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Tag Archives: compositions

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There are many's the theme from Megaman that I'm rather fond of. Don't want to be One Of Those People, the type that does That Sort Of Stuff, though. That would be terrible, to be sure.

Another Fugue, eh?

Well, it’s better than *nothing*, right? This one is on a theme from a computer game I was might fond of, Mega Man (X3; Blizzard Buffalo’s theme*).

I’ll say no more.

Fugue on Blizzard Buffalo’s Theme ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

*the internet keeps trying to tell me that he is actually called frozen buffalo. I will have to consult my memory more thoroughly to make certain, I guess. You can probably find a decent copy of the theme if you want know what it sounds like here.

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Yep. I don't like tooo much the direction I took that particular theme. Not as fun as people might expect. That makes it challenging then, right?

Some new pieces :D

So I’ve made some computer-rendered versions of these piano pieces what I’ve put up. You can check out the compositions page to listen to hear computer interpretations of the pieces I’ve already put up. This means that people can at least get an idea of what they should sound like. I hope nobody is toooo offended by it all.

But. I have three whole new fugues to add here. Now isn’t *that* something.

The first piece is a syncopated fugue I’m rather fond of, though it is a bit brief.

Syncopated Fugue ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

Secondly is a Fugue-version of a canon I did in the octave a while back. I’m not really too fond of it, truth be told. Saying that, I don’t think it’s the worst thing it the *whole* world.

Fugue on Canon Theme ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

Oh, and finally, a bit of fun. Yep.

Fugue on Pinky and the Brain Theme ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

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I've been well-Fuxed, oh yeah.

I’ve put up what some music yeah

Oh yes. Well then, as a break from this story-telling what I’ve been doing after a long put-off, I’m going to break what by putting up some of these compositions what I’ve written that’ve emerged from this composition group that formed itself at the start of the academic year within the maths department.

The scores of my efforts can be found here.

No recordings though. And I’d rather stay away from using this icky Sibelius plugin the one what’ll let you listen to midi files as you watch the score. So, not the most accessible of musical archives. Of course, if you actually want to hear any of them, then you should come along to this composition group what we have (get in touch with me if you want to know more details).

I’ve also been trying to get rid of some of these absolutely bizarre problems some people other than myself have noticed about links behaving quite naughtily. But in a way that leaves some of the less-important areas of the site unformatted. But OH WELL, right?

Right, bitch.

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This is a post reclaimed from a previous version of the website, which might explain its size.

Big compositions dump

Hmm, well; I used to write pieces of music as a wee kid; took a break out when doing the whole undergraduate thing – just tried to get back into it again this year – here’s a selection of (piano) stuff from when I was younger, and more recently (chronological order).

So, firstly some pieces from the olden days:

My first piece:

Blue ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

Something a little bangier:

Breaking Through ( ps | pdf )

Some etudes I wrote about the same time (number 9 is the best of them, the first section of which should be played with a sort of mechanical portato (okay, I find it really, really funny that spellcheckers and google insist that portato is a misspelling of potato. Why? Answers on a postcode)):

Study No. 6 ( ps | pdf | mp3 )
Study No. 9 ( ps | pdf | mp3 )
Study No. 14 ( ps | pdf )
Study No. 17 ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

When I decided to give writing a music a try again, I spent an entire weekend bashing away at the keyboard – I chuckle now hearing what I produced, especially given the great grief this output caused me, but I had to start again *somewhere*.

Olive Variations ( ps | pdf )

After this followed a glut of canons:

2-part Canon in the Minor Seventh ( ps | pdf )
2-part Canon in the Fourth ( ps | pdf )
2-part Canon in the Minor Ninth ( ps | pdf )
2-part Canon in the Octave No. 1 ( ps | pdf | mp3 )
2-part Canon in the Octave No. 2 ( ps | pdf | mp3 )
Three-part Canon ( ps | pdf )

I include only the right hand part of the following piece; the left hand is the right’s symmetrical image about middle C.

Mirror about C ( ps | pdf )

This is something pretty trivial. Feel like I should do something with the theme, though.

Modulation ( ps | pdf )

Then came a rather raggedy prelude:

Prelude ( ps | pdf )

Oh, I quite like this; probably my most tolerable pre-Christmas work; certainly the longest.

Henselt Variations ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

I wrote these “lullabies” either side of Christmas, though the first one is really more in the style of these patched-together pieces that come before, or Piece 1, but the other two are a littttle more successful I think.

Berceuse No. 1 ( ps | pdf )
Berceuse No. 2 ( ps | pdf )
Berceuse No. 3 ( ps | pdf )

Ah yes, then came our try at doing some jazz stuff…

Polonaise Sketch ( ps | pdf )
Arctic Sketch ( ps | pdf )

I don’t like this piece. It’s hard to play, and generally quite blah.

Polyrhythm ( ps | pdf )

Hmmm, more of a ricercar, but I suppose that we’ll survive; I’m fond of some of the sonorities in it.

Fugue and Variations ( ps | pdf )

Hmm; I thought that I’d be able to do a lot with this theme, but in the end…didn’t, really.

