Happy New Year

2011 by petemaskreplica

Forty

In which I celebrate my impending mid-life crisis by considering the first forty tones of the harmonic series. This entailed using the 37th partial, which I've not only never used and don't really have much idea what it sounds like, but also had to work out exactly what the notation signified (a lowering of pitch by about 23.24 cents, since you ask). I'm rather more excited about having worked this out than I ought to be.

(Just Intonation notation guide here.)

Canyon

Woo! We're back! Well, maybe. I've got a few ideas and I may blog about them as they develop. In the meantime here's a bit of actual music I made.


Canyon by petemaskreplica

Syntonic Progression

Notational notes here. This is just a little progression, based on the difference between a Just and a Pythagorean major third, which then gets a little twist to push it up to the end.

Mrs Replica looks askance at her husband many evenings, and not for the usual reasons: he seems to spend an awful lot of time writing out fractions. She's used to his little ways, but even so.

It's a sobering experience, trying to work into a new and partly unfamiliar way of working. If I'd stuck to the old ways I could probably be rattling through churning out sketches for the next piece. As it is I'm slowly assembling fragments, trying to figure out what the sounds are called and how to tell the players, which is essentially what a notated score does. Moments of progress are interrupted by moments of realisation that I've got one tiny thing wrong and have to refashion everything as a result. You could see this as a pain in the arse, a lot of extra work and just making things difficult for myself. I prefer to think of the increased groundwork as a way of getting to know the DNA of the piece. These fractions after all represent the basic notes from which everything else will be built. The music's in there, it's just a matter of unearthing it.

Metamorphosis 31

(Just Intonation notation guide here.)

Metamorphosis 30

Metamorphosis 29

Metamorphosis 28

Metamorphosis 27

I can't believe March is nearly over already. It feels like I've hardly got going. I'm determined to complete a page for every day this month, but it does feel like I'm running out of steam at the moment. I have the beginnings of a large scale, fully worked out piece on the drawing board, so after March 31 I'll stop for a bit, take a step back and breathe, and give myself a bit of mental space to think about that a bit more.

I recently got hold of a microphone, so another thing I'd like to do is maybe try and record a few of these little sketches. This involves getting my playing back up to scratch though, so a fair bit of work needed to get that done.

Metamorphosis 26

(Just Intonation notation guide here.)

Metamorphosis 25

Metamorphosis 24

Metamorphosis 23

Kind of carrying on from yesterday. I became intrigued by how the "strange" intervals started to suggest more conventional ones.

Metamorphosis 22

So, 22/03/10? Suggests ratios of 11/6, 6/5 and 11/10 to me.

Metamorphosis 19-21

Metamorphosis 18

(Just Intonation notation guide here.)

Metamorphosis 17

I scribbled this down in the foyer of the Queen Elizabeth Hall before a performance of a piece by Gerald Barry called "Beethoven" (of which more anon.). That turned out not to have anything to do with the Fifth Symphony. But let's face it, it's pretty much the first thing that comes to anyone's mind when they think of Beethoven.

Metamorphosis 16

Metamorphosis 15

Metamorphosis 14