stuff i do for college: Writing Music in Graphic Notation

So, for my seminar (which I'm going to miss next semester!) we had to compose a piece of music - okay, more like percussion - and write it down in a graphic notation of our own design.

This was pretty easy, because there's none of that tricky music theory stuff that comes in with the addition of actual notes to a piece. Don't tell a percussionist I said that.

Anyways, the first idea I had was to use the stuff I have in my viola case. One of these things:

which is what I stuck with. There was this really cool swooshy sound that is made when I pretend like my bow

is a sword or magic wand or something, and wave it frantically. Think Ron Weasley's first attempts at Wingardium Leviosa, and that's the general idea.

But that idea never made it into the piece because it got trampled by another one. I was thinking about opening up my viola case before the first rehearsal with a new group. You're (or at least I am) looking around and sizing people up, trying to figure out the skill level of the other players and whatnot. Maybe that's just me..but it makes for a good idea.

I thought of a tango. Something a wee bit sexy, and kind of like a lion circling around another animal. And I was off.

The distinctive tango rhythm pretty much is going steady throughout the whole piece. The person who plays it is going to be lightly and carefully tapping my viola in certain places that produce a different pitch. This job may end up being mine because I'm afraid someone will hurt my instrument. Maybe.

Hmm...I just realized that everybody else's parts kind of suck. (Meaning they dont have a lot of fun stuff to do) Oh well...not changing it now.

So anyways, I was sitting up in my favorite spot last night - the TC Lounge - and I wrote this little thing in probably about fifteen minutes. That probably says something about its quality, but I happen to like it and I'm proud of it. So there.

It's kind of ethereal, not a real fiery thing, to say the least. Kind of laid back, but not really. Also kind of hard to describe.

My instruments:

- The tappy thing. (Fingers striking viola body) main voice, beat

- The shakey thing. (Someone shaking my shoulder rest, causing loosened screws to rattle)

- The swishy thing. (A silk cloth that covers my viola while it's in the case, rubbed against itself)

- The thooink-y thing. (A plastic tube with two little rubber caps, makes interesting noise when caps are removed. First cap removed produces a lower pitch than second one)

requires someone to hold the tube while two other people pull off the caps

My process of composition was to play around with the rhythm by weaving some different sounds in together, while making it sound like a coherent thing. As opposed to a godless cacaphony.

My graphic notation:

I wanted it to be reminiscent of traditional notation;

which is why I kept the idea of lines in my notation (also because I originally wrote it on lined paper)

and also because the lines correspond to a pitch - which is a pretty universal and 'duh' thing that everyone knows about music. I didn't want to have to explain the snot out of whoever is going to be playing these parts.

The little curly things on the start and end of the notation, in addition to being pretty, indicate the start and end of the piece (like in traditional notation).

I noticed that a lot of the other notations that people in my class had used gave each part its own seperate...well part. Each instrument had its own line of notes or whatnot to follow. I wanted them to be all in one thing so the players can see - literally - how their parts fit together. They'd play it better.

I hope to have someone in my class take a video of the "performance" tomorrow so that I can put it up here, because it's one thing to look at the notation of a piece, and it's another thing entirely to hear it performed. I'll bring my camera, and make some technologically savy person show me how to upload a vide off of it.

Anyways, here's some more pictures