Searching for New Sound - Music Composition ideas

 A composer who could write music from European, Central Asia, India, Korea, Japan, North Africa, South Asia tradition and where the local musicologists or musicians praise his understanding of the local culture. He could improvise based on Indian rag, performing with the ensemble of Japanese gagaku (court music). He was Alan Hovhaness (1911 – 2000), an American-Armenian composer. He was one of the most prolific 20th-century composers. His music was full of inspiration from the East. I don't know him until recently. He did not catch any frame until his mid-composition career and lots of his early composition was destroyed by himself. It is hard to trace his music in his early period and give a solid conclusion of why his music did not catch public attention. At the time of the early-mid 20th century, the general composers in America didn't have a deep understanding of Eastern culture. The US composer either fellowed the traditional European tradition, jazz, or went experientia...

 Mixolydian mode is often referred to as a medieval church mode and can be traced to ancient Greece. For composing, to bring out the taste of the mode, the melody should accent the flat-seven note in the mode. Thus, the tunning of the note flat-seven is critical. I have discussed the 53-TET is great for perfect 5th. This 26 TET is great for minor 7th. Harmonic series again, the just intonation of minor 7th is way flatter than the 12-TET that we normally use, -31 cent, about a quarter semitone. Finding an alternative temperament is needed. In the harmonic series, the 7th harmonics is the minor 7th interval to the fundamental. The 4th and 7th are the interval of minor 7th in the same octave. The ratio of 7:4 sounds harmonious in just intonation, as the ratio is from the harmonic series. There are also other ratios of minor 7th in the harmonic series, e.g. 9:5, 16:9, etc. Harmonic series in C Borrowing the same method by Pytheogoen, but we stack in 7:4 minor 7th interval instead. Aft...

EQ stands for Equalization, which is a device intended to manipulate the frequency content. It can boost or bring down certain frequencies. Every instrument plays has its own harmonic series pattern and overtones above it. Massing the harmonic series around with the EQ can alter the timbre of a note, isolating, boosting, dampen certain frequencies, resulting in different timbre. The pure data patch below randomly isolates the harmonic partials, which sound like playing harmonics at a very fast speed.

 The first piece that I encountered Alvin Lucier's music was his Music For Solo Performer. The performer sits still on a chair and wearable devices capture the brain wave of the performer. The brain wave transfers to an electronic signal and makes sound on acoustic instruments. This is unique in that in most performances we see, the performer has all sorts of movements and gestures. (Also read my previous article  and music for the deaf .) Apart from his Music for Solo Performer, Lucier works a lot with sound installation e.g. Music On A Long Thin Wire, and manipulating sound samples e.g. I Am Sitting in a Room. The human gestures element is mostly erased which benefits the audience by focusing the movement of sound (air particle) and the movement (vibration) of the mechanical part. In his installation, Music On A Long Thin Wire, the wire is extended across a large room, clamped to tables at both ends. The ends of the wire are connected to the loudspeaker terminals of a p...

The heterophonic texture in Chinese music, with all instruments playing the same melody, have a great effect of combining the timbre of an individual instrument. Since each instrument has its own pattern of harmonic series. In the case of Chinese folk instruments, each instrument sounds quite special and unique. Chinese characterize the instruments into 8 categories: metal, stone, string, bamboo, gourd, clay, leather, wood. When different instruments are combined within the same melody,  This kind of oneness was further expanded to one note. In his Quattro pezzi su una nota sola ("Four Pieces on a single note", 1959) his best-known technique for having composed music based around only one pitch, altered in all manners through microtonal oscillations, harmonic allusions, and changes in timbre and dynamics. With different instruments add-in or drop-out, the timbre is constantly changing even though there is only one note. Similar to heterophony in Chinese music, instruments pla...

