Study in C

Allegedly, Arnold Schoenberg, the father of twelve tone atonalism, once said, "there is still a lot of good music to be written in the key of C", meaning that you can take a key, a group of notes that represent a tonality and create an interesting piece of music. You can create something that has never bee written before. The key of C is the most prosaic of keys so the challenge to make something interesting in the key of C is significant. 

One day, I  decided to take up the challenge and see what I could compose in the key of C. I came up with this piano piece that I call a Study in C. To me, the thing that makes the piece interesting is that I  feature the tritone, an interval that I was always taught never to use or to use sparingly and only briefly, in passing so that the sound does not linger in the ear. Well, most of what I compose goes against what I was taught, but isn't that always the way? In this piece I use the tritone obsessively. It gives  the piece a driving quality, an obsessive quality. It started out as an idea, a whim, something inspired by this aleged utterance by Arnold Schoenberg. I guess that there still is many good things to write in the key of C. Maybe I will see what I can write for the piano in all of the other keys.

What I like about this piece is the relentless forward motion of the piece. By the end, it has a driving quality that is almost hypnotic. I was very satisfied with the result of this little experiment in the key of C.

Part of my inspiration for this piece comes from the music of Terry Riley, one of the proponents of minimalism. The other part of the inspiration for this piece comes from Bach's Well Tempered Clavier collection, not any one piece in particular but the ethos of the entire collection.

Here is the link for the video on Youtube 

MEMORIES OF BARCELONA - GAUDI

I have finally finished the last section of Memories of Barcelona. It was inspired by the wonderful, fantastical architecture of Antoni Gaudi. This is the same Gaudi who conceived of the idea of the Sagrada Familia which inspired the second movement of Memories of Barcelona. Needless to say, I was very impressed with Gaudi.

As I was writing this piece I wanted to emulate the architecture that I saw in Gaudi park. the lines of the buildings and decoration have a certain baroque flowing quality . I wasn't going to try and imitate the Baroque style of composition, that would not be authentic, but I did want to capture the flowing ornamental feeling of Gaudi's work. That is what I tried to do in this composition.

Other than Bach, I can't think of another compose who I had in mind or listened to more while I was writing this piece. I listened to Bach's Well Tempered Clavier played on the guitar. I did listen to the music of Leo Brouwer. I don't how his playing and compositions influenced the piece but I did enjoy listening to his music.

Just as the middle section of Memories of Barcelona was slow and somewhat ponderous, I wanted the third section to be light and quick. I also felt that this feeling of lightness and quickness was more representative of Gaudi. The entire section is five minutes and thirty seconds ling long more or less. Again, I didn't want the section to be too long. I figure that when there is no more to say, a composer should just end the composition, so that is what I did. There is no resolution. There is no satisfying final cadence to let you know that the piece has ended. I just stopped. The funny thing is that I have a sense that the piece is still going on and I can hear in  my head that the piece is still playing. That is more in keeping with the sense of the piece than if I had used a more traditional ending. All in all, I am satisfied with the last section of Memories of Barcelona. All I need now is a highly skilled guitarist to play it!

Here is the link to the video https://youtu.be/bLGbsBv5LGQ