Is it possible? Has anyone done it with anything complex? I mean, like a whole symphony even.... i think some composers used to do this, but how?
I can compose in my head all the time, whole symphonies and what not. I can even do fugues. Lot's of it is purely derivative drivel, but i get a couple of good ideas every now and then. Not that it matters. I have a terrible memory, and i can't read music anyway. Not sure why absolute pitch would have anything to do with it though.
Jay Greenberg is said to have the ability to compose and orchestrate in his head on the fly like most other prodigies of the past. Perhaps you can ask him how he does it, if you can manage to contact him.
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on January 05, 2008, 12:09:29 PM
I can compose in my head all the time, whole symphonies and what not. Lot's of it is purely derivative drivel, but i get a couple of good ideas every now and then. Not that it matters. I have a terrible memory, and i can't read music anyway. Not sure why absolute pitch would have anything to do with it though.
I know what you mean by this..... but i was referring to composers with experience, who have a good sense of relative/absolute pitch (in contrast to perfect pitch, where supposedly it's possible to write nearly anything in your head, kinda like Mozart did, although not as fast lol).
I read that Prokofiev wrote his entire 1st symphony without the piano, and Mahler wrote his later symphonies without piano, yet both of the don't have perfect pitch. There's only 2 problems with composing in your head: 1) when making up stuff, knowing exactly which note it is; 2) remembering everything! Rhythm and stuff isn't much of a problem, it's pitch itself that's the main thing- if it were possible to easily get past this difficulty, i could write entire scores in my head.... but i've never figured out how to... has anyone else?
Quote from: 僕はグレグ (Greg) on January 05, 2008, 12:18:19 PM
I read that Prokofiev wrote his entire 1st symphony without the piano, and Mahler wrote his later symphonies without piano, yet both of the don't have perfect pitch. There's only 2 problems with composing in your head: 1) when making up stuff, knowing exactly which note it is; 2) remembering everything! Rhythm and stuff isn't much of a problem, it's pitch itself that's the main thing- if it were possible to easily get past this difficulty, i could write entire scores in my head.... but i've never figured out how to... has anyone else?
This topic is very interesting. I have the same questions about composing in head. I am waiting for any remarks.. ??? :o
Karl on the board here talked with me about this very thing...about pitch. He told me how to practice it. You take a note on the keyboard and hum along as you hit it. Then try to hum that note but don't touch the piano. At least I think that's how he told me.
Anyway, once you get good at it, you can hear notes in your head and know exactly what note it is. It just takes some practice at the piano.
Quote from: 12tone. on January 05, 2008, 01:26:24 PM
Karl on the board here talked with me about this very thing...about pitch. He told me how to practice it. You take a note on the keyboard and hum along as you hit it. Then try to hum that note but don't touch the piano. At least I think that's how he told me.
Anyway, once you get good at it, you can hear notes in your head and know exactly what note it is. It just takes some practice at the piano.
thanks, 12tone! :)
i'll pm him and see if he can add to this thread
(i'll try that btw) ;)
Quote from: 僕はグレグ (Greg) on January 05, 2008, 06:12:52 AM
Is it possible? Has anyone done it with anything complex?
Is Ferneyhough complex enough for you? -
Quote from: Brian FerneyhoughI have never used an instrument while composing, other than the flute, when working on details of some of my flute compositions.
There's an interesting little "interview" on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Brian_Ferneyhough), if you didn't know about it yet.
Quote from: 僕はグレグ (Greg) on January 05, 2008, 12:18:19 PM... 2) remembering everything! Rhythm and stuff isn't much of a problem, it's pitch itself that's the main thing- if it were possible to easily get past this difficulty, i could write entire scores in my head.... but i've never figured out how to... has anyone else?
Yes, this is my main problem as well. One can compose in one's head much faster than one is able to write it all down. Usually I just try to write out the melody or maybe sketch out the basic movements of the voices and maybe a couple notes on the orchestration. Then I find it much easier to remember what I had in mind and can then orchestrate fairly easily.
