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.
Morning Mood analysis (new concise version)
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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 material into a focused, readable article. Read it here: The goal was simple: to show clearly how Grieg generates so much expressive mileage from such limited material, and why the piece feels so effortless on the surface. Inside the article, I walk through:
If you are interested in writing music that feels more coherent, economical, and structurally confident, I think you will enjoy this one. As always, I would be very interested to hear what you notice in the piece: especially if something in the analysis changes how you hear it. Winnie the Pooh will return next week. All the best, George P.S. Here is a link to the article again: https://anyoldmusic.com/morning-mood-analysis/
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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.
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...
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...
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...