Divertimentino #1 — A Whimsical yet Listless 1-Minute Piano Piece

Background

The requirement arose for a keyboard piece of about one minute in 

duration, one that would have visual appeal to watch being played, and 

with a varied, contrasting feel to it.  Accordingly, this short piano piece 

features crossing of hands, arpeggiated flourishes, use of the full range 

of the keyboard, and some fast and tricky passages.

Technique

The overall form is roughly ABA′, with A,A′ being of romantic era 
tonal harmony and B akin to jazz or blues. 
The opening and closing bars employ a Chopinesque use of 6th 
chords to perpetuate a complex harmonic tension — one which carries a 
rich scope for modulation and one which is only ever relaxed at macro- 
structural cadences.  Jazz/blues harmony emerges as an extension of this 
tonality. 

Orthogonal and complementary to this scope for harmonic freedom, 
the metrical subtlety offered by the compound 6/8 time allows a natural 
transition from classical triplets to jazz swing. 
While the opening and closing passages make use of lyrical runs of 
scales and arpeggios, contrast is achieved by the use of dissonant 
chordal jumps in the mid section. 

The opening bar lays down a pattern of harmonic tension and, via 
parallelism, opens space for the melody to fill in the third and sixth 
quaver beats of subsequent bars.  Although the piece aims to pack a 
range of motifs quite densely, overall coherence is maintained by the 
metre, by the overarching harmonic structure, and by the parallelism of 
the left hand pattern and the right hand melodic contour.


Mood

A hesitant, listless opening turns into a forthright, impetuous blues 
shuffle.  As the familiar chord cycle approaches its end, dissipation 
encroaches.  The melody continues searchingly and restlessly, almost as if 
to ward off a looming peripheral sense of dissipation, perhaps in a bid 
to avert the return of the initial listlessness.  Tension played out, the final 
cadence lays the piece to rest.

Blackboards and Creativity

I have a thing about blackboards and creativity.  Perhaps it's the old-school mathematician in me.  I guess I have a thing about coffee and creativity too.  I had mixed feelings about Dublin Contemporary 2011, but I did get this great mug there:

This shot arose from a Sunday morning musing, over coffee, about a scale for a piece.  A composer friend of mine queried the spelling of the D♭/C♯ on Google+, so here is a demonstration of the power of being able to edit your thoughts as the ideas take shape:

I guess it also shows how ideas evolve from sharing in a suitable environment.

Opening a Time Capsule — Revisiting my First Composition

Tεχνίκα
 

Background

During my maths undergrad, I joined the music soc. at uni., which
gave me access to a piano for the first time in seven years.  I started
practising classical pieces and improvising like a fish that had been out
of water for too long.  I wrote my first complete piece of music.  It was
1996.

Listening back to it now, it’s like a time capsule for how I felt at the
time.  I’d been practising Chopin and Debussy, and it’s amusing now to
hear their influence in this piece.  I’m not sure that anyone composes
in those styles any more.  This was before I went on to learn about
contemporary classical music.


Technique

The piece opens with a motif statement: a modal progression through
four chords.  This motif is the kernel for the whole piece.

Four sections follow: individually each one consists of the same chord
progression as the motif, and together the four sections correspond to the
four chords in sequence.  The second is downcast relative to the first.  
The third is brighter and upbeat relative to what has gone before.  
The fourth is resigned but unresolved, and anticipates a return to the first.

A restatement of the motif serves as a coda.

As such, the piece is self-referential (I’d been reading up on AI at the
time) in that the relationship between the four sections is an elaboration
of that of the four chords to one another.  The trick is that each chord
of the motif gets rendered in the mood of each of its constituent chords!


Mood

The cyclic switch, from downbeat to hopeful outlook to resignation,
resonated strongly with me at the time.  When I hit on the opening
theme, I felt I had to explore it, to work to make something out of it.  
The devised technique was a means of exploring the theme from each
of its vacillating vantage points.