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

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

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

Music: DNA pasted in the Art of the state

Compositions of a particular composer are like family-members, they all have something in common. When you listen to a composition, there are little building-blocks that you start to recognize. It’s the soundbite that make the music that particular composition. It’s the DNA of that composition. This DNA consists of just a few notes (3 or… Continue reading Music: DNA pasted in the Art of the state

DNA of music and why there is no right, nor wrong, but only sound.

Don’t you find it amazing, that you always recognize the composer when you play music? Like every composer puts his own DNA in every score? Is it really that simple? There is always that ‘one thing’ that gives away who wrote a piece. Often people think the orchestration gives the composer away, but that is… Continue reading DNA of music and why there is no right, nor wrong, but only sound.