u/HaifaJenner123

i’ve noticed i have recently started to interpret scores differently whenever i look at them, sort of how those windows XP screensavers would have the rubix cube shapes that bounced from side to side changing colors. except it manifests as a kinetic energy instead of actual imagery .. i’ve been meaning to write some low stakes stuff to practice developing my style in this regard so i’m taking the opportunity to fully incorporate folk songs and the memories of sounds/energies present at major events in my life

this first one is about the 2011 arab spring and the hours leading up to the first night in cairo, i was back and forth on whether i liked it or not but i decided that shouldn’t get in the way of just writing something. so hope you enjoy what i have so far haha

Composing is somewhat of a religious experience for me from time to time, as it lets me find out what constitutes "me" or "my mind." My favorite experiences are when I become overwhelmed with emotions due to making a breakthrough in this pursuit, and I truly think this piece made that happen. Specifically, when I was writing the second number, I got an idea to create 4 extra non-pitch tones using the rhythmic tension (the overtones present at the end of that number), and it made the rest of this super clear to me as well. I hope you enjoy!

So this ballet is a sort of renewal of one I planned with a family friends of mine, she’s a dancer who studied dance in Argentina and now lives in Spain. It tells the story of her life post-studies living as a professional dancer, but is a sort-of absurdist take on things.. one of our inspirations was Company, specifically because of the overture and how stubborn it is to resolve, so there’s a slight nod to that with the main rhythmic motif, although it takes the form of a zapateado in a sudden quick turn.

That whole ironic set-up and then deceptive turn theme I actually came up with while I was watching the movie Scott Pilgrim vs The World, lol. The sort-of subtle energy of realizing the surroundings and the background fading from New York to Toronto as a rhetorical device gave me the idea to treat our two sounds as a way to signal a “realization” (using modes from Egyptian, where we grew up.. and Spanish (Cadiz region) where the story takes place)

The “vamp”-ish bars are where each main dancer would make their first entrance, with a choreographed realization of their surroundings, which is why each one leads in and out of a “mirage” feeling. And of course, the opening starts with a potentially Egyptian *or* Spanish trumpet call, and then makes a sharp turn using Malambo and Zapateado rhythms but with Egyptian harmonic structures. This is to immediately prepare the audience for the type of production that’s to come so that I can get the more “risky” harmonies introduced asap to familiarize.

Hope you enjoy!

Hi everyone! I posted a clip of this piece a few days ago and received a ton of interest in the final product/process so I am here with an update! First, I do want to mention that this is very much a process that I am still in the process of working out how exactly to express in its simplest form - if anyone is interested in helping with the mathematics and that stuff, I’d love to work together actually! It’s somewhat a continuation of the work I did in my masters where I rewrote all 76 Arabic maqamat (scales) using recalibration rather than microtones. In fact, the whole piece is actually using a mode from that but the way I blend it into western classical frameworks is by assigning non-octagonal values to the notes in a series. For example, this piece revolves around a 11-tone scale mapped evenly in the unit circle (called a pitch-class circle) and then classified into integer format using whole numbers from 0-11 (C=0, C#=1, …, B=11).

So what this means is we have an average that exists at the tonal axis center C(t)=0 where a C Major triad would be expressed using {0,4,7} in integer series format. That creates a lot of instability that wants to resolve but has a few options as to which direction to go.

To make it a little simpler, what this translates to in practice is I have a center starting at a concert A. Since we have a 11-tone series instead of 12-tone, and our base triad exists as {0,4,7} instead of {0,2,4} (or 1, 3, 5 in normal scale degrees), we’re going to rotate the two planes of bitonality within a perfect and diminished fifth in both directions. I chose to place the perfect fifth in its involuted form, so we go from A down to D a lot and that’s a healthy modulation. The diminished fifth occurs above, so we go in the opposite direction from A to Eb instead of E. These two key signatures not only get placed superimposed, but they also form the main scale at Letter C in the Eb Clarinet (A -> Eb/D# -> G). That has now provided us with the following keys to work with in standard notation format keeping those as the center:

- F Major (A is center pitch in triad)

- c minor (Eb)

- B Major (D#)

- e minor (G)

Those four keys will be very essential in stacking against each other to make sure the equilibrium quantity of the tonality at any given point is as close to 0 as possible. We’re also going to use each center as its own starting point of course.

However, in doing so, I try to flip the way each is voiced. For example, at mm123, the melody occurs in a way that each time it passes the center (A3) the key changes in configuration. Below the center is D Major, above is e minor when the melody passes through. This allows me to work within an evenly spaced perfect fifth going in both directions for this section, however allows me to still incorporate asymmetry into the mix so that it stays true to the original harmonic structure. This happens again in the 12/8 when you notice that the cello/bass alternate between C Major/g minor and in which direction the shape of the motif happens. Extending this, we have ways in which the harmonic language expands outwards in a stepwise manner as well as inwards, often towards the nearest available dissonant triad so that the ambiguity remains.

Ok, now on top of all this, there is another factor in rhythmic equilibrium. It’s pretty much just the first law of Newtonian physics, but you notice for example the piece is based in this evolving meter that sort of travels through everything and unwinds itself at the end. A more specific example is at m77, the timpani falls into itself towards the middle of the bar and then the energy is “scooped back up” in m79. There’s also the overarching structure of the 4/4 -> 12/8 -> 3/4 -> 4/4 trying to keep it as close to the center as possible in the same manner, with its own rate of change that’s ultimately expressed as a limit function ( Axis(t) = limDelta(t)->0 (C(t+ Delta(t) - C(t)) / Delta(t) ). And finally this resolves and is calculated using a damping coefficient of e^(-k • t).

Now all of this occurs as a spinning sensation (Rotational Velocity) which I achieved via harmonic shifting, which is the third plane in which the piece is concerned. m1-13 provide the fixed point of stability which we define as the static ground, expressed as a derivative of the tonal axis with respect to time as Vrot = dC / dt. You’ll then notice that when the strings play their lyrical theme towards the end that the melody is concerned with the exact intervals we mentioned earlier but arranged mathematically against the static ground. This is how everything works to come together to form a sound based in how it travels instead of its face value in a typical fashion.

As I post this, I want to point out that I composed it entirely using this methodology and have not edited for artistry yet, specifically so I could show the results. I’m also still in the stage of not really sure how to go about simplifying this into a framework that is at all useful haha, so that’s the next step in this project is figuring out how to relate and simplify into as little as posssible. I’ve tried this with previous pieces and it has worked in a lot of settings, and this is the first of my large scale implementations (like, for large ensemble). If anyone is interested in exploring this more as a compositional tool, I would love to work through the theory with more ppl to test it out!

In any case, hope you enjoy!