 Salvador Dalí (1904 – 1989) was a Spanish surrealist artist renowned for his technical skill and bizarre images in his work. He was one of the leaders of contemporary art. His works are technical refine and at the same time full of creativity and imagination. How did he get all the inspiration? As I am a composer, sound artist, it is helpful to learn from him. The Great Masturbator (1929). oil on canvas, 110 cm × 150 cm., Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Dalí used sleeping to help him get inspired. By holding a metallic object in his hand as he drifted off on a comfy chair, as he lost consciousness and dropped the object, the noise would jerk him awake. Dalí used this half-asleep state to get inspired and create his masterpieces.  Recent research by National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Paris prove his method works. The research team asked 103 people to carry out the maths task, they found that when fall asleep they may spend a few minutes in a state c...

Chicken tikka masala and fortune cookies are iconic dishes that were invented away from the cultural origin. Chicken tastes amazing and cookies are wrapped with wisdom. The chicken tikka masala sauce and its prep meal are very popular and can be found in every supermarket. It is more likely, it is derived from butter chicken, a popular dish in northern India. The masala sauce was added to satisfy the desire of British people to have their meat served in gravy. In short, the use of spices and serving the gray, synthesis two diverse cultures but get along well together, using food as the bridge of different cultures. As the portraying the eastern culture, it is successful to promote the Indian culture. Fortune cookies are often served as a dessert in Chinese restaurants in the West, but they may or may not be Chinese in origin or maybe in Japan. The origin is debatable. The interesting part of fortune cookies is not the cookies themselves, just a kind of vanilla cookies. The con...

Guqin or qin ( 古琴 ) is a plucked seven-string Chinese zither. Chou music is inspired by qin music. To dig deep into Chou's music understanding its aesthetic is critical. I would use a thesis, The 24 Sprites of Qin  (溪山琴況)  by Xu shangying ( 徐上瀛 ,1582-1662) in 1641 to explain the aesthetic of qin. A picture of qin 7 open strings on qin The origin of qin according to Xu (1641), the myth origin, the deity made qin as a tool to cultivate human beings, to combine one's morals and spirituality. This echoes my previous articles about the function of music in China. Xu organized 24 sprites as the basis of the aesthetic of qin. His thesis is long, people summarised the 4 most important points from his thesis. Harmonious (和), the instrument has to be well-tuned. The primary rule is open strings have to harmonize with each other, then the pressed notes come to secondary. The harmonics and pressed should be referring to each other, which implies that the tuning should fit into the h...

Know thyself was the most famous first of three maxims inscribed in the pronaos (forecourt) of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The original idea of this proverb was about the self-reflection and self-referencing of the person, the inner search of one's identity. In Chou's (2007) article, "Whither Chinese Composers?", he is asking a bigger question, the collaborative identity of Chinese composers. The concept of composer did not exist or inherently developed within Chinese culture before the western composition idea impact every Chinese musician. In China, the performers had great freedom of improvising the existing materials, serving part of composing role, the origin of the materials was not important. The music in China was very functional, pure entertainment, working, ritual service, cultivation, and education, they are all about serving the need then done, without polishing the craftsmanship. The artistic concept did not exist in music, on the other hand, painting...

On an acoustic instrument, the thinking of loudness is more than just the volume in dB. When a note is played on an acoustic instrument, a series of overtones is also produced. The fundamental and overtones above also contribute to the loudness. When playing in louder volume compared to softer, the loudness in decibel of the fundamental does not have a big difference, but the overtone pattern has an obvious increase. Example below. Using a reversed example to explain the same phenomenon, this is a pure data patch (Example below). It is playing with the same amplitude or decibel. With adding more harmonics to it, the volume sounds louder to our ears. In terms of sound design, using fewer harmonics on a synthesizer results in a mellow softer tone; on the contrary, harsher and buzzier tone. Why it is louder with more harmonics, the short answer is more people (harmonics) playing at the same time - louder. But if you notice the natural decay of the harmonic series, this is part of the ...

