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.
Winnie-the-Pooh Turns 100 — So I’m Arranging the Theme for Concert Band
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Last week I learned that Christmas Eve 1925 marked the very first appearance of Winnie-the-Pooh in a British newspaper, before the character appeared in book form the following year, in 1926. Which means we are now approaching 100 years since the publication of the first Pooh story. With that in mind (given I loved Winnie-the-Pooh as a child, and now have young children myself), I thought: why not arrange the Disney theme for the concert band I play in? The tune most of us know, comes from Disney’s animated adaptations after the Milne stories were licensed to them in the 1960s. The music was written by Richard and Robert Sherman, and it’s their wonderfully characterful theme that I’ll be working with. If the arrangement goes well, I’m hoping to license/self-publish it via ArrangeMe. Alongside the arranging itself, I thought it would be fun (and hopefully useful) to capture the process and share it with you here. So that’s exactly what I’m going to do, starting today with my very first steps: gathering and getting to know the material. One of the first things I always like to do is build a small library of resources that make life easier: audio references, transcriptions, sketches and reductions. Fortunately, there is a wonderful piano arrangement of Winnie-the-Pooh available online, which makes an excellent starting point. Cross-referencing this with other transcriptions available online, I also felt it was important to get to know the music through some basic copying and analysis. In particular, I wanted to focus on the melodic material, as there is always scope for reharmonisation (even if, in this case, I don’t think I intend to do so — at least in the main statements of the melody). So one of the first things I did was hand-copy the melody and chord symbols. In doing so, a very clear structure emerged: The verse variation is especially elegant. Rhythmically, it diminishes the melody of the verse (speeding up its progression) and recasts it in 4/4 rather than the original 3/4. As you’ll see in my properly transcribed version below, the harmonic and pitch progression is identical, but the variation compresses the material into two beats rather than four. The section, therefore, is halved from 16 bars to 8. In the arrangement I’m working from, the variation is also swung. There are some wonderfully economical compositional techniques at work here: simple diminution of notated rhythm and harmonic rhythm, plus a change of rhythmic feel from straight to swung. I love this kind of writing — the same melodic material, simply recast. At this early stage, my architectural instinct is something along the lines of: It may sound dull, but keeping the form simple and economical will make the practical side of producing parts far more manageable, especially when you’re doing it yourself for 30–40+ musicians (assuming my concert band are willing to give it a go1). Engraving, IMHO, is boring. As always, any questions, thoughts or feedback: get in touch! All the best, George P.S. Next week I am hoping to publish an article to my website on orchestration. I hope you'll find it interesting, and that you found this interesting too. If not, please feel free to use the button below to unsubscribe. |
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...
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...
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...