Etude for Horn

This etude is dedicated to renowned teacher and Horn player Christopher Howes.
This piece was written thinking of his charisma.

Viola piece beginning

Started writing a viola piece today. It's hard to put out of mind the solo viola sonata by Ligeti - the mere mention of him today was enough for me to want to write this piece, so I think I'm sunk either way.

Thanks Andrew and Andrew!

Month of Music Collab 3 - Josh Batty & Jarrod Hawn, Flute & Voice

Hello everyone!

I'm thrilled to introduce the third collab for Month of Music this year, duo Josh Batty & Jarrod Hawn.

I first met Josh when he moved from the UK to assume the position of principal flute in the Sydney Symphony. He brought with him his partner, now fiancé, Jarrod Hawn, who is a multi-talented actor, singer and DJ, and the two of them have become a bit of a fixture in the Sydney scene. They're self-isolating together and it's our luck that they've agreed to take part in this!

Jarrod's voice type is a Baritone, and if you'd like to listen to it, here's a recent performance: https://www.facebook.com/jarrodhawn/videos/10108008638955225/ As mentioned, he's also an actor, and I'm hoping that some works make use of that as well.

Josh has offered concert flute, alto flute and some piccolo, on the easy side. Here's the Martin Ballade https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDIZVqJVFPM which features a little of the flashy finger work he's capable of.

Parameters are:

- Happy to try anything, regarding extended techniques, performance practices and so on

- Duration is flexible, but perhaps no chamber operas.

- Flute + Alto Flute + Piccolo are the available flutes, but should you feel the need to get wildly creative with household items, bear in mind we are in lockdown.

- Due Date : mid April. This one is the most flexible. Josh & Jarrod are, as are many of us, still trying to figure out the best way to wait out the virus, so rather than these coming in all at once, the better approach would be to send the works through as they're completed, and produce the videos when time permits. I'll let you know if a more definite 'deadline' arises.

- Also, their boxer Mr G might feature in the works, whether you like it or not. (the price for self isolating with a boxer puppy)


As ever, please leave any questions in the comments down below!

Month of Music Collab 2 - Henry Liang, Shō

Hello everyone!

Today I'm going to be posting about two collabs - this is the first!

It comes from one of our composers - Henry Liang. He's a flute & piccolo player in the Royal Australian Navy Band, and has been a freelance shō artist for a number of years. In 2015, Henry was offered by Columbia University in New York to attend a 7-week residency in Japan to learn the shō, which is the focus of this collab. I recommend you check out his website henryliang.com.au to read a bit more about his experiences in studying the instrument, but suffice it to say it was highly immersive.

The shō is an extremely interesting instrument. It's a bamboo instrument with 17 pipes, sounded by free reeds. It's played by breathing in and out through the instrument, and is capable of some pretty incredible dynamic range. Be sure to check your chords against a fingering chart, as notes are assigned per finger and humans have these limitations. Also, it's one of the only instruments I can think of that actually requires periodic heating  (check out videos of traditional players and the charcoal bbq's they sit beside).

It's a pretty ancient instrument and features in prominent place within Japanese culture, and composers including Takemitsu, Maki Ishii, Minoru Miki and Yoshimatsu have brought a contemporary aesthetic to those traditions. The 20th century expansion of Japanese musical culture throughout Europe saw the likes of Cage, Hovhaness and Lachenmann compose for it as well.

There's some good reference material out there on how to write for it, and I'll be popping back in with a good one later today, but please don't feel intimidated by it - this is a judgement free zone to get some experience with a truly unique instrument.

Henry's parameters are:

- duration of up to 2-3 minutes

- you're welcome to use woodwind techniques such as flutter tongue and singing whilst playing.

- Due date: Monday, 30th of March


Please write any questions you might have in the comments below, I'm sure Henry will be happy to answer them or point you towards a resource or two!

three little lines in longhand scribbles

I left my computer downstairs and I am not going to get it, so here is some scribble instead.
I want to combine the first two lines somehow - I got distracted then

the middle is a thought I ended

the last is an already written song in Dharug language  - I wanted to start working on harmonising it for a larger arrangement but didn’t leave any room for harmony writing fbfjgjhk

anyway, stay woke gamers

xx

some trio piece - in progress

i did around 4.5hrs of online tutoring today - i mentor a class of HSC music students with their compositions and their school moved online this week. one of the students is delighted by the sleep-ins and staying-up-lates, and another feels lonely, separated from their peers. i can't imagine how weird and stressful it must be.................

here's a piece i started tonight which i'll be trying to finish tomorrow and then fully annotating every single musical decision i made, in order to demonstrate to the class how developing motifs can work in coherent, interesting, and sensible ways. my motif here is literally just 3rds i guess!



p.s. i'm using an expired trial version of sibelius that neither allows me to save the file nor export it into audio/score... does anyone have any advice as to........ how to not completely lose all this writing overnight or over the next few days? :/ and also eventually send it to people? the only thing i can think of is to transcribe it from this screenshot onto my old laptop which has a glitchy old version of sibelius but would suffice.