In qin notation that I have discussed in the previous article , for either a single pitch or a complete sonic event. Chou (2007) interrupted the qin notation, the components of each ideogram-like symbol specify not only pitch, articulation, timbre, dynamics, and so on, but also additional information such as vibrato or other forms of pitch modification after the articulation.  Chou did not explain how the Jianzipu tablature indicates articulation or dynamics. Since my books about Chinese music have arrived. So I have can explain better. In western notation, we use symbols for articulation like staccato, accent, marcato slur etc; for dynamics, we use text f, p, mf, mp, etc.  The western notates the result. On the contrary, the  Jianzipu notates the   method, no dynamic or articulation is directly notated.  In  Jianzipu   the information in each ideogram contains: which finger on the left hand (at the left upper corner of the ideogram) position of ...

Cents Divide a perfect 2:1 octave into 1200 equal steps (in logarithm to be precise), 1 step is 1 cent. In other words, in equal temperament, 1 cent = 1/100 of a semitone. -50 is a quarter flat, vice versa. This website  helps you to calculate and detail explains the maths.  Using cent to notate microtonality is quite rare. The recognized composer who uses this method, I only can find one, is Johnny Reinhard (Secor & Keenan, n.d.). But I cannot find his score at all. Quarter Tone Notation Skinner's (2022) research on quarter-tone Skinner's style is the most popular today. Claude Vivier used arrows pointing up/down for notation, but I returned to the library. (no pic) Finer Microtone Notation Ben Johnston further divided the notes over quarter tone. Here his notation Gann (n.d.) Gann, K. (n.d). How to Use Ben Johnston's Just Intonation Notation. [online]. Available at: https://www.kylegann.com/BJNotation.html [Accessd 19th Jan, 2022] Skinner, M (2022). T...

Orientalism, things from the East from the European point of view. this word is an umbrella term that is too big to conclude. Like the continent 'Asia' from Turkey to Indonesia, meaning half of the globe. To be specific, I am from the far east cultural circle, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand region that are historically closely connected. There has been a long history of European artists portraying the east, as an easterner, I would like to judge the approaches in music. Ultimately, composers have the creative right to compose what they want, but observing their approach is also a way of learning. Level 1: Just the title In Tchaikovsky's Chinese Dance in Nutcracker Suite, the music hardly find any Chinese music influence, I played this music to my friends who do not have any musical knowledge. If I did not mention the title, they just think this is nice western classical music. The costume design in the ballet may use Chinese design, but musically, completely in West...

When a note is played on an instrument, the vibration of the instrument carries out a series of frequencies, the harmonic series. The series multiples the from the fundamental frequency with integer (1f 2f 3f 4f 5f ...). Normally, the series is infinite and weaker and weaker above. My composition is playing around the harmonic and amplifying the result with composition techniques. I try to sum up different methods I used in my work. A harmonic series of C2 Digital modification Develop the harmonic series from scratch with particular sine wave sand built a unique series. Example here . Using EQ Using frequency modulator or wave folding to build new harmonic partials Using amplitude modulator, ring modulator , LFO, to create a new fundamental of the series, only acoustically can be heard, the physical vibration does not exist Acoustic modification combines different timbers/instruments, standard orchestration techniques. combination tone  of different pitches to create a new fun...

This Vox video introduces how a sign language interpreter uses sign language. Music is a wonderful thing that, I can sit a the concert hall, watching CBSO concert without concerning the problem of language. Since as a foreigner, speaking a language not my mother tongue is quite challenging. Although songs have lyrics, language, other musical factors diminish the language barrier. However, to deaf people, music is a foreign language to them, an interpreter translate. Beyond music, at the same, foreign language is a foreign language to most of us also need an interpreter. For example, in the TED talk video below, the speaker Christine Sun Kim is a deaf person, an interpreter translates her sign language. How to break the barrier in between? A musical piece that serves both sides. A song with sign language that both sides understand. Christine's artwork demonstrates music, motion, and time. (9:52) I choose Any Time at All by the Beatles. The lyrics are about time and emotion. The lyri...

