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.
When harmony tells the story
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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 crossroadsAt 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 grew up. His final champion and advocate has disappeared. The music undoubtedly reflects the sadness of Åse's death. But I wonder if it is doing something more. Perhaps it also foreshadows the wandering and escapades that will define the remainder of Peer's life. Eventually, Ibsen asks us to consider whether those adventures amounted to a life well lived. My own reading is that the answer is no. Peer experiences excitement, wealth, travel, and endless novelty. He sees far beyond the horizon of Norway. Yet he repeatedly avoids commitment, purpose, and responsibility. He gains much, but misses what matters most. Love. Family. Belonging. The musicFor me, the A section is largely concerned with Peer’s sorrow at his mother's death. It even has a degree of defiance: possibly Peer might even take up the path his mother hoped he would. However, the B section feels different. Peer is slipping back into character, the easy path for him. Its question seems to be: What now? The melody becomes more chromatic. The harmony continually points towards destinations without fully settling. The music seems to move forward while remaining strangely uncertain about where it belongs. Let's take a look at the B section: 👉 Harmonic Ambiguity: Italian 6ths and secondary dominants - Åse’s Death.pdf Cadences and musical structureAs we discussed several weeks ago, the B section consists of two four-bar phrases. The second phrase is essentially a transposition of the first, albeit with subtle reharmonisation around the cadence. The cadences help define the structure. The first phrase closes imperfectly on F-sharp major. The second returns to B minor via our arguably strongest perfect cadence so far. In effect, the first cadence acts rather like a comma. The second acts as a full stop. Together they create a musical sentence spanning eight bars. Yet what interests me is not simply where the phrases end. It is how Grieg arrives there. Italian 6ths and uncertaintyThroughout the passage, Grieg employs Italian augmented 6th chords. To modern ears, these chords sound remarkably similar to dominant 7th sonorities. They seem to point somewhere. They seem to imply a destination. Yet they never quite behave as we expect. Again and again, the harmony suggests movement towards a new tonal centre. Again and again, that movement is softened, redirected, or left incomplete. The first phrase is particularly fascinating. Although it closes on F-sharp major, much of the harmonic language continues to reinforce B minor. Yet the following four bars, which do ultimately cadence in B minor, are themselves preceded by harmonies that seem to point elsewhere. Through the use of Italian 6ths, Grieg momentarily alludes to E minor, the subdominant, before gently redirecting the music once more. The effect is subtle but striking. Throughout the B section, the harmony continually hints at alternative destinations without fully committing to them. The music seems to wander, exploring possibilities before returning home. The cadence arrives. Yet it never feels entirely settled. The music seems to hesitate. Almost as though it cannot decide where it belongs. Suggestion rather than certaintyWhat strikes me most is that this uncertainty is not confined to a single chord. It permeates the entire B section. The chromatic melody wanders. The harmony points in different directions. The transpositions move the material onwards. Yet everything remains tethered to B minor. The music appears to travel. But never truly departs. Perhaps this is simply an effective way of creating emotional tension. Or perhaps Grieg is suggesting something more. Perhaps the harmony mirrors Peer himself. A young man standing at a crossroads. A man about to spend much of his life searching for meaning without fully committing to it. Whether Grieg consciously intended such a reading is impossible to know. Yet I find it difficult not to hear it. Without the music, we witness a death. With the music, we may also glimpse the uncertain future that follows it. Closing thoughtsWhat do you hear in the B section? Simple grief? Or something more reflective and uncertain? As always, I would be delighted to hear your thoughts. All the best, George P.S. If you would like to explore more of Grieg's compositional and orchestration techniques, you can find my Learning from Grieg course here: https://www.udemy.com/course/music-composition-with-grieg-orchestration-melody-form/?couponCode=5ADB3DAED3790066DC12 P.S.S Unsubscribe below if you no longer enjoy or feel you are getting value from my emails: |
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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