Composition Commons^™

A Generalized Intervallic Approach To Metric Conflict In Liszt, Robert L. Wells

Music

The music of Franz Liszt has become widely recognized by music theorists for its harmonic and formal innovations. However, little attention has been given to adventurous rhythmic/metric aspects of Liszt’s compositional style: specifically, he frequently incorporates rich metric structures in which the notated metric layer, indicated by time signatures and bars, and heard metric layer, given by cues in the sounding music, are locked in an evolving conflict. To model such interactions, this article develops a new analytical system based on Lewin’s generalized interval system (GIS) concept, constructing a new three-component metric direct product GIS called Met. The article …

Pós-Tudos, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

“Pós-tudo” is the name of a Brazilian concrete poem from 1984 by Augusto de Campos. A more or less literal translation would be: “I wanted to change everything / I changed everything / Now, post-everything / Ex-everything (I study) / I change (mute).” The last two lines have double meaning in Portuguese, shown in parentheses in the translation.

I borrow the word “pós-tudo” from this poem to name my first collection of piano études. An étude (“study” in French, “estudo” in Portuguese) is typically a short composition designed to improve the skills of a performer by isolating and exploring a …

Smoke & Mirrors, Justin R. Pecot

Music

No abstract provided.

Crotale Sample Library, Ryan Waczek

Music

This report will discuss the process of creating a digital sample based library for musical applications. Topics such as recording, microphone placement, and mixing will be addressed; as well as elements of design in Adobe Photoshop, and computer scripting in the language of the computer program Komplete 5 by Native Instruments. The instrument sampled is the crotales, an orchestral, melodic percussion instrument.

A Song Through Time: Tiger Rag And The Twentieth Century, Thomas Grady Hartsock

Music

Tiger Rag is one of the first recorded jazz works.This project investigates the initial creation of the work and follows it through five different artists in the twentieth century to explain how this piece of music has grown in it's hundred years of life.

Fiesole: The Hillsides Of Tuscany, A Musical Work For The Classical Guitar And A Study Of The Compositional Process, Matthew Goodman

Music

Fiesole: The Hillsides of Tuscany

This piece of music is composed for 4 guitars, and it includes all of the right and left-hand fingerings for all notes. The individual parts are printed out so it can be distributed easily.

Mesmo Que Depois, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

When a sample that is tired of suffering meets another sample that is also tired of suffering, it’s time to consider that intermodulation may suddenly happen. When there is a sample that sorely misses another sample, and this other sample does not understand it, just let that new intermodulation happen, even if clipping becomes unavoidable. How silly I was, trying in vain to rationally understand things about sampling that no one can actually explain. Come, let us try now, only a new use can twist the old one.

Clippings, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

Clippings is a collection of (so-to-speak) sound poems for voice, flute, and assorted objects. The first three are presented here: I. Whine II. Save my husband III. Crank her Monday

Drei, Dai, Dry, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

Viola, violoncello and percussion. [ca. 11’00]

Unspell, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

Unspell, for voice and electronics, reflects my continuing interest in the musicality of speech. The “pre-text” for the composition is l’Attente (Waiting), by Roland Barthes, from the book Fragments d’un Discours Amoureux (Fragments from a Lover’s Discourse). Careful work on intonation and prosody is complemented by electronic sounds that function at times as accompaniment, at times as rhythmic or timbral counterpoint. Spoken language, to me, is always pregnant with music. I won’t say much more, hoping the piece will speak for itself.

Biologie Littorale Des Mers Temperées, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

A title contributes strongly to the détournement of a work, but a reaction of the work on the title is inevitable. Thus one can make an extended usage of specific titles borrowed from scientific publications or military ones; and even from many phrases found in illustrated books for children. The French word détournement means deflection, diversion, rerouting, distortion, misuse, misappropriation, hijacking, or otherwise turning something aside from its normal course or purpose. This piece, as well as this paragraph, can be reproduced, imitated, or partially quoted, without the slightest indication of origin.

Três Fontes, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

What do you get when you mix saxophone fragments of Webern, Debussy, and Pousseur in one same algorithmic cauldron, in a bucolic park in Turin, Italy? This piece provides one possible answer to that question. “Três Fontes,” in Portuguese, can be translated as “Three Sources,” but also “Three Fountains.” You are free to use, study, remix, and share this piece.

Anomia, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

The text below serves as program notes for Anomia. It was written by Júlio Machado in response to the piece Anomia. The text, differently from the musical piece, has the title “Anomias”:

Anomias by Júlio Machado adapted by Bruno Ruviaro

Leve:

Um: sumir de si o … em que pela primeira vez foi primavera. Três: após as flores, desordem dos frutos sem o conforto das caixas. Cinco: De hora em hora, insectos soltos, frouxos, no ar. Sete: 14 onças tem meu corpo se preso ao tempo e livre do …

Severa:

Dois: ou sumir de si o … em que …

Sete Vazios, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

Piano solo.

Seis Vícios De Garlândia, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

“There are six vices of composition (…): the mixing of comedy and tragedy in the same part of the work; unsuitable digressions; obscure brevity; unsuitable mixing of styles; improper mixing of subjects; and the use of endings not suitable to the type of writing.” [De Arte prosayca, metrica, et rithmica (13th century treatise), by John of Garland]

In Other Words, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

The point of departure of this piece was an improvisation recorded two years earlier with Justin Yang and Grace Leslie. Although the piece ended up developing its very own compositional processes, mainly in terms of algorithmic manipulation of rhythm, the model offered by the recorded improvisation was always present to suggest important musical solutions throughout the compositional process.