Quote from: Symphonien on January 05, 2008, 05:25:08 PM
Is Ferneyhough complex enough for you? -
yes :D
Quote from: Symphonien on January 05, 2008, 05:25:08 PM
There's an interesting little "interview" on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Brian_Ferneyhough), if you didn't know about it yet.
thanks, that was very interesting!
especially:
QuoteThere are computer programs which can rapidly write you a symphony in the style of Mozart: what they are patently unable to do is come up with the flashes of perverse insight which makes a piece REALLY Mozartian
wait..... seriously? which ones? :o
Quote from: 12tone. on January 05, 2008, 01:26:24 PM
Karl on the board here talked with me about this very thing...about pitch. He told me how to practice it. You take a note on the keyboard and hum along as you hit it. Then try to hum that note but don't touch the piano. At least I think that's how he told me.
Anyway, once you get good at it, you can hear notes in your head and know exactly what note it is. It just takes some practice at the piano.
is this like the official way of doing it, i wonder?
there's lots of programs for learning perfect pitch, but often they just don't work. And there's no way i'm spending that much money.
Weirdears told me something about ear training, but unfortuanetely he doesn't post here anymore...
It doesn't matter whether you have perfect pitch or not. Music is a language, it has a lot of vocabulary and techniques that you have to learn, process, understand, then you can put musical material together in standard or - if you have that level of creativity - innovative personal ways. Being able to imagine sounds precisely is much easier for people with perfect pitch, but even these people have to learn how to work with the material. Beethoven obviously composed his late works in his head, he didn't have a choice, and the fact that they turned out to be astonishing innovations is not due to his perfect pitch, but that he was an extraordinary musical thinker.
Quote from: M forever on January 07, 2008, 02:25:52 PM
It doesn't matter whether you have perfect pitch or not. Music is a language, it has a lot of vocabulary and techniques that you have to learn, process, understand, then you can put musical material together in standard or - if you have that level of creativity - innovative personal ways. Being able to imagine sounds precisely is much easier for people with perfect pitch, but even these people have to learn how to work with the material. Beethoven obviously composed his late works in his head, he didn't have a choice, and the fact that they turned out to be astonishing innovations is not due to his perfect pitch, but that he was an extraordinary musical thinker.
i don't mean to sound rude, but this is a pretty obvious point. :P
my reasons for wanting to learn how to "write" a score in my head with knowledge of the
exact pitches is that i'd love to be able to write whenever possible, wherever possible, and in the end just write it all down when it's done. Plus, i'll get more music written this way...... lately i've been extra careful when writing, instead of rushing the music, so it'd take forever to write something short at this speed. And what if you have more musical inspiration at a time where you can't sit down and write at the computer with the keyboard/guitar? The reasons are endless, really..... just hope it's possible....
Quote from: 僕はグレグ (Greg) on January 07, 2008, 01:39:14 PM
thanks, that was very interesting!
especially:
QuoteThere are computer programs which can rapidly write you a symphony in the style of Mozart: what they are patently unable to do is come up with the flashes of perverse insight which makes a piece REALLY Mozartian
wait..... seriously? which ones? :o
Take a look at this site:
http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/mp3page.htm (http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/mp3page.htm)
No Mozart. Will Bach, Beethoven and Chopin do? ;D
Quote from: 僕はグレグ (Greg) on January 07, 2008, 02:58:05 PM
Plus, i'll get more music written this way...
That's most definitely something you do
not want to do. I'd focus on a few but decisive works rather then spread out over a large opus nobody is going to listen to anyway.
Quote from: 僕はグレグ (Greg) on January 07, 2008, 02:58:05 PM
i don't mean to sound rude, but this is a pretty obvious point. :P
No problem, but I don't think it is really that obvious to you. Otherwise, you wouldn't have asked the above questions. Think about it. If you think in an actua musical framework, everything falls into place in that. You don't necessarily need absolute pitches as reference points. There are other considerations as well anyway, such as how to write for particular instruments or voices, they also dictate part of the framework.