The Message of the Flowers - poem by Louisa Lawson

Just realised that I could export the score as a graphic, no need to convert pdf's into images. I've been hacking at screenshots for years, would love to have known this before now.

Ahh back to my favourite poet, and this heartbreaker that I presume is about her daughter who died young. (Her son grew up to be Henry Lawson, in case you didn't know.)

It's lacking all sorts of things including dynamics and articulations, but I'll get around to that when I've finished the fifth and final song, which I think is going to be a poem from Yeats, my other favourite poet.

sad in brisbane

I miss everyone.

had a tumultuous couple of days so I just sat down and said hello to the family grand piano now I’m here for the near future at least.

it isn’t that interesting but it’s a bunch of chords that feel nice to play. Sorry it’s long, was going to cut it in half but whooop here we are.

will write more once I’m settled :)

https://soundcloud.com/jmgibson/hello-from-brisbane/s-fZO01zmARRN

i came here to have a good time and - score draft

to be adapted for horns in F in the next couple of days 😮

Blue Mountains Mist - Solo Horn

 This would ideally be played in a remote, wooded canyon, although that's my stance for a lot of music.

forgot to compose so here're some drawings

here are some mushrooms i drew that i started colouring in; in some ways it's a graphic score i guess ¯\_(^~^)_/¯

Cuckoo - poem by Hilaire Belloc

I think I'm done with these rummy songs for a while, but they are fun to write.

 

started a thing, will continue tomorrow!! (bari horn quintet???)

i wish i had a baritone horn so i could record this super slow and then speed it up in audacity and see if it sounds like how i wanted it to sound 

Emily Dickinson on Bees

This one's the second in some April Songs I'm starting with.

Computerised audio:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m99ls9ixuc5w1uv/Emily%20Dickinson%20on%20Bees.mp3?dl=0

Month of Music Collab 1 - Andrew London, Horn

Hello everyone,

Some generous musicians have agreed to do a set of composer-performer collabs here within Month of Music, and I'm thrilled to introduce the first.

Andrew London is a brilliant horn player from Sydney, developing quite a reputation for playing some of the trickiest repertoire written for the instrument. He's a lovely guy and has set the following parameters:

- duration of up to 2-3 minutes

- please avoid multiphonics & microtones, but all other extended techniques are good to go

- no high C's would be appreciated but one or two is probably doable if the context demands it

- low range bottoms out around the D two 8ves below the D at the bottom of the treble stave (horn pitch)

- Due date: Thursday 26th of March


After Thursday, Andrew will record these and may wish to get in touch, so please indicate your preferred method of communication when you add your piece to the blog.

Following the recording, I'll seek the go-ahead from everyone involved and, if ok, do a bit of posting on socials. There's no pressure on this and you're also welcome to do the posting yourself if you wish.

Let me know if you have any questions in the comments!

Next one to come in a few days...

Not knowing when the Dawn will come

Hello friends! I had a couple of whacks today and this is the one that landed. It feels so good to write.

Here's the Emily Dickinson poem I set:

Not knowing when the Dawn will come, I open every Door,Or has it Feathers, like a Bird,Or Billows, like a Shore –

hopscotch (a bopscotch) - score only

hi andrew (and i think josie???) am i doing this right whooooo

EDIT: 

i forgot to say that vln speeds up a bit and vc slows down a bit over 4 of the x5 bars near the end, then they play the last repeat of three notes in unison

nothing but text!!

hello! I started by recording Andrew's piece, but got annoyed at my own piano/vocal limitations so stopped. Then I started a piece for voice+not sure yet solo instrument that just ran into the obvious 'what is this solo instrument' limitations of writing - only so much you can do when you don't know what you're writing for UGHGHGHHG so I only wrote as much as I knew. None of that is worth publishing so I feel, so I'm publishing a poem instead.

I hope I am kinder to myself in the coming days and weeks - I want to be writing music, I'm just not used to it just yet. I hope the days are treating you all kindly.



OPEN YOURSELF AND YOU OPEN YOURSELF TO
THE WORD
THE WORD IS NOT NECESSARILY DEFINABLE
NOTHING IS STRONGER BY BEING DEFINABLE
BUT INSOFAR AS YOU HARMONISE AND IDENTIFY
AND SING ALONG TO THE DEFINITION
THE IMMUTABLE GREEN OF TREES
THE IRREPRESSIBLE SONG OF SONGS
YOU ARE STRONGER FOR THEIR SINGING

THIS IS POEM MADE TRUE BY ITS CAPITALISATION
AND EMOTIONAL BY ITS READING
AND LOVED BY ITS BELIEVING


.

Morning - with a poem by Sara Teasdale

Hello everyone!

Full disclosure, I began this a few days ago, but it seems timely for this April's MoM. I wanted to be able to sing and play this one myself, but I think I'm a bit out of practice for a recording just yet.

Looking forward to doing more April songs.