The Spell Of Speech, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

This text is a complement to the musical composition The Spell of Speech, a piece for actress, electro-acoustic sounds and live-electronics composed in 2004 as part of the requirements to conclude the Master’s degree in Electro-Acoustic Music at Dartmouth College. The core of this research is the relationship between speech and music composition. The first chapter presents a theoretical framework comprising evolutionary musicology and music cognition. The second chapter contains a historical survey of electro-acoustic music in which human voice plays a fundamental role. Finally, the third chapter analyzes the composition The Spell of Speech, presenting the main techniques used …

Têmpulo, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

Têmpulo: time, temple, but also leap. Têmpulo was composed in reaction to Mark Applebaum’s piece “Theme in Search of Variations”. While trying to find a name for the piece, I came across with this: “Temple [from Latin templum, tempulum, ‘a small division’; from Greek, Latin term to cut off, mark out]: Templum was a spot marked off for sacred purposes by the augur with his staff, and might be on the ground or in the sky, where it was a region designated for the observation of omens. […] There is a suggestive connection with temple and tempus (Latin “time,” from …

Instantânea, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

Instantânea was commissioned in 2005 by Brazilian pianist and composer Tania Lanfer. The piece is in fact consists of two short pieces, two “instantaneous” movements. The first concentrates on sounds less commonly associated with the piano. The second brings back the traditional timbre of the instrument and subtly modulates it electronically.

Ventania, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

The text below serves as program notes to Ventania. The particular use of commas and capitalized letters is intentional and should not be altered. “Vento”, in Portuguese, means “wind”, and “ventania”, a particularly strong wind, Twenty-three surviving fragments of music are presented here, says the composer, in a somewhat uncomfortable explanatory tone, One after the other, he continues, As if they could possibly reconstruct all the other meaningful connections that were lost along the way, The wind has come and gone, someone oddly interrupts, at times no one seems to be paying attention, or is it just me, one can …

Gedankenfabrik, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

“Zwar ist’s mit der Gedankenfabrik Wie mit einem Weber-Meisterstück Wo ein tritt tausend Fäden regt Die Schifflein herüber hinüber schiessen Die Fäden ungesehen fliessen Ein Schlag tausend Verbindungen schlägt.” [excerpt of Urfaust, by Goethe] “A verdade é que a fábrica de pensamentos É tal qual o ofício do tecelão, Em que um passo move milhares de fios, As navetas cruzam de um lado a outro, Os fios deslizam sem serem vistos E mil nós se formam de uma só vez.” [excerto de Fausto Zero, de Goethe. Tradução de Christine Röhrig]

Tripoe:Try, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

The piece treats texts by Poe, cummings and Mallarmé as “musical fragments” — specifically, Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart serves, in a more modest setting, a similar function as that of Mahler in Berio’s Sinfonia: some sort of ongoing, complete background quotation of an entire work, onto which various other elements are grafted. (*) Clear quotations appear once more: Nono and Stockhausen being the most prominent, so to speak. From Berio’s A-Ronne, I borrowed a vocal process of splitting vowels and consonants of a same word among different singers. When these borrowings appear, they are usually connected to some portion of …

Four Hands(-On), Bruno Ruviaro

Music

Four Hands-on experiments with algorithmic processes to control rhythm and harmony. It is a piece of medium difficulty.

K, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

Three percussionists and electroacoustic sounds.

Dois Pontos Sobre Uma Linha Curva, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

Short piano piece composed between May and August of 2002 in São Paulo, Brazil.

Seven Infinitely Short Periods Of (Winter) Time, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

The piece “Seven infinitely short periods of (Winter) time” was composed in 2002 during my first Winter in the United States. It was my first Winter with snow (lots of snow, by the way; I was living in New Hampshire). The experience of below-freezing temperatures was something completely unfamiliar to me, accustomed as I was to the other side of the thermometer, the “above-melting” temperatures from Brazil. The names for each of the movements are merely insinuated on the score (they appear at the end of the last page of each movement: Musification, Old Tune, Basement, Wilting, What??, Snow Down, …

Pérolas E Porcarias, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

5 musical scenes for actor, percussionist and baritone. Text fragments by Augusto de Campos, Hilda Hilst, Goethe and brazilian newspapers. [ca. 10’00]

In a quasi Faust-Mephisto relationship, the baritone and the actor get into musical friction: singing versus spoken word, pitch versus noise, etc. The singer hums to himself a lied by Schumann at a certain passage, without lyrics; as if remembering a tune. Later in the same piece, the actor goes to one side of the stage and puts on an old LP — preferably, as I indicate on the score, the opening of Verdi’s Traviatta. The singer …

Fragmentos De Cartas, Poemas, Silêncios, Retratos, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

String orchestra.

Pneuma Ápeiron, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

Piano, violin, viola and violoncello.

Instabilices, Bruno Ruviaro

Music

Harpsichord version premiered by Kelly Savage, Stony Brook University Chamber Music Festival, May 4th, 2006.