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.
I've found myself watching quite a lot of World Cup coverage over the last few weeks. Not so much the football itself (beyond En-gur-laaand!), if I'm honest, but the discussion around it. One programme I almost always watch during international tournaments is The Overlap: Stick to Football, and recently they were discussing England winger Noni Madueke's performances. During the conversation, Gary Neville made a point that struck me as being relevant far beyond football. There's a common...
Over the past few weeks, we have explored the form, melodies, motifs, and transpositions that make up Åse's Death. Today I would like to turn to the harmony. Yet rather than beginning with the specifics and theory--Italian 6ths and secondary dominants--I would like to begin with a question. What if Grieg's music is doing more than expressing grief? A crossroads At this point in the play, Peer finds himself at a crossroads. His mother has died. He has been shunned by the community in which he...
One of the recurring themes in this series has been Grieg's economy of means. Repeatedly, we find him achieving more with less. If you are joining this series partway through, we have already explored: The binary form of the movement The arrangement of its themes The phrase structure of Melody 1 The motivic construction of Melody 2 Today I would like to look at one of the principal techniques Grieg uses to extend his material: transposition. Transposition and modulation in Åse’s Death More of...