Quote from: M forever on January 07, 2008, 02:25:52 PM
It doesn't matter whether you have perfect pitch or not. Music is a language, it has a lot of vocabulary and techniques that you have to learn, process, understand, then you can put musical material together in standard or - if you have that level of creativity - innovative personal ways. Being able to imagine sounds precisely is much easier for people with perfect pitch, but even these people have to learn how to work with the material. Beethoven obviously composed his late works in his head, he didn't have a choice, and the fact that they turned out to be astonishing innovations is not due to his perfect pitch, but that he was an extraordinary musical thinker.
Of course. But having a well-trained ear is an extremely valuable part of a composer's education. I don't want to say "essential," as Stravinsky after all composed always at the piano, and whether that reflected any shortcoming in his ear training I can't say. Stravinsky himself described composing at the piano as essential to his need to physically expereince sound as he wrote his music; and there's the famous anecdote about Carl Ruggles playing the same dissonant chord over and over at his piano ("I'm giving it the test of time!"). On the other hand, developing at least a very strong sense of relative pitch can be extremely valuable in that one doesn't have to use the piano as a crutch, and one can write more fluently. I started as a composition major at one of the better-known American conservatories after graduating high school; and one reason I eventually abandoned composing (the primary one being that I simply didn't have the drive or confidence to pursue music professionally) was that I felt my ear-training was too weak for me to write down my music without my having to resort to the piano for verification.
Quote from: Maciek on January 07, 2008, 03:21:01 PM
wait..... seriously? which ones? :o
Take a look at this site:
http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/mp3page.htm (http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/mp3page.htm)
No Mozart. Will Bach, Beethoven and Chopin do? ;D
fascinating.... amazing. This idea totally smashes the idea that atonal music is inferior to tonal music in the sense that you can just type in random stuff into a computer and get a composition. Because you can, too, with tonal music.
Right now, i have just turned on the Mahler opera, and it does sound a lot like something he would've written, at least in the styles of his song cycles. If he really did put in a bunch of information and just hit a randomize button generator, that's really amazing stuff.
Quote from: M forever on January 07, 2008, 03:28:16 PM
You don't necessarily need absolute pitches as reference points.
But if you're studying music, eventually you acquire absolute pitch/relative pitch anyways..... so proving this would be hard, since most musicians have a good sense of absolute pitch, eventually.
(if not, how do they even write or improvise on an instrument? lol)
Wow, 5,000 Bach chorales... (http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/5000.html)
Thanks Maciek! Very interesting site indeed.
Quote from: 僕はグレグ (Greg) on January 07, 2008, 03:44:21 PM
(if not, how do they even write or improvise on an instrument? lol)
I doubt that improvisation has much to do with perfect pitch.
I don't think most musicians "write" music, but I haven known composers who do not have perfect pitch, but that didn't stop them from writing great things.
Vice versa, if there are so many people with perfect pitches (like you claim), how come we still only have so few truly "great" composers?
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on January 05, 2008, 12:09:29 PM
I can compose in my head all the time, whole symphonies and what not. I can even do fugues. Lot's of it is purely derivative drivel, but i get a couple of good ideas every now and then. Not that it matters. I have a terrible memory, and i can't read music anyway. Not sure why absolute pitch would have anything to do with it though.
Absolute 100% ditto. However, I find it greatly helps the memory if, once you come across something really worthwhile, repeat it over and over in your head endlessly - get it stuck. Then find some sort of mnemonic device that will help you remember it, put it totally out of your head for a few minutes, and then summon it back. If you can recall it then, you will pretty much never forget it. I can still remember chipper and cheery tunes that danced around my head for a few weeks when I was 14ish. ;D
That said, lacking any ear training or pitch-whatever, or ability to read or write sheet music, it is hard to know if the tune is "on-key" when I recall it. The biggest opponent of the process, though, is my own taste, which mandates that even after months of going over and liking a collection of musical ideas, in a split second I'll decide it's worthless and cast it aside. Only a tiny handful of ideas have actually survived which remain on my good side.
