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Old 11-27-2009, 05:48 AM
Mark W Mark W is offline
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Default Mark Walsen - Parallel Intervals for Piano

Hello Music Friends,

After 25 years, I finally finished the Parallel Intervals for Piano, which you can hear at http://www.soundclick.com/bands/defa...?bandID=512028

Here are the program notes I wrote up at Soundclick:

Parallel Intervals for Piano (1984, finished in 2009)
The general philosophy behind this Parallel Intervals piece is that by severely restricting options in one dimension of music, the composer is forced to be more adventurous in other dimensions of music to keep it interesting for the listener. In this case, many options in harmony are eliminated because each hand must play the notes in parallel. Therefore, there is a need to vary the music in other dimensions, particularly rhythm, meter, phrasing, dynamics, accents, and texture.

Parallel Seconds
This first piece is built out of major and minor seconds played simultaneously in the right or left hand. The notes are two or one keys apart on the piano. For the pianist, it feels somewhat like playing Chop Sticks. This Parallel Seconds piece further restricts itself to just the white keys. Thus, the overall tonality is calm (in C major); but tempo adds a little bit of energy, that raises question as to what the energy level of the remaining pieces will be like.

Parallel Thirds
This second piece is built out of minor and major thirds played simultaneously in the right or left hand. The notes are three and four keys apart.
As with the Parallel Seconds piece, this Parallel Thirds piece further restricts itself to just the white keys, thus the key of C major. The piece is light-hearted.

Parallel Fourths
This third piece is build out of only perfect fourth intervals, played simultaneously in the right or left hand. On the piano, the perfect fourth interval is 5 notes apart.

The perfect fourth, played on its own, has a very unresolved feeling. The perfect fourth wants to take the listener home. This Parallel Fourths piece is forced to defy the natural yearning of the perfect fourth to resolve, because each fourth is played by yet another fourth. Basically, all normal conventions of harmony are forced to be abandoned.

This abandoning of harmony may come as a shock to the listener, especially after the first two light-hearted pieces-- theParallel Seconds and Parallel Thirds. It’s not the intention of the composer to shock the listener. In fact, the composer attempts to tame the Parallel Fourths by further restricting them to a constant regular alternating of the fourths between the right and left hands, without any variety in tempo or meter, except at the very end.

What dimensions of music does that leave for creating interest and momentum in the piece? Listen for accent marks and changes in dynamics (loudness). Especially, listen for variety in the horizontal lines of the parallel notes, which are sometimes played very repetitively, and at other times with suddenly jumps out of line.

Parallel Fifths
This fourth piece is built out of only perfect fifth intervals, played simultaneously in the right or left hand. On the piano, the perfect fourth interval is 7 notes apart.

Succession of fifths immediately recalls the sound of horns, even when played on the percussive piano instrument. This piece cannot help but have a sort of retrospective midieval sound, although with a contemporary attitude.

This composer loves the sounds of fifths. Perhaps that enthusiasm shows in this piece.

Parallel Sixths
This fifth piece is build out of minor and major sixth intervals, played simultaneously in the right or left hand. On the piano, these notes are 8 and 9 keys apart.

This piece is sort of a stage for a friendly, even somewhat humorous, conversation between major and minor sixths, and between major and minor scales, which have such distinct personalities. Neither the major nor minor has a chance to say more than a few words before the other interrupts it. The most fun happens when they start talking at the same time.

Parallel Sevenths
This sixth piece is built out of minor and major seventh intervals, played simultaneously in the right or left hand. On the piano, these notes are 10 and 11 keys apart, or just 2 and 1 notes short of an octave apart.

Much of jazz music revolves around seventh chords. This Parallel Seventh piece is thus deeply aligned with jazz.

Because parallel sevenths are very difficult to play at a fast tempo on the piano, this piece, wanting to be played rather than sit on a shelf as a technical curiosity, keeps itself to a very comfortable, even lazy tempo.

This Parallel Seventh piece was left unfinished in 1984, and thus the whole collection was left unfinished, until 25 years later. I don’t know why it took me 25 years to finish this simple little piece.

Octaves
This last piece is built almost entirely out of octaves played in both hands. The piece recalls the themes from each of the previous sixth Parallel Intervals.

