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.
Three attempts at a Pooh introduction (and one problem)
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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 stage embedded in the email. However, for ease of reading, I have also placed the extracts here in a google-drive again: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1Af5sFdTSS-cab1thxHF4XMbxgLXA405K?usp=sharing Idea 1 — Piano sketch and thematic counterpointIn the first attempt, I expanded my reduction score to include piano. The goal was practical: use the keyboard to help compose the opening. The introduction here is built from a counterpoint between two elements of the original Winnie the Pooh theme: what we labelled the verse-variation a couple of weeks ago and the chorus (“Winnie the Pooh”). At the piano, the idea worked reasonably well. I remain particularly fond of the counterpoint between the themes, which (spoiler alert!) I keep. However, the second half of the passage didn’t translate as well as I would have liked to the band. That uncertainty led to the second idea. Idea 2 — Harmonic shift and colour-led thinkingAt first glance, after the opening, this version looks quite different. Harmonically it is. Texturally and melodically, however, it preserves the homophonic thinking from the first attempt. Here I invert the previous melody so that it is more like the succeeding part of the chorus. I also reintroduced the triplet idea in a new way, which helped push the section further away from the original sketch and gave it its own momentum. Although it meant I lost the harmony that I bring back in idea 3, I found the piano sketch distracting at this point. Instead, I began thinking more in terms of colour and contrast, writing straight into the instrumental staves. You will notice, for example, the juxtaposition in bar 6, where the brass take up the triplet motif against the saxophones in the second half of the bar. That moment felt right, where the piano sketch did not. This version arrives at a C7 chord and it doesn’t quite do it for me. And, it also doesn’t lend itself to a simple, short addition (at least one I could think of until idea 3) that would get me transitioning. Before your harmony head kicks off too: Harmonically, the move is defensible. The motion from V7 into ii is something I have observed in Debussy’s Arabesque No. 1, across a sectional boundary like here. If it’s good enough for Debussy in 1891, then it's certainly good enough for me in 2026. And yet… despite my theoretical defence, I am not entirely persuaded by how it feels. Idea 3 — Revisiting the earlier DNAAt this point, while preparing this email, I reopened Idea 1 and noticed something interesting: I had subconsciously preserved more of the original material than I realised. And this prompted a question: The third extract is the result of that experiment. I am still not certain it is the final answer, but it moves closer to what I hear in the mind’s ear. What I seem to want is a sonority that contains a leading tone into the G minor chord that follows, but without leaning fully on a dominant seventh colour. Something that points forward without announcing itself too loudly! I would be very interested to hear your thoughts.
If you would like to study the material more closely, you will find larger extracts and audio examples here: As ever, any questions or comments: please get in touch! All the best, George P.S. Did you know I offer a free consultation for anyone who might be interested in music composition lessons with me? (Find out more here.) |
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.
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