compositions

The compositional process is interesting, and, in a way, easier to talk about than improvising, because, whereas improvisation is concentrated in the moment and synthetic, composing spreads itself across time, and is instead a more gradual assembling of discrete events, and because of this, it's less complicated to tell a story about it.

TO COMPOSE literally means "to stand with". And, in practice, all musical events are composed, in the sense that music is social - i.e. people stand with people: there are relationships. To make music with people involves some kind of concord among them.

THIS IS COMPOSITION: people agree somehow to together make whatever sounds they choose in a particular way. And, this gets called MUSIC.

What Europeans have traditionally called musical composition, where one composer designs sounds for other musicians to play, is only one of many ways to do this.

IN THE SENSE OF COMPOSING BEING AN ARRANGING OF SOUNDS, COMPOSITION CAN BE CONSIDERED AS A KIND OF Slow Motion Improvisation. BUT COMPOSITION CAN ALSO BE AN INSTIGATION OF A SOCIAL EVENT, AND THERE ARE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN MAKING MUSIC THROUGH A MACHINE, WRITING NOTES FOR MUSICIANS TO READ, A FIXED OR IMPROVISATIONAL COLLECTIVELY MADE MUSIC, or INVENTING MUSICAL DESIGNS FOR IMPROVISERS.

how sounds may be coordinated, and how people respond to that, really interests me. and, i explore this by Testing My Own Sensibility and by learning from how other listeners respond to what happens. i equally find fascinating how people who make music come to comprehend a musical possibility and interact to let some music happen. Both how people relate with sounds, and how people relate with each other via music, tells a lot about what human beings are, and might be.

The PROCESS of HOW a composition comes into existence is a story in itself, as much as the music has a life of its own and should speak for itself.

IN THIS SECTION I TALK ABOUT HOW VARIOUS COMPOSTIONS EVOLVED, the kind of thinking and experiences that occurred, and SOME OF THE STRUCTURES involved in their design.

-patrick brennan

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COMPOSITIONS MENU

PAGES ARE STILL IN DEVELOPMENT. SCORED EXAMPLES STILL TO COME...

which way what and CHARLES MOORE'S snuck in
which way what
scissor bump
covert
circumspect
spin
wide meander
round square

...and some words about composition:

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