Category: Structure & Theme

When you look at the score and hear the music of ‘Der Weihnachtswolf’ (‘The Christmas-wolf’), you see and hear a story. The piece has a poem added, describing the story you hear. Or did I write an entirely different story? My quest for understanding story in music, started with composing ‘The Waterwolf and the Fire-butterflies’.… Continue reading Music and story

The analogy of the necklace Until this moment you have been working vertically to understand voicing and instrumentation. Now it is time to learn about sound in time and work horizontally. Until now I used ‘Forms of story-telling structures to write music‘ over time, but that ended up in chaos. So I made up the… Continue reading Form: The necklace and the State of the building

Music in space Great composers create space to fill it with sound. Great composers make room for all instruments, so musicians can enjoy each others voice. Music is the 3D development of the sound in the space we vibrate. It’s the vibrating air that makes the difference. Music needs space. When music is played right,… Continue reading The art of sound in space

Music in time Composing during your lifetime: Working from your first piece onwards towards a repertoire build from a few golden bricks (Eric Withacre) works best for composing over a lifetime. It also makes your work recognisable for others, gives it a unique sound. (Thomas Trachsel, Stephen Melillo) I tested if people would recognize my… Continue reading The art of sound in time

Summer 2019 I studied a week with Stephen Melillo. His work ‘David’ was a life changing composition for me. It was the first time in years that I wasn’t bored with a composition. It was new, fresh, different, interesting, challenging. Playing David was the first moment I realized that music was is not a dead… Continue reading Stephen Melillo on composing and FC