It took me 25 years of many abandoned attempts to finish the previous Parallel Sevenths piece, which was to be the last of the Parallel Intervals. Perhaps because I had revisited these pieces so many times over those 25 years, looking for an idea to finish the Parallel Sevenths piece, all of those Parallel Interval pieces were very familiar friends to me for much of my adult life. I never found the Parallel Sevenths piece to be a satisfying ending for the collection, which is perhaps the reason I had so much difficulty finishing it. Once I finished the Parallel Sevenths, it was obvious that there should be a final Octaves interval piece. With all of the other Parallel Interval pieces having been long-time friends, it was clear that the Octaves piece should give a final stage for the themes of each of the intervals. That is highly meaningful to me. It hopefully makes musical structural sense also.

Cheers
-- Mark
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  #2  
Old 11-29-2009, 06:50 AM
mgj32 mgj32 is offline
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Default Re: Mark Walsen - Parallel Intervals for Piano

Hi Mark,
Seems to me you have met the challenge you set yourself very well. You've also made a strong case for not only rhythm, melody and harmony (even as intervals) as basics of music, but also texture and form. I was most struck by the fourths and the sevenths, which comes across as charming. Did you slap your forehead and say "of course," when you came up with the idea for the finale?

I was getting some static in some of the sections, mostly the later ones, for some reason.

all best,
mgj
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  #3  
Old 11-29-2009, 07:55 PM
Mark W Mark W is offline
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Default Re: Mark Walsen - Parallel Intervals for Piano

Hello MG,

Quote:
Did you slap your forehead and say "of course," when you came up with the idea for the finale?
Lots of times over the years it occurred to me to write a final piece using just (or mostly only) octaves. But, yes, when it hit me that I should reuse the themes of all of the intervals, it was exactly like you suggested: "Duh".

I suspect that for many ears, these Parallel Interval pieces will sound somewhat mechanistic. Indeed, they do exhibit sort of a software developer's structural way of thinking about composition. However, if the pieces feel "cold", then I've failed.

My composition teacher, Robert Ward, told me when I was in my early 20s, and he was about my age now, that my composing tended to indulge in lots of ideas but needed craftsmanship to reign them into coherency. He promised me that if I continued working on the craftsmanship, then by the time I arrived at his age, I might find myself having fewer musical ideas jumping out of nowhere, but with those fewer ideas I had, there would be more craftsmanship to shape them together.

Alas, now I'm at that age (56) where indeed there do seem to be fewer spontaneous musical ideas. This also seems to be true in my software development work. In the case of software development, I do have 35 years of experience to better evaluate which of the fewer ideas are worth exploring-- and to not spend as much time rashly going down unproductive paths without first considering them calmly beforehand. I wonder whether if I had spent 35 years writing music instead of developing software, whether I would have far better judgment about which musical ideas to pursue, rather than just indulge in them in my usual improvisational method of exploring ideas.

Yes, there's distortion in the recording of the Parallel Intervals when things get loud. I'll have to re-record (and also practice more playing the pieces.)

Cheers
-- Mark
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  #4  
Old 11-30-2009, 09:25 PM
adrianallan adrianallan is offline
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Default Re: Mark Walsen - Parallel Intervals for Piano

Hi Mark

I listened to all of these pieces and enjoyed parallel 5ths the best. I could imagine it being in a collection of modern piano studies.

Second favourite was perhaps the exercise in sevenths, which evoked a totally different atmosphere.

I hope you consider making these pieces into printed scores, as there is a market for good quality modern studies.

cheers
adrian
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Old 11-30-2009, 10:02 PM
Mark W Mark W is offline
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Default Re: Mark Walsen - Parallel Intervals for Piano

Hello Adrian,

Quote:
I could imagine it being in a collection of modern piano studies.
It did occur to me that these pieces might have some value as piano technique exercises. But I have almost no good training in piano technique to know whether these would be good exercises. (I studied the piano between ages of 8 and 18, but my teacher taught the love of music, not piano technique.) I do know this about these pieces: They are not finger exercises! Pretty much, you leave you fingers forked in a fix position, any hit them around on the keyboard at different places. These pieces are exercises in wrist and arm control. For that, they might actually be well designed. It takes a lot of wrist and arm control to play with frequently changing accents, loudness, and degree of legato.

Quote:
I hope you consider making these pieces into printed scores...
It is ironic that I would work on sound recordings for these pieces before the notated scores.

