A couple of weeks ago, I posted some notes about Summer Rain – a semi-structured piece I had almost finished. True to my word, here are my final notes! Layout One of the first key problems with this score that I picked up on as I was writing the post, Read more…
Composers are often asked about what in particular influences their work. I find this a particularly troublesome question. So many things have undoubtedly had a huge influence on who and what I am musically, and on my developing compositional voice – from jams in music departments of schools I went Read more…
When I told my marimba player (the person for whom this piece is written) about the nature of Summer Rain, she said “Ah, that’s what we call composers being lazy!”. Thinking about it, I both agree and disagree with that statement. After all, the semi structured nature of this solo Read more…
A couple of weeks ago, I posted my survey results about key signatures, sharps and flats. The data drew me to the conclusion that there’s something special about both D major and minor that draws us to them. Armed with this theory, I sought to investigate. For a long time, Read more…
Thank you for the interesting thoughts on my sharps and flats research. I am currently in the midst of the next phase: trying to work out why D major and minor (and D dorian?) are the most popular scales. Hopefully it won’t be too long until I share more of Read more…