For the record: I think I first found that site thanks to GMG - but don't remember who gave the link or why, when etc.
Quote from: Sforzando on January 07, 2008, 03:29:38 PM
Of course. But having a well-trained ear is an extremely valuable part of a composer's education. I don't want to say "essential," as Stravinsky after all composed always at the piano, and whether that reflected any shortcoming in his ear training I can't say. Stravinsky himself described composing at the piano as essential to his need to physically expereince sound as he wrote his music; and there's the famous anecdote about Carl Ruggles playing the same dissonant chord over and over at his piano ("I'm giving it the test of time!").
....and Ravel - who said something along the lines of 'one can't discover new chords without the piano'.
Personally, it depends on what I am composing. I often compose away from the piano, though not having perfect pitch I find it necessary to check things over. But when writing certain types of thing the feel of the instrument and the technique of letting my hands follow their flights of fancy is too useful to deprive myself of.
Quote from: Gustav on January 07, 2008, 06:37:52 PM
I doubt that improvisation has much to do with perfect pitch.
I don't think most musicians "write" music, but I haven known composers who do not have perfect pitch, but that didn't stop them from writing great things.
Vice versa, if there are so many people with perfect pitches (like you claim), how come we still only have so few truly "great" composers?
whoaaaaaaa this is totally misunderstanding what i'm saying.
I didn't say
perfect pitch, i said absolute pitch, the type most/every? musician has. Perfect pitch is totally different, it's just an extra nice tool that has nothing to do with talent.
maybe i should use the term 'relative pitch' to avoid confusion? ;D
Quote from: Brian on January 07, 2008, 09:17:41 PM
Absolute 100% ditto. However, I find it greatly helps the memory if, once you come across something really worthwhile, repeat it over and over in your head endlessly - get it stuck. Then find some sort of mnemonic device that will help you remember it, put it totally out of your head for a few minutes, and then summon it back. If you can recall it then, you will pretty much never forget it. I can still remember chipper and cheery tunes that danced around my head for a few weeks when I was 14ish. ;D
excellent
Quote from: lukeottevanger on January 08, 2008, 04:58:22 AM
....and Ravel - who said something along the lines of 'one can't discover new chords without the piano'.
Personally, it depends on what I am composing. I often compose away from the piano, though not having perfect pitch I find it necessary to check things over. But when writing certain types of thing the feel of the instrument and the technique of letting my hands follow their flights of fancy is too useful to deprive myself of.
those are things i've also thought about..... no matter how good you get with pitch training, i guess in the end when you're writing it down, you have to double-check and maybe change things, maybe even transpose entire sections.
well, mild success yesterday at pitch training, but i guess it'll take a WHILE to get good at it, since it isn't very exciting and gets old very quick. A little bit at a time is the best thing. Mostly successes with C, F#, and G#, being able to hum the note after totally losing any reference points. :)
Quote from: 僕はグレグ (Greg) on January 08, 2008, 06:37:32 AM
whoaaaaaaa this is totally misunderstanding what i'm saying.
I didn't say perfect pitch, i said absolute pitch, the type most/every? musician has. Perfect pitch is totally different, it's just an extra nice tool that has nothing to do with talent.
maybe i should use the term 'relative pitch' to avoid confusion? ;D
whoaaaaaaa I think we have to get our definitions clear to each other.
I understand "perfect" and "absolute" pitch to be synonymous: the ability to accurately identify any musical pitch one hears as an A, an F#, etc., just as most of us can identify the color green when we see a painting. Some say that this is an absolute memory that one either has or doesn't. I'm not sure. I had an enjoyable encounter some years ago in a music store when I heard a young fellow playing the Rondo alla Turca of Mozart, and I joined in on a second piano. He had learned the piece totally by ear; I had memorized it from the notation. Yet he couldn't figure out one progression in the bass (during the F# minor interlude), and I helped him out. Perfect pitch? I don't know, but pretty darn close. But perfect pitch is no guarantee of musicality; it is only a superior form of memory.