The study of tuning and temperament is a different task since there was no one single method, and case by case there are various of them on different occasions and instrumentations. The worst case, loss in tradition, also happened in China due to wars and invasions. The most popular pentatonic system is based on the ratio of 4/3, multiplies the previous result of 2/3, multiplies the previous result 4/3, and so on. ( link for the calculation detail.) Using this method we get the pentatonic scale and can be further expanded to 12 keys. At the same time, we still met the Pythegroen comma. Based on the backbone of pentatonic, notes can be added between mi-sol and la-do. (see pic) The added notes are in parentheses to form heptatonic (7-note) scales. Chinese opera and small instrumental ensemble trend to use heptatonic scales. 3 common  heptatonic scales in the key of C. In theory, these scales can be transposed to all 12 keys, but the Pythegroen comma is in the way. Many Chinese theor...

Back to the Pythagorean time, when he found notes based on the pure perfect fifth ascending, 3/2 ratio of the original frequency. After conducting it 12 times and bringing it down with 7 octaves. The 13th note is closed to the original notes, it is closed but not off about 23.46 cents (1 cent = 1/1200 an octave), about a quarter-tone. This is known as the Pythagorean comma [(1.5^12)/(2^7)]. (If you really want to see the maths, click here .) People all over the world notice this problem, there are 3 choices for musicians. Completely ignore it, just limit the use of the 5-7 notes in the music, simple harmony and texture, like the music before the renaissance period. Adjust 12 notes we have and the ratios of each interval, with more complex harmony. Meantone temperament - sound pure but some keys are not useable Equal temperament - all keys can be used, but sound the same Unequal (Well) temperament - in between meantone and equal temp. Keep finding new notes with pure 5th or other...

The  Scelsi/Uitti Resonators  is a device made in metal attached to string instruments, like a cello in this case. It alternates the vibration of the strings and creates a metallic buzz. I was impressed when I listened to it. Listern to the piece by Giacinto Scelsi - Trilogia, I tre stadi dell'uomo, that resonator is employed. A paper clip - a cheap resonator on cello I asked my cellist if she has one, but sadly not. Then, I found that paper clips with wings (picture above) can serve a similar purpose. I clipped it at the end of the string, very close to the bridge, like the original Uitti resonator does. Here is the example . The timbre of the paper-clipped cello reminded the sound of Tibetan Buddhist chant, the overtone singing. I recorded the sample of Buddhist chant from this record. The spectrum pattern of the overtone singing has a strong bass fundamental and mid-frequency fade rapidly. However, there is a spike at the 2500 Hz frequency, this is the aura-like timbre...

In Western music, we cannot hear the music by the ancient Greeks since they did not have a system to notate the music before Guido of Arezzo, the development of staff notation in the 10th century.  This also applies to Chinese music. This is an example of the oldest notation of Chinese music in the 7th century. It is a score for guqin (Chinese zither). The notation is text-based ( wenzipu ), telling the performer the playing position (relative pitch) and the playing technique word by word. However, there is no accurate tempo, rhythm, articulation, or tuning. The situation resembles the western staffless neumes. We have the direction but don't know where to start. Listen to the free-flowing rhythm of the example The performance of the score below Text-based notation of Jieshi Diao Youlan The text-based notation is complex, people simplify the notation to tablature ( Jianzipu ) for  guqin in the 10th century .  But the problem of lack of rhythm still was not addre...

If you are reading the article, you should have the basic knowledge of Pythagorean tuning, finding new notes with pure fifth, ratio 3:2 (The whole article is based on frequency ratio. If calculate the string length, invert all the ratio, e.g. 2/3) and the concept of temperament. Since the isn’t any easy and clear explanation on the Internet, so I made my own. The main prepose of quarter meantone temperament is making the major third on the keyboard sound pure. Starting note is C1, using 4 ascending fifths to get a major third: = C1- up 5th - G1- up 5th - D2 -up 5th- A2- up 5th -E3 The ratio of pure sound fifth is 3/2=1.5. The ratio of between of C1 to two octaves and a major third (E3) w/ ascending fifth: = (3/2)4 =5.0625 The frequency of the harmonic series sounds harmonious and pure. The major third in harmonic series is the fifth partial C1 x 5. It is also C1 ascend two octaves above major third (E3). Thus, the ratio is 5. 5 and 5.0625 is close, the difference between them is call...