Cheers
-- Mark
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  #6  
Old 12-05-2009, 07:14 AM
mgj32 mgj32 is offline
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Default Re: Mark Walsen - Parallel Intervals for Piano

Hi Adrian, Mark,
Now you've got me thinking about etudes. When I listened to "Parallel Intervals..." first, I had just read your description of the composition process, so I expected a piece of music organized around the idea of intervals, and I heard a piece so organized, but I forgot about all that fairly quickly and was hearing some music that I liked. One might consider it a pianistic study or a compositional study. But so could almost anything else.

Chopin has some wonderful pieces that he called etudes. But give them names that seem to fit the sound, and would they be considered etudes any more than one of his waltzes or sonatas? For instance, call the "Revolutionary Etude," "The Spirit of Revolution." Or call the Db Waltz "Etude in Db," rather than the "Minute Waltz." What would change? I can't really think of anything other than perhaps a general audience might be more inclined to choose the titles that didn't suggest the pieces were studies to listen to first, if given a list.

All of this doesn't lead anywhere, really. But it brought back faint memories of a time so long ago that it must have been in a previous incarnation when I was assigned Schumann's "Album for the Young," if that's the title--anyhow the one that "The Happy Farmer" is in. I was working on Rachmaninoff preludes, for heaven's sake, so why was I being made to regress? I think I was really working on a set of what my teacher decided were, for me, etudes by Schumann, and the he was trying to make me hear that I was playing the pieces as if I were a music box, and I eventually learned things such as a little rubato can go a long way.

So isn't every piece of music an etude?

all best,
mgj
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  #7  
Old 12-05-2009, 10:19 PM
Mark W Mark W is offline
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Default Re: Mark Walsen - Parallel Intervals for Piano

Hello MG,

Yours is a delightful post that ponders the role of etudes. I quite agree that Chopin's Etudes could have a different title, and hardly influence at all how the listener perceives them. I do find, myself, appreciating the "etudeness", the pianistic regularity, of Chopin's Etudes.

Hannon's piano exercises might be regarded differently by the listener. Only a piano teacher might enjoy them; but I suspect she probably hates hearing them every lesson ;-)

So, these Parallel Interval pieces could perhaps be named something differently; but I think something would be lost there. Although I want, like most composers, for the performer and listener to "feel" the music, I do also intend for the parallel interval property of each piece to be perceived in and of itself, in addition to whatever feeling is expressed with the parallel interval gadgetry being the vehicle of its delivery. Said another way, I do intend for there to be an intellectual listening element in the music. I hope that the listener will follow the progression through the pieces of parallel seconds, then parallel thirds, etc. and take some combination of intellectual and aesthetic delight in that.

However, I also have no problem with the listener just getting into the feeling of the music, without any regard to the parallel interval gadgetry. If the listener were to focus on only one or the other, I'd much prefer the listener to get into the feeling of the music.

The above is all presumptuous, though, that there would be many listeners who would get into the feeling of the music. I honestly have hardly a clue whether any but a few friends would get into these pieces as much as I got into them. It was the closest parallel between composing and programming that I had ever explored.

Cheers
-- Mark
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Old 12-06-2009, 08:12 AM
mgj32 mgj32 is offline
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Default Re: Mark Walsen - Parallel Intervals for Piano

Hi Mark,
I nearly mentioned Hannon's Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises last night, as an example of pure etudes. I don't think anyone would call this music, and I agree that there are probably few teachers who don't at least inwardly wince when they say, "let's hear what you've done with Hannon this week." I enjoyed them as much as I hated the sounds after a while. The enjoyment came from the gradual ability to relax the wrists and forearms and feel speed increasing through the use of of the fingers. But as music--blah.

Perhaps a clear difference should be made between exercises that build technical ability and etudes, which assume that ability and are more interested in problems with interpretation? This idea leads me back to my suggestion that all music (as distinct from exercises) presents the aspiring performer, ensemble or conductor with an etude, which at some point becomes a coherently interpreted performance, or performance that remains in the etude stage. (Hmmm, might make a nice catch phrase for critics writing unhappy reviews.)

Chopin's A Major Prelude comes to mind. No reason to call something so utterly simple to play an etude. Right? I am sure I never "got" it," never was able zero in on an essence I felt was there and translate it into sound. For me, it always remained an etude. I don't think I've ever heard it out of the etude stage, or I probably would have imitated that performance.

