u/anikom15

Example of modal music that can be looped indefinitely

This is my second composition in the form of Contemporary Classical–inspired Folk music. I'm working on ideas in 11/8 time that can be played in indefinite loops. This is the first of perhaps three to five pieces. Feedback is always welcome.

Sheet music: https://github.com/anikom15/music/releases/download/Hanakuma/jimmies1.pdf

You can also find my earlier composition here: https://github.com/anikom15/music/releases/download/Hanakuma/rustling.pdf
Animated score: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_ddYVXrydE

EDIT: This is primarily intended to be a discussion, so I am putting the example music at the bottom of this post to avoid confusion.

I've been developing ideas around treating music as a place rather than a narrative. As an example, I'm using an older composition of mine because it's simple enough to play with. The score (not the recording) is released under CC BY-SA 4.0, so feel free to use it.

We often treat music as a journey: establish a premise, develop it, create tension, resolve it, arrive somewhere different from where we started. This piece takes almost the opposite approach.

Instead of asking 'where is the music going?' I'm asking 'what if the music is a location that the listener learns to inhabit?' The goal isn't narrative development so much as creating recognizable landmarks that gain meaning through repeated visits. It's not intended as a replacement for developmental thinking, rather just a different compositional model.

A few of the ideas that came to me:

1. Ambiguous beginning

The piece begins on a C#m6 chord rather than anything that clearly establishes a tonal center. I wanted the opening to feel less like the beginning of a story and more like suddenly becoming aware of a memory already in progress. The listener experiences recognition before explanation.

Music often treats ambiguity as something to be resolved. Here, ambiguity functions more like an ambiguous object in a remembered place.

2. Landmarks

The most important harmonic landmark in the piece is a recurring A#m7 chord.

It's not necessarily the most dramatic chord. It doesn't function as a resolution. Instead, it works the way a landmark works in an environment. After enough repetitions, listeners begin to orient themselves around it, 'Ah, we're back here again.'

I'm interested in how a space can be developed through recurrence rather than through harmonic function. This involves a level of repetition that might seem self-defeating, but I find it serves as orientation. Encounters with the same chord in isolation are not enough, core fragments need several repetitions. The A#m7 becomes a landmark not solely because of repetition but also because of the repeated context around it.

3. Dream sequence

In the middle section, the original harmonic environment disappears and is replaced by entirely new harmonic material in the key of E. The key itself is not especially important. What matters is that the harmonic environment changes so completely that familiar landmarks disappear. The bass is gone. Only the drums remain to orient the listener, slightly transformed.

Functionally, it's equivalent to leaving a familiar location and entering a dream. The important thing is that the 'dream' isn't a contrasting development section in the traditional sense. It's not trying to defeat or transform the original material. Its purpose is to separate the listener from the original environment without creating narrative. The absence of the familiar environment strengthens the memory of it.

4. Repetition and recontextualization

The bass operates in two functions. In the opening sections it acts as melody, creating a recognizable contour that serves as both a landmark and a kind of musical personality. Later it becomes a drone built from only two notes. Rather than creating its own identity, it reinforces the harmonic landmarks. The bass retreats into the background while remaining present, helping the listener remember the space without drawing attention to itself.

For the harmony, after the dream section when the original material returns, it isn't literally restated. The same harmonic objects appear with the droning bass function and a time-shifted permutation. It's a projection of the same object, the same landmarks, from a different angle, as if listeners are walking around and seeing parts from different perspectives. The place remains recognizable, but the relationship changes.

5. Conclusion

What fascinates me about this approach is that it treats harmony, rhythm, and texture less as devices for forward motion and more as architectural or geographic features.

Since writing this piece, I have taken all my compositional effort into this direction. When writing these pieces, I find myself thinking about landmarks instead of motivic development, geography instead of narrative, and return instead of resolution. I don't mean for this example to be prescriptive. Not all pieces that I've made based on these ideas have the same structure or the same color of sound. In fact, I try to avoid making this into a 'form' or 'genre'. The idea is instead to be allowed to be flexible while remaining grounded in an 'accessible' sound.

Another fascinating aspect of this approach is that it doesn't lead to program music. The title is simply a tag that helps me remember the piece. The listener is free to construct their own place from the material. No location, story, or emotion is prescribed. That openness has been surprisingly liberating for me.

Have you ever written a piece that felt more like designing an environment than constructing a narrative? If so, what musical elements became your 'landmarks'? What did you learn from it? How did it change you as a composer?

YouTube Video (animated score): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGlkb9Kfh_o

Sheet music: https://github.com/anikom15/music/releases/download/Hanakuma/han001a.pdf

Main concern is spelling and notating the voice leading going on at measure 55. Thanks!

Apologies as I am not the best engraver. I would appreciate any feedback and tips on notation here. I will put it into Lilypond once I am set on how it should be laid out. Note that this is just a snippet of a larger piece.