Last week, I was attending a webinar, where two composers discussed their music. On the chat appeared the question whether to program ‘ programmatic, comfortable story-telling music’, taking the listener by the hand or ‘absolute, sound and form-based’ music that forces the listener to discover the music by himself and educates him. Story or FORM… Continue reading Programmatic versus absolute music
Author: Anneloes Wolters
Composer
Waves hitting WALLS
My conducting teacher told me about a score: this composer thinks in blocks. And then it hit me, that I was seeing WALLS in the score. There were walls everywhere. My scores also have a lot of walls, mostly beneath a melodic line, sometimes as separate ‘bangs’. A WALL is absolute, a given, never giving… Continue reading Waves hitting WALLS
How to think like a physicist to become a better composer
Let me speak for myself: living with a composer being ‘in the zone’, is not very enjoyable. For me, it is very difficult to break out of ‘the zone’, because my brain keeps pursuing this goal, repeating this train of thought until I know what to write or do. For the people around me I… Continue reading How to think like a physicist to become a better composer
Philosophy: Why is New Kitsch important?
This blog is a stream of thoughts to understand how I could set criteria to improve my work. I will write about my philosophy from a personal viewpoint. I am not a philosopher, but I have always known what I want to compose and why. Let’s go back in time and review these remarks: “Every… Continue reading Philosophy: Why is New Kitsch important?
Anchors: how to hold the hand of the listener
Due to the corona crisis, the world premiere of Ritratto by Willem Jeths was online. Lucky for me, because I wanted to go and listen, forgot about it and then saw it online. I was listening to this opera thinking: how come that I lock on to some passages easily and not onto others? Some… Continue reading Anchors: how to hold the hand of the listener
Energy-curves of FORM and STORY
Last week I learned that the “story-telling-energy-space-curve” I wanted to obtain (black curve in the picture), is not the energy-space-curve this particular (34-matrix) FORM projects. I connected this particular FORM with ORCHESTRATION through key-changes following that particular FORM. There evolved an energy-space curve, following the FORM naturally, but it was not the one I was looking for.… Continue reading Energy-curves of FORM and STORY
Music, Marble and Vanity
Why are people more impressed by ‘me and my music’ in a concert hall than when friends play it in my local church for fun? In Februari friends gave me a chance to have my music played at the Staatstheater in Kassel. What struck me there was: I entered as ‘a woman’ and I left… Continue reading Music, Marble and Vanity
Gender Issues in CONTRAST
While speaking of contrast, I was told that I could think about contrast in terms of ‘female’ as opposed to ‘male’. I felt odd, because I think that gender is fluid, there is no absolute contrast in gender. There are men that are more female than I am. People differ more in terms of character… Continue reading Gender Issues in CONTRAST
WHY HARMONY IS SIMPLE
Using the traditional harmonic system makes us feel comfortable. We remember these chords, the progressions, the cadences are familiar. We like what we know. Knowing and using historically proved good sounding chords will make your work understandable for your audience. It’s a language we all share, because we share the same musical history. The study… Continue reading WHY HARMONY IS SIMPLE
COLOR THE CONTRASTS
When you think of contrast in music, you often think about that one LOUD standing chord with a SILENCE before and after. This is the most extreme form of contrast: White – Black – White. I discussed this type of music earlier in a blog on SILENCE, because a lone standing chord by itself has… Continue reading COLOR THE CONTRASTS