Piece 1 ( ps | pdf )

Oh! I like this piece (in the last section of the mp3 file, the right hand part can’t be heard; I’ll have fix this some time) .

Piece 2 ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

Hmm…don’t feel much about this piece either way, excepting it’s easy enough that I don’t have to feel bad about putting it up here.

Prelude and Canon ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

Not really enigmatic, but rather based around a password I would rather not forget. As it turned out, my encoding was a little, well, wrong, which caused me some small amount of embarrassment.

Enigmatic Fugue ( ps | pdf )

Hah. Someone used the term “rock epic” in response to one of the jazz sketches; I couldn’t resist rocking this prelude up a little bit. But the small mordant saves it from complete triviality. And what I would like to think is a tolerable fugue.

Prelude and Fugue in Bb – Prelude ( ps | pdf | mp3 )
Prelude and Fugue in Bb – Fugue ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

Hmm…two fugues, based on two arias from the Purcells’ “The Indian Queen”; the first one goes like

“Why, why, why should men quarrel
why should men quarrel here”.

The theme of the second fugue is based on an arias from the last section, a duet, with the lines quoted going,

Wife: My honey, my pug
Husband: My fetters, my clog
Wife: Let’s tamely jog on
Both: Let’s tamely jog on, as many other have done.

The last statement of this theme in the fugue continues the verse with the lines

Wife: And sometimes at quiet
Husband: but oftner at strife
Both: Let’s tug, let’s tug, the tedious, tedious load of our married life.

I find it a terribly, terribly endearing air.

Two Fugues from The Indian Queen No. 1 ( ps | pdf | mp3 )
Two Fugues from The Indian Queen No. 2 ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

Now this is a simple fugue I quite like. It strictly should be included in the 2001 batch of compositions I guess. Actually, I’ll tell the story. So I was all, like, loving all this counterpoint what was going around in the summer of 2001, and decided that it’d be just groovy if I could write a fugue. So I tried, and I was quite proud of my efforts, and I posted it to some website. And the dudes there were, like, “Dude, that’s nice, but it’s not a fugue”, and this frustrated me a little. I found myself remembering it last summer, and thought I’d like to root it out, but all I could find of it were some preliminary sketches of the theme and some other voices. I tried completing it as I remember it, but I wasn’t able to get it right. But there was enough to construct an actual fugue from it; it turned out okay! It was very satisfying.

Fugue in A ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

And now for another bunch of fugues – the first one doesn’t have too much character other than a rhythmically off-putting countersubject really.

Fugue in A minor ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

Another Purcell-related fugue, this time “come come ye sons of art” from his music for the Queen’s birthday; pretty straightforward, if a little long, but nothing too jarringly unpleasant in it.

Fugue in C# major ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

The following fugue was lyrical enough that I couldn’t really resist tacking on a simple prelude based on a variation of that theme. I’m quite fond of some of the harmonies in the fugue.

Prelude and Fugue in G minor – Prelude ( ps | pdf )
Prelude and Fugue in G minor – Fugue ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

I amn’t quite able to decide whether the following fugue isn’t one of the must unmusical things I’ve written – it seems to have a certain dynamism, but…yeah…maybe I should blame it all on the countersubject… .

Fugue in C ( ps | pdf | mp3 )

It is only with the disclaimer that I do not claim the following “fugues” to have any real merits beyond a certain playfulness that I you see them here; they themes (which are, along with the first countersubject, well over four years old) are belonging to a friend of mine who I have no doubt will sue me for billions and billions if he ever sees that I have put them up here; the first theme is clearly not fugue-material and comes out sounding for the most part quite computer-gamey (indeed, it made me feel that there might well be a few fugues lurking about in the megaman soundtracks, that I should check sometime), whilst the second is a little more conventional, but still pretty loosely tossed together.

Fugue on a theme of NS in E ( ps | pdf )
Fugue on a theme of NS in C ( ps | pdf | mp3)

General Music Stuff

Some Formalizations in Musical Set Theory PDF or Postscript

An Introduction to Forms and Denotators (Mazzola Stuff) PDF or Postscript

Recordings

Here’s a small selection of what stuff still survives of my recordedmusic. Some of it’s fairly entertaining :)

I’m sorry about the dodgy quality of them – all the ones below were recorded via a minidisk player, copied to a computer, copied back ot a minidisk player, copied back to a computer, compressed, etc., then put up here. The ones recorded were also recorded with *very* *very* dodgy recording equipment. I did try to touch them up a little, but to little effect.

Sleeping Scared : Electronic , 2:29, 1.7mb

Beepy : Electronic , 1:09, 1.7mb

Improvisation: Gathered
Round
: Piano, 1:05, 0.7mb

Improvisation in three parts : Piano 36:35
Part 1 13:34, 9.3mb
Part 2 12.29, 8.6mb
Part 3 10.32, 7.2mb

Improvisation around Dies Irae (very rough) : Piano, 4:00, 2.8mb

Lento: synthesized strings, 4:25, 3.2mb

It’s a pity all of my better electronish stuff is long gone (it’s a pity for me anyway ). I did have some entertaining stuff though! I do have lots of midi files of piano stuff I wrote also, but they’re…well – not really for listening to.