"Relative" pitch, which is equally valuable to the musician if not more so, is the ability to recognize pitches in relation to one another. If you play C and ask me to sing the minor sixth above, I sing you an A flat. It was said of Bernstein that he didn't have perfect pitch, but once he heard the oboe's A in the morning he could hear any pitch in relation to it. In a sense relative pitch is more useful to the musician than absolute pitch, because relative pitch depends on one's sense of relationships among intervals and pitches. Perfect pitch in its purest form is no more than a brute form of memory. I had a colleague at work who played jazz saxophone and could identify any pitch I sang to him, but he showed little sense of musical intelligence per se and couldn't even read bass clef.
Quote from: 僕はグレグ (Greg) on January 08, 2008, 06:37:32 AM
whoaaaaaaa this is totally misunderstanding what i'm saying.
I didn't say perfect pitch, i said absolute pitch, the type most/every? musician has. Perfect pitch is totally different, it's just an extra nice tool that has nothing to do with talent.
maybe i should use the term 'relative pitch' to avoid confusion? ;D
whoaaaaaaaaaa, I didn't say "killer", I said "murderer". "Killer" is totally different....
maybe i should use the term "criminal" to avoid confusion? ;D
please, don't come and tell me that you didn't know the difference between "perfect" and "absolute" pitch, or maybe you didn't...
ok, looks like i got the terms absolute pitch confused..... i was thinking it was synonymous with relative pitch instead of perfect pitch. Sorry about that. :-X
Perfect (aka "absolute" pitch :D ) can even be a liability for a musician, for example if you're used to hearing an A at 440 and then you sight-sing with a period group whose A is your G#. But more to the point, perfect pitch can be an easy way around the challenge of grasping intervallic relationships. If I can unerringly identify a C#, I am less likely to feel a need to identify a perfect fifth above F# or a major third below C#. A good sense of relative pitch, however, goes hand in hand with developing a good theoretical sense of melodic and harmonic relationships.
Perfect/absolute pitch--yes, they are synonyms--is useful in that you don't need an outside reference to "hear" things in your head, so it's easier to "write" a draft without notating anything on paper or Finale. But sooner or later you have to write the thing down. ;D Things always change when you write things down; you think of better transitions, a melody goes outside the instrument's playable range, you realize after writing it down and physically playing it that it doesn't sound as good "in the air" as it did in your head--that sort of thing.
Sforzando: Yes, it's hard having perfect pitch and having to transpose, and only lots of practice has helped me to do it. I have to "recalibrate" my pitch sense every time I hear a period-instrument group! And they're not all the same either; some of the French and British groups play at a pitch that seems to be about A390, since they sound a WHOLE STEP flat to me. :o
Gustav: Perfect pitch is actually very helpful when I improvise with a group. I don't have to ask, "Which key are we playing in?" ;D
I am sure many composers have this ability.
But just thinking of that I can make it just makes me shiver. ;D
I am just a mere performer. Even not a proficient one. :-[
It depends on what style you are writing in. I've written a whole symphony in classical style without any instrument. But then, when composing atonal music, this will never work.
Quote from: rappy on January 09, 2008, 03:02:35 PM
It depends on what style you are writing in. I've written a whole symphony in classical style without any instrument. But then, when composing atonal music, this will never work.
you mean, with relative pitch. As Ferneyhough said, he composes all his music in his head.
So far, i've gotten really good with the C note! I can recall it without any reference points, in any octave :o
I think i've figured out the trick to this: one note at a time, even if it's only one note per week. Think about this: you can recall the first note of any piece of music, without being in the wrong key, right? But just pretend that a single note is an actual piece of music itself. C, C#, D, etc.... And picture the key being pressed or the note on the staff, and hum it your mind.... it'll take a lot of practice, still....
No, I meant with perfect pitch. It's very difficult to imagine atonal harmonic progressions with e.g. 6 independent contrapuntal lines, also with perfect pitch.
