Composing Experiments Summer 2023

After my busiest spring recital/concert season since 2019, I’ve been looking forward to having more mental space for creative projects this summer, so when my fellow composer friend Holly Mead asked me if I wanted to join her in some composer nerdery (I use “nerd” strictly as a compliment), I said yes!

We’re working through Jorge Variego's book Composing with Constraints: 100 Practical Exercises in Music Composition, which has prompts using various sets of parameters limiting different types of musical elements. I’m looking forward to the challenge and the invitation to write for more different instrumentation.

I’m aiming to complete one exercise per weekday and share them here (please excuse the cheesy MIDI sounds), but “disciplined yet flexible” is the name of the game - I’ll be happy if I finish them all by December!

Here are the first 4 exercises:

Exercise 1: Create a scale with 5-7 pitches, and write a melody for solo flute with a clear focal point, using specific rhythm excerpts.

Exercise 2: Compose a melody for solo oboe that starts and ends on different pitches, and uses the given scale and rhythmic material. 

Exercise 3: Compose a melody for solo clarinet that uses all available pitches in the given scale for the first 5 measures, then only uses a subset of 4 pitches from that scale.

Exercise 4: Compose a melody for solo bassoon using only 8th notes and rests that uses all available pitches in the given scale for the first 5 measures, then substitutes 1 new note into the scale for the rest of the melody.