Writing for new instrumentation
Author: Stephanie Devlin, Blogger in Residence
This week I’ve arrived back to Durham for my final term as a music undergraduate. I have very mixed emotions about it! On one hand, I’ll be so glad to see the back of assignments, deadlines and exams, and especially to have more freedom in my composing with when and what I write, knowing that what I choose to compose will not just be for the sake of being graded. On the other hand, leaving formal education marks the end of an era, and change is always daunting.
A few days ago, I had my last workshop for the composition portfolio of my degree. This workshop featured an instrumental trio called e7b, and so our task was to write a piece for clarinet, cello and violin. This workshop was more daunting for me, as choral composition is what comes most naturally to me, whereas I struggle with instrumental composition! As a singer myself, I know more about the nuances and the technicalities of the instrument of the voice, whereas when it comes to instrumental music, I’m less confident.
The piece I wrote for this workshop is another puzzle piece of my portfolio which is based around the theme of the sea. I was inspired for this piece by a storm, but specifically the concept of the lull in a storm. A lull is a moment of calm or quietness, a pause that usually occurs in the middle of a storm. I wanted the music to thematically represent this idea of being stuck in the middle. I think in a sense all of us will sometime feel trapped in a lull. Our lives are constantly dictated by looking back at what’s just happened while simultaneously looking forward to what’s next. So, throughout my piece I have a sort of pushing and pulling idea, that shows our constant struggle but lack of success to gain control over the lull.
Structurally, this piece follows a loose arc structure. At the opening I want the sound to practically begin out of nothing, with a ppppp dynamic, and a raspy, hushed sound quality to the instruments. I really wanted to create a minimalist piece to portray my concept, with a limited range of harmonic material. The music at the opening acts as an eight bar theme, with alternating sustained chords, that become gradually developed throughout the course of the piece. The chordal movement is focused around a simple pattern in the bass of four bars of C and four bars of F, with the moving chords below:
The workshop was helpful in many ways. In listening to the piece played for the first time, there were some things I really liked and will keep, while other things I would like to change, and it’s great to have the opportunity to do that. For example, whilst I intend to keep the musical material the same, I intend to slightly change the way it is structured, to make the development between sections more gradual.
The ensemble themselves and the composition teachers were able to give me some really helpful advice on particular scoring nuances of my notation, and I was really grateful for this input. As someone who has little to no experience or knowledge of how string instruments work, they were keen to help me understood the workings of their instruments. I knew it was important to listen carefully to what they were saying, so that I could make my piece better in the long run. They encouraged me to be clearer in how I marked their bowing for example, and how I should mark things like articulation and dynamics. They reminded me that a piece rises or falls on its ability to communicate more than just the notes on the page, and as the composer we have the power to engage the players with our expression markings. One piece of advice they gave me which I’ve been particularly mulling over is to do with our understanding of simplicity. Sometimes it can be tempting to make a piece simple because it seems easier, but it’s often hard to write simple music well. A piece can be simple, but yet lack depth, and it is depth that makes a piece profoundly simple. I’m still not sure how practically to make a piece profoundly simple, but I do know it when I hear it in a piece, so it’s definitely given me food for thought.
Even though I don’t see myself pursuing this sort of instrumental composition in the future, there is so much structurally, musically and stylistically that I have learnt from writing it. I’m hoping to write one more blog post on my portfolio before I submit it, so stay tuned for that. Until then you can picture me counting down each of the 18 days to the end of my degree!
This is one of the pieces that particularly inspired me throughout this project. It is beautifully fragile, sensitive and moving, and so profoundly simple!: Howard Skempton- Lento
Written by Stephanie Devlin