You can try it in your head first, but I think it would be very dogmatic not to try it out on the piano after you've written a few measures. And you will certainly sometimes find notes which will fit better than the ones you've written.
While in the style Mozart wrote, it would be no problem at all to write a whole symphony in your head if you have both creativity and a bit of experience. You will know how all chords which fit into the tonal system sound, even if they are quite complex. For example, you won't think by "rational arguments" that now a mediant would be a good idea, you will hear in your head that it is the best of all possible continuations.
Quote from: rappy on January 10, 2008, 10:18:03 AM
No, I meant with perfect pitch. It's very difficult to imagine atonal harmonic progressions with e.g. 6 independent contrapuntal lines, also with perfect pitch.
You can try it in your head first, but I think it would be very dogmatic not to try it out on the piano after you've written a few measures. And you will certainly sometimes find notes which will fit better than the ones you've written.
While in the style Mozart wrote, it would be no problem at all to write a whole symphony in your head if you have both creativity and a bit of experience. You will know how all chords which fit into the tonal system sound, even if they are quite complex. For example, you won't think by "rational arguments" that now a mediant would be a good idea, you will hear in your head that it is the best of all possible continuations.
True, except this time you said "difficult" instead of "never work", and that's good...... 8)
Quote from: 僕はグレグ (Greg) on January 10, 2008, 09:56:25 AM
you mean, with relative pitch. As Ferneyhough said, he composes all his music in his head.
So far, i've gotten really good with the C note! I can recall it without any reference points, in any octave :o
I think i've figured out the trick to this: one note at a time, even if it's only one note per week. Think about this: you can recall the first note of any piece of music, without being in the wrong key, right? But just pretend that a single note is an actual piece of music itself. C, C#, D, etc.... And picture the key being pressed or the note on the staff, and hum it your mind.... it'll take a lot of practice, still....
That might have some benefit, but I think you'll learn more if you drill yourself repeatedly on interval recognition. There are some freeware programs that do that for you; one I found is here:
http://www.miles.be/
This one plays a cadence in a key, then it sounds two intervals and you must guess the notes and the intervallic relationship. You can select the intervals to be tested on, if (say) you want to focus on sixths or seconds. I must admit I'm sadly out of practice, but it seems like a cleverly designed piece of software. It comes in basic and advanced versions (and it's free).
Quote from: Sforzando on January 10, 2008, 06:24:48 PM
That might have some benefit, but I think you'll learn more if you drill yourself repeatedly on interval recognition. There are some freeware programs that do that for you; one I found is here:
http://www.miles.be/
This one plays a cadence in a key, then it sounds two intervals and you must guess the notes and the intervallic relationship. You can select the intervals to be tested on, if (say) you want to focus on sixths or seconds. I must admit I'm sadly out of practice, but it seems like a cleverly designed piece of software. It comes in basic and advanced versions (and it's free).
thanks.... but i honestly don't need that. Relative pitch is one of my stronger points.
thanks anyways 8)
Two stories: From early childhood I have had an extremely good musical memory: because of regrettable poverty, I was taught the piano on a cardboard keyboard, able to play once a week only on the piano at my teacher's. But this practice combined with my memory and transferred to composition by early adolescence, and by college I was composing quarter-tone works completely by mental ear.
And yes, the few times I was able to hear them, they corresponded exactly to what I wanted. Karl Henning has a recording of two little quarter-tone works of mine played on an early synthesizer, which I have earlier described as sounding like a Martian vacuum cleaner. :o
#2: Schoenberg had a child prodigy as a student named Dika Newlin. He played a few single notes on the piano to test her ear, and she never made a mistake. Then he went on to chords, and again she never made a mistake, but apparently was beginning to annoy him with an arrogant, bored "give me a break" pre-adolescent attitude, and he began playing hexachords, whose notes she still correctly identified.
Schoenberg then yelled: "Identify this!!!" and slammed his fists down onto a cluster of notes, and she began: "C, C#, D, D# ..."
