Henning's Headquarters

[Cato]

The connections between Fair Warning and the Tango should easily lead to a natural, organic conclusion!

It looks like the work is almost finished therefore!   0:)

[greg]

Not sure how melodic the middle movement will shape up . . .the title is guiding me in certain other ways.  "Suspension Bridge" makes me feel rather structural . . . and yet "suspension" (even apart from its Common Practice implications of a certain sort of rhythmically prepared non-chord-tone) seems to me to demand that I create a music which floats more effortlessly than the term structure might suggest.The movement's necessary calm notwithstanding, I see the pitch-world still as (gently) dissonant.  I settled on a symmetrical 'scale' with no perfect octave. How does that work? you may ask.  There is a perfect 15th (or should I say, 15ma?) and from either end the series of intervals is the same, but in the center, no perfect octave.

The scale spelled with C as the "root":

C - D - E - G - A# - B - C# - D - F - Ab - Bb - C

So, because of the 'non-octave' in the center, it is a scale with built-in dissonance, we might say.  Yet, it starts (and ends) with the simplicity of (four notes from) the pentatonic scale.

I've also built a periodic rhythmic pattern which takes 73 measures of 3/2 to play out.

Work continues apace . . . .

Hehe, I remember experimenting with this type of stuff before. Mainly, I'd just mess around with a simpler version, though- for example:
A-C-D-F-G-Bb-C-Eb-F-Ab-Bb-Db-etc.

which is just one interval (A-C, minor third) repeated every perfect fourth (A-D). You can get some unique progressions, although when working with more than one voice at the same time playing in a different register, it kind of loses the effect it has (having to obey the scale for its own octave, it just ends up sounding plain atonal).

I've never tried a complex scale like that, though. Do you use this as a scale for only one instrumental line or do you set this as a scale for every instrument within that 2-octave range to obey?

[karlhenning]

The connections between Fair Warning and the Tango should easily lead to a natural, organic conclusion!

It looks like the work is almost finished therefore!   0:)

Well, there is ample work for me to step through, but I do think it should go smoothly!

[karlhenning]

Hehe, I remember experimenting with this type of stuff before. Mainly, I'd just mess around with a simpler version, though- for example:
A-C-D-F-G-Bb-C-Eb-F-Ab-Bb-Db-etc.

which is just one interval (A-C, minor third) repeated every perfect fourth (A-D) [...]

Yes, you've got a pattern which essentially steps through the cycle of fifths.  I think that would be a challenge to use, partly because of the limited interval content (a three-note cell which chains).  But I suspect it's a challenge worth considering!

I've never tried a complex scale like that, though. Do you use this as a scale for only one instrumental line or do you set this as a scale for every instrument within that 2-octave range to obey?

I suspect I may bring in 'external' pitch structures from the outer movements at some point . . . but maybe I shan't "need" to, I'll see how it swings.  What I've done so far is this:

Throughout this passage, I am using the scale which G as the "root." However, I have the two instruments "mis-octaved," as it were, so that (because it is a property of the scale that the G repeats not at the octave but at the fifteenth) the viola and the piano each have "their own" G's.

Nowhere have I set the scale forth as a scale, in straightforward "dictionary" form, though in another piece I might.  The viola exposes the material of the scale in the course of its opening solo . . . then when the piano comes in, its use of the same transposition reinforces the material, even while the fact that each timbre is associated with its own fifteenth in which its instance of the scale lies.  There are other octaves within the scale, so even though many of the pitches are unique to one instrument or the other in a given octave, there is a place or two where (for instance) A is doubled between the instruments at the some octave, which I find a fun 'artifact'.

The rhythm of the piano is the out-of-phase pattern set in motion;  the viola has its own independent pattern.  My idea for the rest of the piece is in part to distinguish sections by variants in rhythmic mesh, and in having the scale in the two instruments separated at different degrees of transposition.  I shall likely crank the tempo this way or that in a couple of places . . . for I found to my own curiosity that once the piano entered, the opening tempo felt too fast.

(That's why the close of the viola solo has been changed since the image I posted on the 2^nd.)

