Repository of Resources for Composers

1) the Xenakis Project of the Americas' YT channel:

https://youtube.com/channel/UCxQFRZv2khYKxDyueY-bKUA

A bunch of brilliant people talking about algorithmic composition, data sonification, applying architectural concepts to music, etc

How many times did you hit post?

holup

Ffs, had to delete 9 duplicate threads, chill out mang.

my bum

  On 10/24/2016 at 8:11 PM, Herr Jan said:

Ffs, had to delete 9 duplicate threads, chill out mang.

Dude, sorry...I didn't even notice it got posted because Tapatalk said basically "error unable to post"

R Luke Dubois talking about 'data sonification':

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vqvUt8jwEgo

Great lecture about some of the awesome shit Bartok was up to:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=3etlQaVG48E

YT page of awesome inter-disciplinary music research group:

https://youtube.com/user/CIRMMTvideo

these look like some pretty cool links! will check them out when I have time!

  On 11/6/2016 at 1:09 AM, MIXL2 said:

these look like some pretty cool links! will check them out when I have time!

Yeah, I bump into cool musicology shit daily so I thought it'd be nice to have a place to share it

More on the way, and of course feel free to add to the pile!

Bartok's Axis System:

http://www.harmonicwheel.com/bartok_axes.pdf

http://www.mi.sanu.ac.rs/vismath/lends/ch1.htm

This right here is great shit to know

Essentially, given a key center (e.g. C major), every note of the "chromatic set" serves a dominant, sub-dominant or tonic "function"

So in C major:

Tonic = C maj, Eb maj, Gb maj, A maj

Sub-Dominant = F maj, Ab maj, B maj, D maj

Dominant = G maj, Bb maj, Db maj, E maj

So if you're sick of Diatonic Harmony, you could try cycling through "Tonic-Subdominant-Dominant" cadences using substitute changes from the Axis System

So instead of C-F-G-C-F-G etc

You could do (e.g.) C-Ab-E-A-F-Db-Gb-D-Bb

And get the same sense of movement, albeit with different harmonic "colors"

(Also works with minor chords, but requires some finessing to sound right)

"Individual at odds with Society" motifs in the music of Benjamin Britten:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=qlEIQ1gK5jg

(BB was gay in a time/place where it was illegal and heavily stigmatized)

Again, great lecturer

And here's a sister concept to Bartok's Axis System...

The Symmetrical Movement Concept:

http://m-base.com/essays/symmetrical-movement-concept/

("As above, so below")

Basically, if you take a chunk of music (melodies, chords, whatever) and invert the directionality of all the intervals (up vs down) then you will get a different-yet-equally good chunk of music

So with a melody like:

C-E-G-B A-F-D-G-E

If you invert the direction of the intervals (and start on the same note) you get:

C-Ab-F-Db-Eb-Gb-Bb-F-Ab

And if you wanna transpose it back to C, you get:

B-G-E-C-D-F-A-E-G

If you are looking for a fucking awesome way to develop your own tonal vocabulary, this is a an indispensable thing to know. You can apply it to entire songs, even. As an expertise I did it to the Beatles' "I Will", "Happy Birthday", and "Twinkle Twinkle" and the results were not only awesome, it sounded completely unlike the usual cliches everyone uses.

(P.S. It is especially awesome on harmonic sequences/cadences, and completely retains its sense of movement)

Before he died, Messiaen wrote a massive treatise (~2100 pages) about how he approached composition. It has yet to receive an official translation, but luckily some poor music PhD student translated the first ~400 pages for his dissertation or thesis or whatever:

https://shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/5762/9914415.PDF?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

In the translated bits he talks about the Indian Classical approach to rhythm, how the (ancient) Greeks approached rhythm and scansion, birdsong, some harmonic ideas, and of course Jesus Christ our lord and savior.