a little boat on a calm sea

Context:

a little boat on a calm sea is a work suited towards a concert hall setting as part of a typical classical recital. The composition is inspired by a quote from Vincent Van Gough describing the relationship between life and the sea.

My work aims to condense these words into a short yet impactful work that replicates the different states of the sea and the natural forces that act upon it. This is achieved by the overarching theme of breathing that is evident in all sections of the composition - inspired by similar microcosmic gestures employed in Whitacre's choral works like Lux Aurumque.

Inspiration:

A natural starting point for this composition was to explore works that were inspired by the sea. From this, I can then extend this research of describing the different states of the sea and the natural forces behind it - instead of simply creating a work that may only display one character of my theme.

Britten's 4th movement of The Sea Interludes 'Storm' is particularly effective with off-centering the listener's perception of where the beat is (adding to the unpredictable nature of the storm). This is achieved with constantly changing time signatures and emphasising different beat points with percussion and other instrumental timbres. I don't have a full pallet of instruments to work with so the challenge is to find ways within the instruments capabilities to achieve off-centering and disruption. My initial thoughts were to use some Schillinger techniques to minimise time signature changes (for playability purposes) whilst creating exciting rhythms from a minimal pallet of simple melodic and rhythmic ideas.

Moving to a more contemporary composer, Joby Talbot's 5 movement work Tide Harmonic (2011) is an excellent example of exploring the different states of the sea. The movement Storm Surge in particular has elements of 'drops' and 'anti-drops' that is worth exploring. More details of this are described below.

It's clear that throughout this movement Talbot is exploring this sense of swelling - both on microcosmic and macrocosmic levels. On a macrocosmic level, despite each section having it's own character and thematic ideas, they have been ordered in such a way that the structure of general characters matches the pattern 'intense - relaxed - intense'. It's also interesting that although sections in this movement are sometimes wildly different, he is able to seemlessly transition with ease between them through metric modulations, pivot chords and pauses and make them convincing as well.

On a microcosmic level, the standard uses of dynamics, texture and timbre are all apparent in his work. The question now lies in whether I can create this sense of swelling creatively on a microcosmic level without directly using the obvious musical features to make my work unique to Britten and Talbot.

Schillenger:

At the beginning of my work, a long 9 beat triplet-feel pattern that is held in the left hand is disrupted by the semiquaver duplet-feel in the right hand. The 9 beat phrase leads into some beautiful disruptive symmetry where the mirror line is slight offset from the bar-line. Further disruption happens in the right hand where the highest note of the arpeggiated chord appears at the beginning of the 4/4 beat which gives the feeling that this too is off-centred. The triplet feel of this passage after one phrase is then further disrupted again with the duplet artificial harmonics which creates this juxtaposition of unease, despite the calm nature of the piano and violin slowly swelling in and out.

Later on at Bar 78, I use a 6/4 time signature, which allows for many different divisions of 12 quavers. Some examples of both balanced and unbalanced divisions are shown on the left. Notice that the divisions are sometimes shown with different note values such as the crotchets in Bar 80 or by accents in the constant stream of quavers like in Bars 81-82. The disruptive division of 3+7+2 is used in the right hand of the piano to accompany the almost 12-tone melodic idea in the violin part to describe the unpredictable sea.

The Drop:

Indian Music:

Pitts (2020), provides an anthology of Indian sitar ragas that formed a good starting point exploring the various rhythms and devices within Indian music. One particular feature that stood out was the use of an implied drone that is prevalent through the work. This doesn't have to appear in the bottom register (similar to the idea of a inverted pedal) or as long notes, as typically seen within Indian music, but instead can be implied through the melodic ideas in the higher lines as seen in the cikari strings.

Exploiting the open strings on a violin/guitar provides a ringing tone that has qualities similar to a Tanpura (an Indian stringed instrument that usually provides the drone). Returning back to these open strings provided not only accessibility for the player but also allowed me to explore colourful harmonies within a perfect 5th drone. This lead to some powerful voice leading opportunities, similar to the way a PLR move occurs between two major/minor chords on the Tonnetz. It also proved very useful when transitioning between seemingly unrelated sections, similar to the way individual pieces are combined together in a medley.

Reflection:

Looking back upon the process of composing this work, there was a change to my traditional classical music writing approach that is worth noting. In the recording session, from bars 111-end, I actually recorded the violin part improvised. I had no music in front of me, apart from the piano part that is duplicated from the 9-beat pattern at the beginning and asked the Tonmeister to choose which improvisation was most daring. I probably would have received a negative response to my work if I asked another performer (other than myself) to do this, but sometimes the pressure of a recording and having to produce a response to the music on the spot does give rise to spontaneity that can be effective and especially when the piano line is so bare. A new type of collaboration between performer/composer and studio technician!

After listening back to the final recording, my view on where this piece sits within the musical landscape has changed. Originally I planned it as a classical piece that can be performed in a recital hall, however the different characters of the music that coherently link together makes this lean more towards a film score that might be used to describe a story. 

This naturally leads onto the classic composer question of whether to create a new melodic idea or stick with what you have got and variate. Currently, I seem to have a natural tendency to compose a whole bunch of new ideas and collage them together, instead of developing and repeating composed work. This can potentially lead to incoherent compositions that don't seem to have focus and jump from one idea to another (can be effective, but isn't what I want to compose). Although my transitions are mostly seamless between ideas, setting myself 'off-balance' in future works by constraining my material to just one thematic idea will hopefully improve the cohesiveness of my compositions and will less likely drift away from my original ideas on what genre my work should fit into.