any questions or comments then please hit reply! All the best, George |
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...
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...
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...