I wasn't saying that an intellectual component is unimportant in either composing or listening--listening as opposed to hearing. It can be simple as an immediate appreciation of Rimsky-Korsakov's use of the orchestra or more complex, as in what was meant by someone who said to me more than a half century ago, that you hear something new every time you listen to a composition. I think she meant that each time you become aware of what you may have heard many times and the new "information" contributes to your feeling for the music. It might be getting your mind wrapped around the overall structure of a movement, or realizing how the movement relates to the whole. Or it might be knowing that what you will hear deals with harmony through the use of intervals and hearing how the idea works out. But I do maintain that any piece probably won't get sufficient listening unless the listener develops a feeling for it.

There is a further point about what we hear and why. But with apologies to St. George, Sinding, and a host of others, I'm going to bed.

all best,
mgj
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Old 12-06-2009, 07:49 PM
Mark W Mark W is offline
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Default Re: Mark Walsen - Parallel Intervals for Piano

Hello MG,

I'm thoroughly enjoying your philosophy of music.

Quote:
... someone said to me more than a half century ago, that you hear something new every time you listen to a composition. I think she meant that each time you become aware of what you may have heard many times and the new "information" contributes to your feeling for the music.
That insight is worth deeply pondering.

I believe that the reason music arouses our emotions so much is that, like stationary art (e.g., paintings), the images trigger memories of places, events, and emotional stories in our lives. But music also has the dimension of time, as so do plays and films have, for example. That extra dimension of time is extremely important in arousing our emotions, because our emotion lives are experienced in time, just not snapshots. We know very well the feeling of ramping up in excitement, or calming down from excitement, or relaxing with seemingly endless time, or struggling with uncontrolled anger or frustration. All of these emotions that we experience in time in our lives are recalled by the music we hear in time. Probably a major reason that we hear the same music differently each time, is that we come back to the music with new fresh memories in our emotional lives, that the music abstractly recalls.

It's quite coincidental that you mentioned Chopin's Prelude in A Major. It is perhaps the piece I most remember my mother playing when I was a child. Chopin was her favorite composer, and she played some of the fairly difficult pieces. But that prelude particularly stuck with me. It was my mother's piano playing that led me to playing the piano myself.

My 90-year old mother has been in fairly severe dementia for 10 years now. We communicate verbally well enough that she can still share in what is happening now in the lives of our families, as well as recall the past. But she is limited in her thinking. She doesn't seem to be limited, however, in her ability to still appreciate music. Every time I visit her, about once a week, I play the piano for her on the console piano that she and my dad got for me in high school, and which she kept after I went off to college. Chopin's Prelude in A Major is one of the pieces I player for my mother the most.

Each time I play that piece, I play it differently, sometimes quite differently. It's seemingly random how I play it. Sometimes I'll play it with a grandiose flair of exaggerated emotions, tempo changes, and tempo changes. Other times I'll play it in complete modest simplicity. This Chopin Prelude in A Major holds up to any playing along the spectrum of very simple to very showing, very calm to very flamboyant.

Is there a "right" way to play the Chopin Prelude in A Major? I don't think so, except that the right way to play it is to play it sincerely how you feel it that time. That might or might not satisfy the listener, depending on what the listener's current emotion state is.

If one were playing Chopin Prelude in A Major as, say, an encore piece, one would probably be well advised to choose a middle-of-the-road interpretation, that would more likely appeal to the average listener in the audience rather than one in an unusual state of mind, such as perhaps having broken up with a lover. On the other hand, maybe in this encore scenario, one would be best advised to play the piece the way one felt about it that moment, so that even if it didn't appeal to the average listener, it would especially touch the soul of the listener who was in an emotional frame of mind similar to yours at that time.

Does this forum need another section for the philosophy of music? MG, I can tell that you and I like to indulge in this.

Cheers
-- Mark
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Old 12-06-2009, 09:46 PM
mgj32 mgj32 is offline
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Default Re: Mark Walsen - Parallel Intervals for Piano

Hi Mark,

Quote: "Does this forum need another section for the philosophy of music?"

I can't think of any downside to the idea.

best,
mgj
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Old 12-14-2009, 12:06 PM
djimtio djimtio is offline
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Default Re: Mark Walsen - Parallel Intervals for Piano

Hi Mark and MG
I would like to second the idea on a thread about the philosophy of music and music making so as to learn rather than being able to contribute something "musical" to the matter.
Regards

Djim
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Old 12-15-2009, 02:16 AM
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Sherry C Sherry C is offline
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Default Re: Mark Walsen - Parallel Intervals for Piano

Howdy guys,

Re. Philosophy of Music - voila! (or click here)

Enjoy
Sherry
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