If you’re like me, your number one love is writing music—but your number one skill is avoiding writing music. Every day, we find some “good” reason to avoid writing: I don’t have enough time I don’t have the emotional energy for it I don’t feel inspired I don’t know how to write what comes next […]
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Getting Started with Dorico
So you just got Dorico or you have the trial, and now you want to know how to use it. Here are a collection of resources and ideas I found helpful in my process: How to Get Started The fastest way to learn Dorico is NOT to learn about the interface theoretically. Instead, copy something. […]
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How Dorico Makes Creating Score-Following Videos a Breeze
Among self-published composers, a common task is making making score-following videos, in which the sheet music follows along with the recording. Preparing your score for these videos is potentially super time-consuming. The hardest part — and the easiest to mess up — is cutting the score into screen-sized segments. Using Dorico, however, making score follower […]
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Why You Should Be “a Composer AND…”
Unless you managed to have your composition career well underway by the time you graduated, you, like me, will need to get an additional job. The nature of that job is up to you—but it is something you must anticipate and plan for. These comments are not meant to discourage you from becoming a composer. […]
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Some Preliminary Notes on John Adams’s Phrygian Gates
Last week, I posted some notes about the fourth movement of Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto. As I thought further about what I wanted to do musically in my Hub New Music piece, I thought of John Adams’s Phrygian Gates. What I hear common to both pieces is a harmonic wash—that is, both pieces saturate entire spans […]
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Some Thoughts on the Fourth Movement of Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto—or, How a Composer Analyzes Music, and Why
An analysis of the fourth movement of Ligeti’s chamber concerto, which could lead to an academic article but was initially intended for creative purposes.
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One Way Writing for Harp is Different Than Writing for Piano
At the start of the year, I began working in earnest on the flute and harp piece I wrote for Luke Blackburn’s EcoMusic concert. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic is no longer happening this week, but that postponement does allow for a special opportunity! See below for more details. During the idea-gathering phase, besides reading […]
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Behind the Scenes on “Motion Lines,” from the PRISM Quartet’s latest album
As you may have heard, the PRISM Quartet’s latest album, Surfaces and Essences, came out this past week. I’m thrilled that my piece “Motion Lines” was on it—along with a bunch of other great music by Christopher Biggs, Victoria Cheah, Viet Cuong, and Emily Koh. First things first, if you haven’t listened to the album […]
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“What Gets Measured Gets Managed”
“What gets measured gets managed” is the quote attributed to Peter Drucker. For all that can be criticized about this idea, it’s useful to consider in composing. So let’s consider them! Here are some ways you can measure (or not) your work: 1: By how you feel about it This is the worst way to […]
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Inherent Vice — in Music
“Inherent vice,” says Wikipedia, “is the tendency in physical objects to deteriorate because of the fundamental instability of the components of which they are made, as opposed to deterioration caused by external forces.” As a property of physical objects, this is why certain papers and films last longer than others. It also is why materials […]
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