[karlhenning]

(Well, and that's one way to kill off the conversation.)

; )

[karlhenning]

These past two evenings I've been at the museum, so Suspension Bridge has not leapt or bounded. Still, some work done both days, and poised for good progress Saturday. Especially as this Henning will sleep sound & long tonight

[greg]

I think... I get it... 

[Cato]

I think... I get it... 

You can create scales that span several octaves, and that do not necessarily use all 12 notes.  Gaps can be filled in by transposing the scale upward, or downward, depending on the instruments and where you started as a base/bass note.

Imagine therefore that e.g. a piano confines itself to a sort of pentatonic scale of major and minor sixths C-Ab-F-D-B-C, while a string quartet uses major and diminished fifths e.g. F#-C#-G-D-A-E-F#, where both scales are sharing the note D as a center, but then...

The two missing notes Eb and Bb could be used as a surprise conclusion - open fifths! - for the last bar!

Speaking of the last bar, it's time to drink breakfast!   0:)

[karlhenning]

Ah, hot tea!

[Cato]

Ah, hot tea!

Is it "Irish" tea?   0:)

[greg]

You can create scales that span several octaves, and that do not necessarily use all 12 notes.  Gaps can be filled in by transposing the scale upward, or downward, depending on the instruments and where you started as a base/bass note.

Imagine therefore that e.g. a piano confines itself to a sort of pentatonic scale of major and minor sixths C-Ab-F-D-B-C, while a string quartet uses major and diminished fifths e.g. F#-C#-G-D-A-E-F#, where both scales are sharing the note D as a center, but then...

The two missing notes Eb and Bb could be used as a surprise conclusion - open fifths! - for the last bar!

Speaking of the last bar, it's time to drink breakfast!   0:)

Ah, I see- that helps.

[Cato]

Ah, I see- that helps.

No problem!

In the example you could also end the work with open fourths across the octaves on Bb and Eb.  Maybe even more startling.   

Greg!  Get to work on this!   0:)

[greg]

No problem!

In the example you could also end the work with open fourths across the octaves on Bb and Eb.  Maybe even more startling.   

Greg!  Get to work on this!   0:)

I know there's many possibilities with this idea, but I'm not sure I like the sound of it. I guess I could experiment with this a little- may lead to something, anyways.

[karlhenning]

You've got the idea, though: liking the sound of something should be the First Thing.

[Cato]

You've got the idea, though: liking the sound of something should be the First Thing.

Right!  As always, Greg, don't feel obligated! 

If the idea charms you, then run with it, but if not, run away from it!   0:)

[karlhenning]

Re-fresh:

26 February De profundis [ Jaya Lakshminarayan & friends ]

15 March Passion rehearsal A [ Sine Nomine ]

15 March Passion rehearsal B [ Sine Nomine ]

15 March Passion rehearsal C [ Sine Nomine ]

12 May recital [ k a rl h e nn i ng Ensemble (Bloom/Henning/Cienniwa) ]

18 May recital [ Bloom/Henning ]

23 May pre-concert rehearsal [ Sine Nomine ]

22 June recital [ N. Chamberlain/B. Chamberlain/Henning ]

Score of Fair Warning

MIDI of Fair Warning

[karlhenning]

Am presently downloading what Shauna is calling "preliminary mixes" of the audio for the 21 June concert.

So she says she'll tweak some yet, which I am sure will be yet lovelier. Later this afternoon, I should be able to hear some of this stuff. I may use these "preliminary mixes" for the Instant Encore uploads.

[karlhenning]

Listening to the 12 May performance of Lunar Glare for the first time in perhaps two months.  I do still like the piece . . . sure wish I had played it better, but what are you gonna do?

[karlhenning]

In a couple of places you can hear the rumble of the Red Line train underneath St Paul's . . . nothing to be done.

[karlhenning]

Youch, a squawk and a half-squawk in the 21 June outing of Lunar Glare.  A pity! for there is a Più mosso section which (it is documented) I played better than I remembered . . . .

Ah, well . . . why worry, when it is only perfection which has eluded me once again? : )