No fancy harmony, counterpoint, chord progression, or modulation, just pure melody. This is the style of traditional Chinese music and Claude Vivier's music. In Vivier's Et je reverrai cette ville étrange, the ensemble always plays in unison or strict parallel motion, monophony, one single melody only. This less-is-more approach emphasis on the timbre of the instruments and the timbre combine. Listen to how different instruments combine together, trumpet, viola, piano, cello, double bass, and percussion. The instrumentation itself is wired enough. Listeners do not have harmony or counterpoint distraction.   Vivier's  Et je reverrai cette ville étrange This approach echoes the aesthetic of Chinese music. Only monophony in music is boring, so through the process of Jiahua (ornamenting the main melody), there is a great deal of interplay, rhythmic variation, and imitative figuration in the parts. The musicians rely on their innate musical sense and skill to create...

When I arrived in Birmingham, I was told that the Indian food here is very famous. Don't ask me why isn't British cuisine - I don't know. I cook a lot, it is enjoyable (and to my finance). Thinking of cooking and composition, they have a lot in common. The article "Why Hindustani Musicians are Good Cooks: Analogies between Music and Food in North India" by Adrian McNeil is a good explanation of that. The title is very self-explaining. According to McNeil, when you cook you have to identify the Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary ingredients. For chicken tikka masala, a very famous Indian dish invented in the UK. I reference the BBC recipe, hope it is better than fried rice. Primary ingredients - Chicken, red peppers, onions, mango chutney, tomatoes Secondary ingredients - tikka masala paste, double cream, yogurt Tertiary ingredients - ginger, garlic, oil, butter In Indian music that McNeil suggests Primary - basic scale, mode. Secondary - vadi (the note of a rag re...

Last time I raised the example from Claude Vivier, spelling chords on a small part of harmonic series. The link is here . He expanded this idea further to cover wider partials. It is impossible to cover the whole harmonic series of a note since a series is infinite. But we can consider covering, for example, the first 16 partials. Each instrument differs from the other mainly due to the individual volume difference of the individual harmonics. If I can manually fine-tune the volume of every single harmonic, by assigning each harmonic partials to an individual instrument. Since every instrument has its own harmonic series, on top of that, it would develop a very complex pattern of harmonic series (I try to call it superharmonic series).  This is a chord example from Vivier's Lonely Child (m.78). He is roughly spelling the Eb harmonic series of 22 partials. Volin and viola sections are in divisi. In the natural sound of harmonic series, the fundamental frequency (the lowest) should b...

The flute is an instrument that only one voice at a time, a monophonic instrument. Or isn't it? Humming and blowing at the same time can produce parallel motion or even polyphonic motion of two voices. Here is an example. Polyphonic Singing, For the Contemporary Flutist by Wil Offermans In Offermans's example, he focuses on blowing and singing at the same. If we just sing/hum without blowing any air, the sound is different. Lately, I wrote a piece for marimba and I learn how the resonator works.  The introduction of the marimba resonator If humming on the flute without blowing, the tube of the flute becomes the resonator of the voice. If the tube length (fingering) matches the harmonic series of the voice, it amplifies the harmonic partials, producing two tones at once. The playing technique is to make sure to channel the air stream to the nose.  This is my piece below experiencing the technique of humming without blowing and humming with blowing. The beginning of the pie...

