Sketching with Schillinger: Orchestral Cue Part 3 Harmony
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- čas přidán 27. 07. 2024
- This is Part 3 in the series 'Sketching with Schillinger'. This series was created after receiving tutorial viewer requests to demonstrate working with the Schillinger System of Musical Composition in more detail. I'll show how an orchestral composition can be created from a basic element, the 'melodic cell'.
In Part 3 the focus is on sketching with harmony derived from the melodic cell source material C-D-Eb, using various techniques from the Schillinger System of Musical Composition and applied in the example orchestral composition. There is both the diatonic and atonal (Pitch-Class Set) interpretation. You'll see extended chords in thirds, progressions with cadential character, pedal point, chromatic mediants and strata harmony. The latter is based on 5- and 6-part structures, using parallel chords in 5ths (coupling) with counterpoint and contrary motion setting, and extended chromatic mediant chords. Use Part 1 with the full composition in reduced score as a reference. Watch Part 2 for a discussion of the sketching process in the melody and rhythm domain. The combination of melody and harmony in the closing section is discussed in Part 4.
Companion document (text, diagrams and score fragments, PDF, 79 pp., A4) available on Patreon.
See the catalogue at www.fransabsil.nl/archpdf/Pat...
Full score at www.fransabsil.nl/notes/sketc...
Contents (Part 3):
00:00 Opening titles
00:48 Section 1 Introduction: what this video is about
02:08 Section 2 Overview: the Schillinger System, composition form and techniques
04:02 Section 3 Harmony
04:09 Section 3.1 Diatonic interpretation, pedal point
07:28 Section 3.2 Triad close position voicing, inversion, cluster
09:31 Section 3.3 Chordal functions, root movement, chord progression, cadences
13:40 Section 3.4 Alternating chords and chromatic mediants, Riemannian Tonnetz
19:06 Section 3.5 Strata Harmony phrases
19:50 Section 3.6 Two- and three-layer strata, chords in perfect 5ths, contrary motion
25:07 Section 3.7 Pitch-Class Sets, non-diatonic harmony, intervals, motif and development
37:11 Summary and Conclusion
#SchillingerSystem #MusicComposition #Orchestral
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The best Schillinger resource on the internet!
@danmcgirr4210 Please do not put too much pressure on my shoulders ;-) I am exhausted from the major effort to create this latest set of video tutorials, and may need some time to recover. But your ranking is being appreciated, for sure!
@@FransAbsil No pressure I think you have offered more than enough! I love that diagram you created to move through different variations and ideas...pure genius. I'm in the middle of making my own following yours and have it printed out. At a glance can add some variation or concept. Love it. I hope good fortune surrounds you going forward. All the best!
I just got around to watching this part. (Classes at Arizona State started two weeks ago, and I've spent a lot of time getting ready.) Things have settled down, so maybe I'll get to the final part in a week or so.
@Christopher Heckman, The teaching profession comes with great responsibility. And therefore it takes serious time to prepare and present high standard lectures and exercise material. Creating these video tutorials has many similarities. Hopefully watching this set of episodes will be a relaxing counterpoint. Surely you will discover the occasional disturbing error (as you have before and as I did myself a posteriori), but let that not discourage you. Best regards!
Great to see all of the rejected ideas that are usually missing from such series.
@snowleopard9749 Thanks for the comment. Indeed, usually the intermediate sketches end up in the bin, without sharing any failures. Although I do illustrate steps in the Schillinger System techniques/procedures in other tutorials, here I went somewhat to the extreme, showing many rejected sketches and ideas, and how I would polish these to become a final product. Glad to hear you liked the result.
@@FransAbsilHello Mr Absil. Do you keep your rejected sketches in an idea file for further reflection, hopefully to get a creative spark from them, or do you discard them to never be seen again?
Another question sir. Do you keep a tally of your creative 'failures,' and calculate a running tally of a ratio of your successful sketches to your failed sketches?
@williammcghee863 There are no statistics for success-to-failure rate. In my experience these numbers vary widely: sometimes days of experimenting may (frustratingly) lead to nothing, other times, when being in-the-flow, useful ideas come quickly. What does work, is to keep going; somehow the process of sketching triggers the creative part of the brain. So, unfortunately I cannot give numbers. My question in return: what would my performance numbers mean to you?
@williammcghee863 Both may happen, i.e., rejected sketches for specific projects will be discarded forever, but some ideas with more general application potential may be used in a later project. I keep both manuscript and computer sketches in folders with (hopefully) mnemonic names. Thanks for asking.
Frans, at 9:54 you explore the chords that result from using the melodic cell (c,d,eb) as upper extensions of given pitches (c,ab,f,d,b,g). I gather that these pitches are derived from positive root cycles R3. Is this correct? Was it a compositional choice to choose a progression starting on C, or is there some other reason? Any reason that it couldn't have been started from another pitch from the melodic cell such as D (R3 = D,B,G,E,C,A), with the corresponding extensions (for D - Dminor 7b9, etc?
Is there somewhere in the SSMC that this process of upper extensions + root cycle chords is referenced? I'd love to read more about it.
@Austin Poorbaugh. You are correct about the R3 root cycle at work when constructing chords in 3rds on {C,Ab,F,D,B(b),G}. This has to do with the fact that in this video section I investigate the diatonic potential. The reason for creating a progression on tonic C is that this pitch occurs also as a pedal point in the non-diatonic sections. In the SSoMC this pitch has become the primary axis (pitch-duration maximum). Also, for a progression on 'tonic' degree C, the melodic cell pitch-classes will be the lowest possible chordal functions in S7, S9, etc. Yes, you might try and start on tonic degree D, but then it becomes very hard to maintain diatonic, stable harmony ('simple' triads with limited extensions on the essential degrees I, IV and V, positive root cycles, cadential closing, etc.). When asking for where to look in the SSoMC, I would recommend Book 5 (Harmony H), Chapters 2, 9-11 (all covered on this YT channel), Book 6, Ch 1 (M and H), the S13 family. Sorry for the late response. Thanks for asking.
@@FransAbsil Thank you for the elaboration on some of the point presented in the video, Frans. Combining the nuggets of info in your comment with a re-watching and the correct sections from the SSMC make for an incredibly elucidating bit of compositional learning. I've found myself humming the initial melody created from the use of the C-D-Eb melodic forms - I think that it says something for either/both the creation of a melody and the implementation of Schillinger's concepts.
No worries at all on a late response, half of the joy in writing a comment here is knowing that your reply will be genuine and informative. While I cannot say that there is a huge SSMC/Schillinger community (If there is please let me know!), your channel has become something of a treasured resource to me along with the other comments from viewers.
@auedpo Indeed, there is a very limited number of Schillinger System sources. In the US there was the Schillinger Society, whose co-founder Philip DiTullio sadly passed away in 2021. The Society was a meeting place for composers and online students, interested in the system. In the UK equivalent services are provided by Jeremy Arden. On the European continent I currently am the Don Quijote defending the legacy. Maybe somebody will chime in with more names. Occasionally I look for relevant and useful online sources, but it seems my retirement is postponed for another while ;-)
weirdest chord ever: v b2 #4 [no7] voicing: #1 5 #5 5
@good.citizen Thanks for the comment. I tried to find the exact spot in the video where this voicing is mentioned, but failed (searched specifically in Sections 3.1 and 3.3 from this video uploaded in Dec 2022). The 'weird voicing' probably has to do with a 'chords-in thirds' chordal function interpretation of an atonal, pitch-class set based, chord structure. This indeed may yield 'strange' results, that do not make sense in a functional harmony context. In order to comment in more detail, please help and provide the time instance of this voicing.