Tune contest, April 11th - 18th (rules changed)

Started by Fuzzpilz, Thu 10/04/2003 18:37:27

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Fuzzpilz

Look at the last post for the new rules. Old posts preserved for the sake of clarity to later viewers.




I liked Ben's entry last week better than mine, but here's the new contest. I'm going to go into a more technical direction again. Rules:

- Has to be twelve tone music after Arnold Schönberg's rules. I won't kill you if you're not entirely, rigourously strict and exact all the time, but try to adhere to them.
- Has to be in 4/4, and you can't use notes or pauses shorter than 1/8 note. This rule doesn't apply to nonchromatic percussion, so you can do whatever you want with that.

And there you are. Have fun, or not.

Trapezoid

BWAH)U_*$T*JEFUOIJSEFPU*JFE)*(U$TUJPIOFD_)$#*0-u$#*EFS*_U
Not technical rules again. That sort of thing hurts creativity. And I don't know or care who this Sconeburg dude is.

Archy in Germany

Dammit the one tune contest that I have a 100% chance of winning (being the only person who can understand the rules) and I'm in Germany. Bleaargh.

Ben

#3
Trap: I don't think musical theory hurts creativity at all.. But I think I already ranted about that once. :P

Fuzz: I'm a bit confused too, at least about the first ruke. Can you give us more info on this Arnold Shlongbork fellow? ;)

If I had won, I wouldn't have had technical rules.   ;D

This post uses too many smilies   :-*

Trapezoid

In the case of these competitions, I think it's better when the rules are creative in nature rather than technical. Like the body part anthem one from a few weeks ago. Get it? I'd rather not have to ever decide against a note or a chord that sounds good just because it doesn't comply to technical rules.

Ben

Yeah, I see what you mean. Although one point of these competitions is to learn how to work with the limitations given..

I agree that the rules could be more straightforward though. A lot of musicians (including myself) are more spontaneous than methodical, and basically just spit out whatever they think of, whether it's correct or not :). I haven't taken the time to really study musical theory, since I believe it's geared more toward understanding what you hear rather than composing.. Maybe I'm wrong -- that's just my opinion..

Fuzzpilz

Trapezoid: I don't think technical rules hurt creativity at all. They're about working creatively within restraints that are not actually much more formal or unpleasant than, say, "must be about robots". The point, as with rules about the content, is to do interesting things on the borders of the field without crossing them. :)

I'm surprised that so many of you have no idea what I'm talking about; haven't any of you had an education? ;)



Explanation:

As you know, in standard Western music the octave is divided into 12 semitones. Twelve-tone music is based on one series made out of all of these twelve tones, with no duplicates, i.e. it is exactly twelve notes long. You compose by layering copies of this. Note that the information in the series is sequence only; you may stretch the notes to any length you like, repeat the same tone as often as you want (but not after proceeding to the next), play several notes from it at once, transpose it, reverse it, or invert it.
Of course, you have to finish each copy of the series you use. Also, you're supposed to avoid having the composition centered on any one tone.




Is anybody actually going to enter? If not, I'll change the rules.

BOYD1981

okay, going by what you said would the melodies therefore have to go something like *ahem*
C, A#, F, D#, D, G, B, E, G#, C#, F#, A all in the same octave?

Limey Lizard, Waste Wizard!
01101101011000010110010001100101001000000111100101101111011101010010000001101100011011110110111101101011

Fuzzpilz

That would be a valid series, yes. You can't speak of octaves there, though; the series is only the base - for composing you can use it reversed, inverted (i.e. vertically, in relation to the first note) and arbitrarily transposed. Immediate repetitions are allowed, but you can't jump in the series, and you can't change the transposition in the middle of it either. Is it really that hard to understand?

BOYD1981

erm, well i am finding it a little confusing...

Limey Lizard, Waste Wizard!
01101101011000010110010001100101001000000111100101101111011101010010000001101100011011110110111101101011

Fuzzpilz

Then I'm very bad at explaining things. It's actually quite simple. Tried googling for less confusing information?

Archy in Germany

Here we go. Write down all the 12 notes there are. Now jumble them up. Now make a piece of music from just that pattern of notes.

Comprende?

frobozz

QuoteHere we go. Write down all the 12 notes there are. Now jumble them up. Now make a piece of music from just that pattern of notes.

Comprende?
It's far, far, far more complicated than that.  This is taken straight from my university theory textbook (ignore typos--I'm just flying at the keyboard here):

QuoteThe procedure for composing with twelve tones is perhaps the most methodically revolutionary technique of the twentieth century.  The Vienna-born composer, Arnold Schoenberg, is generally credited with developing and codifying this systehem that he believed would negate a sense of tonal centre.  

<snip>

Even before Shoenberg had organized his ideas into an actual method of composition, certain procedures were operational in his music, such as the following:
1.  Avoidance of the 8ve (octave), either as melodic component or harmonic interval.
2.  Avoidance of traditional pitch collections, that is, any that might suggest major or minor triads and therefore a tonic
3.  Avoidance of more than three successive pitches that might be identified with the same diatonic scale
4.  Use of wide-ranging and extremely disjunct melodies.

The principles mentioned above continued to hold true in much of Shoenberg's twelve-tone music as well as in that of his early followers, especially Webern and Berg.  His system was designed to methoidcally equalize all pitches of the dodecaphonic scale by the following means:
1.  A twelve-tone composition is to be based on an arrangement of or series of the twelve pitches that is determaned by the composer.  This arrangement is called a Tone Row or a Set.
2.  No pitch may be used again until all othe pitches have been sounded.  There is one exception to this restriction:  A pitch may be repeated immediately after it is heard.  Repetition may also occur within the context of a trill or tremolo figure.
3.  The tone row may, within the confines of the system, legitimately be used in retrograde (reversed order), inversion (mirroring of each interval), or retrograde inversion (reverse order of the mirrored form)

It is important to remember that the row is not ncessarily intended to represent a "theme" or "melody" but is more of a tool used by the composer to arrive at new musical gestures or vertical structures that he or she might not consciously have thought of.

(continues with examples)

Having said all of that, I'm not sure that this tune contest is such a good idea as one needs an INSANE amount of theory knowledge to write this sort of stuff.  It's not just a matter of "banging on the piano and seeing what weird sounds come out" at all.

-Fro.

Fuzzpilz

I don't know what's so insane about it; the composer merely needs to pay attention. :)

But as I said before, is anybody planning to enter?

Fuzzpilz

OK, since apparently nobody wants to enter, I'm changing the rules.

- Must be about robots. :P
- Must contain a sound related to telephones.

Happy now? :)

Sluggo

http://cygnes.homestead.com/files/robot.mid

It's called "Robot Dance", it has a telephone sound in it, AND it's a 12 tone piece. So there.



Oh, just for the record, I really hate Shoenberg and these stupid ways to make music a complex, yet well thought out, piece of garbage. Viva Romantica!

Trapezoid

There's a Robot In My Head
There ya go. It's really screwed up. I don't really know who Arnold Schoenberg is, but he'd probably soil himself if he heard this.

Helm

Excellent theme. Dodecatone music about robots it is, then.
WINTERKILL

Helm

http://www.sylpher.com/helm/Robot_On_Fire.mid

It's not all dodecatone. I found it very difficult to write 'groove' music using the restriction. So there's some freeform chromatics in there.
WINTERKILL

Fuzzpilz

#19
Note:

Since I'm going home over Easter and probably won't have internet access, I most likely won't get to judge this until Monday evening.

Good work so far. Sluggo: It should come as no surprise, however, that I disagree with you. :P

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