Again, on every acoustic instrument is played, it does not just produce the frequency is played (the fundamental) but also the sequence of frequencies as the series of integers multiple of a fundamental. It also applies to the piano and has some special effects to play around. Diamond notehead indicates pressing the key silently. If we silently press a key (release the damper on the string) an octave of the note you strike, you can hear the octave-higher note is ringing/ haunting. This is the result of harmonic series, the natural vibration of the string. This also works when you silently press the key an octave and a fifth higher. I can play this effect around, the notes or chord I want to play press silently. Then, I strike the keys below, the chord is isolated by the harmonic series. Limitation This effect is effectively below the C5 of the dampen key since the stings on the high range are too short to pick up the vibration below and sustain very little. The harmonics that can be us...

Christine Sun Kim (2015) is a deaf artist who explores the ways of transmitting sound and silence through visual art and composition. As Kim (2015) discusses, the transmission of sound only is a monophonic texture in terms of medium. With gestures and sound, two mediums, transmitting at the same time, it creates a polyphonic texture. To play an acoustic instrument, movement is a basic criterion to produce a sound, blowing, fiddling, strumming, beating, or even pressing a key, all of which involve movement and motion. For performing music, the gestures project music through a musical instrument, as the medium of sound, the movement transforms to sound. The instruments react to the performer's action with sound. The movement of body parts composes gestures. Gestures are considered the opposite of postures: gestures are dynamic, and postures are static (Miranda & Wanderley, 2006). The instrumental interaction refers to actions such as grasping, manipulation, and noncontact movemen...

A drone is a music technique of uses sustained sound notes or tone clusters. The drone often has the function of referring to a tonal center or a sustain a tone color. Here are two examples, an old 12th century and a 20th century, using drones as a contrasting function. In the old Leonin's biphonic texture, the drone anchors the tonal center of the organum; in the new Young's minimalistic texture, the drone demonstrates the timbre of the instruments. Organum Duplum for Christmas Day, "Viderunt Omnes" by Leonin (fl. 1150s — d. ? 1201) Composition 1960 #7 by LaMonte Young ( 1935-) The drone does not have to always be audible by itself. I developed a ring modulator, the carrier frequency is the open C on cello (65.41Hz), which means the signal gate opens and closes 65.41 times per second.  Here is my pure data patch The carrier frequency (65.41Hz) is inaudible by itself. When the audio signal is inputted, the modulator ​​creates two brand-new frequencies which are the su...

In Western music, the measurement of time is time signatures and metronome marking. This method is strict and mechanic, not very humanistic. So, in the romantic period, in order to more express the sentiment, tempo rubato is a device to break the strict time counting. In Japanese shakuhachi music. It was used by the monks of Zen Buddhism in the practice of blowing meditation (suizen, 吹禅) since the Edo era (1603-1868). Breathing in shakuhachi music works as a measurement of phasing. No complex maths of counting and measuring, using breathing is the most direct device of natural expression and connect to nature in the sense of meditation. Example of shakuhachi music Not just only shakuhachi music, in general vocal and wind instrumental music of Japan, breathing and phasing are inseparable (Tokita & Hughes, 2008). Please listen to the Kabuki music (theatrical music). Listen to the steady tempo of percussion and Shamisen (a plug three-stringed instrument), notice the free rhyt...

Pythagoras discovered musical pitches are ways of vibration. Different intervals of pitches correspond to different ratios of vibration, for example, 1:2 ratios produced an “octave”, 2:3 as fifth, etc. He found new pitches with the ratio of fifth (2:3). Pythagoras saw sound as vibration and motion, to project it to the larger scale planets moving in orbit should also produce a sound. The relative speed of planets response to the certain interval as well. For more info, please visit this article . Similarly, in ancient Chinese philosophy, Guan Zi (c. 720–645 BC) has a view of musical tones related to geography and agriculture in his Diyuen chapter. The way ancient Chinese found pitches was based on a series of adding 1/3 and subtracting 1/3, called subtracting and adding a third method (Sān fēn sǔnyì fǎ).  The starting length is 81 (3^4) namely as "Gong( 宮 )" (do), the soil of Huangtang  黃唐土 The next pitch is 81x4/3= 108 as "Zhi( 微 )" (so), the soil of Heizhi...