Depsite this inauspicious beginning Schoenberg accepted her as a private student.
Quote from: Cato on January 11, 2008, 08:53:25 AM
#2: Schoenberg had a child prodigy as a student named Dika Newlin. He played a few single notes on the piano to test her ear, and she never made a mistake. Then he went on to chords, and again she never made a mistake, but apparently was beginning to annoy him with an arrogant, bored "give me a break" pre-adolescent attitude, and he began playing hexachords, whose notes she still correctly identified.
Schoenberg then yelled: "Identify this!!!" and slammed his fists down onto a cluster of notes, and she began: "C, C#, D, D# ..."
Depsite this inauspicious beginning Schoenberg accepted her as a private student.
Apropos of not too much (other than to show that even Schoenberg had an occasional moment of humor), there was a story told of him together with Dika Newlin and Richard Hoffmann, his secretary from 1947-51. To understand the joke you must know how to compare adjectives in German, e.g., dick (thick), dicker (thicker), am dicksten (thickest). Schoenberg would point first to Hoffman - Dick, then to Dika Newlin - Dika, and finally to himself - am dicksten.
Quote from: Sforzando on January 11, 2008, 09:52:39 AM
Apropos of not too much (other than to show that even Schoenberg had an occasional moment of humor), there was a story told of him together with Dika Newlin and Richard Hoffmann, his secretary from 1947-51. To understand the joke you must know how to compare adjectives in German, e.g., dick (thick), dicker (thicker), am dicksten (thickest). Schoenberg would point first to Hoffman - Dick, then to Dika Newlin - Dika, and finally to himself - am dicksten.
Great!
Danke sehr! Never heard the story before!
Quote from: Cato on January 11, 2008, 08:53:25 AM
#2: Schoenberg had a child prodigy as a student named Dika Newlin. He played a few single notes on the piano to test her ear, and she never made a mistake. Then he went on to chords, and again she never made a mistake, but apparently was beginning to annoy him with an arrogant, bored "give me a break" pre-adolescent attitude, and he began playing hexachords, whose notes she still correctly identified.
Schoenberg then yelled: "Identify this!!!" and slammed his fists down onto a cluster of notes, and she began: "C, C#, D, D# ..."
Depsite this inauspicious beginning Schoenberg accepted her as a private student.
Quote from: Sforzando on January 11, 2008, 09:52:39 AM
Apropos of not too much (other than to show that even Schoenberg had an occasional moment of humor), there was a story told of him together with Dika Newlin and Richard Hoffmann, his secretary from 1947-51. To understand the joke you must know how to compare adjectives in German, e.g., dick (thick), dicker (thicker), am dicksten (thickest). Schoenberg would point first to Hoffman - Dick, then to Dika Newlin - Dika, and finally to himself - am dicksten.
:o
that is some seriously good stuff.....
anyways, actually remembering a whole piece in your head is too much work.....
probably perfect pitch would be best for studying scores...
I always compose without the piano, and I always search for the right pitch.
When I was 8 years, I was not convinced about my perfect pitch. So when I wanted to compose, when I was in school, I took a bottle with me from home, and I knew its wind tone. :P
When I write atonal with many different lays, I still try as hard as possible to feel the whole harmonic meaning, which is very hard. But I think it´s important!
I also think the pitch means something, since the nature of a composition score is perfection.
that's surprising that YOU would compose without the piano, Mikkel! :o
but the more skills the better, i suppose 8)
Quote from: 僕はグレグ (Greg) on January 13, 2008, 01:49:00 PM
but the more skills the better, i suppose 8)
Not necessarily. Look how happy some of our friends, like 71dB, Mr Corkin, and Mr Grew are about their complete lack of skills when it comes to music.
Quote from: M forever on January 13, 2008, 02:03:24 PM
Not necessarily. Look how happy some of our friends, like 71dB, Mr Corkin, and Mr Grew are about their complete lack of skills when it comes to music.
;D
not to mention a lack of common sense on top of that! :o