David Evan Jones Ewha Womens University MODAL ETUDE UNIT: Compose a one-to-two minute etude for piano solo using the modes and the modal theory taught in this first unit (see below). Turn in the final version of your carefully-notated score along with a recording (piano performance or MIDI realization) on Monday, October 10th. We will proceed in stages. The first class we will learn to work with a group of modes called “Pressing Scales” (after theorist Jeff Pressing) which are common in music of the impressionists, in jazz, and in a variety of 20th Century styles. Homework: “Play” with the Pressing Scales in preparation for your etude; complete scale exercises for discussion at the next class. Listen to Jones’ Daichavo za Maiko and Debussy’s Les Collines…, both with score. The second class we will learn about ‘closely related’ modes and networks of modes. Homework: Experiment with networks of Pressing Scales for your etude; complete exercises on ‘closely related’ modes for discussion at the next class. The third class we will review the concepts we have learned in preparation for Quiz (scheduled for October 10). We will also hear draft versions of your pieces from those willing to present them to the class for comments. Homework: Study for Quiz 1; Complete your etude (including score and recording). The fourth class is October 10: Quiz 1 and Etudes/Recordings are due. MODAL ETUDE CONSTRAINTS: • Compose a piece for piano solo, 1’ to 2’ in duration. • Use at least three of the seven different scale types (including at least one or more symmetrical scale(s)). • Use as many or as few transpositions of these scale types as you wish. As long as you use what we learned about modes for part of your piece, you can feel free to include non- scalar sections if you wish (chromatic or atonal passages, for example). • Write music, not a scale exercise!!! Don’t let the scales, the transitions between them, or the chords you make from them sound routine or overly familiar: find your own ‘sound’ in this piece. While working with scales at times, feel free to emphasize only a subset of the notes of a scale if you wish. Add transitory non-scale tones if you wish. Invent your own chords and progressions. (There’s nothing wrong with triadic harmony — unless it sounds like it came from a textbook rather than from you’re your own musical vision: Don’t use patterns out of habit. Keep your ears open!) • Finally, when the piece is complete, mark a partial analysis of your piece on your score: the scales and the changes of scale that you regard as most important. Note some of the ‘distances’ between the scales as we will learn to do in class. David Evan Jones Ewha Womens University A few Suggestions (not constraints): Work from the known to the unknown: once you have a start on your piece, try to plan the overall harmony (including pattern of scales. Will distant scale relations be common in your piece (part of the moment-to-moment language as in Daichavo za Maiko) or rare (as in Les Collines d'Anacapri)? Once you’ve made your overall plan, don’t be afraid to change it (and make a new one!). Composing often begins with something — anything — that fascinates us: to paraphrase Stravinsky “something unusually bright and shiny”. It could be a single chord, an unusual progression, a sound, a theory, or a non-musical idea. Before you formalize your plans for your piece, find something that draws you in. CLASS 1: INTRODUCING PRESSING SCALES: Music theorists such as Jeff Pressing and Demitri Tymoczko have identified seven scales — four asymmetrical and three symmetrical — that are common in impressionistic music, in jazz, and in a variety of 20th Century styles. Study these scales before completing the exercises below: Symmetrical “Pressing Scales”: Asymmetrical “Pressing Scales”: NON-SYMMETIRCAL PRESSING SCALES: Each of the non-symmetrical scales listed above should actually be thought of as way of referring to for a FAMILY of scales. If we think of “C diatonic,” for example, as a collection of pitches rather than just a scale, David Evan Jones Ewha Womens University we know that it includes seven different modes: Ionian (the first mode of the diatonic scale), Dorian (the second mode of the diatonic), Phyrgian (the third mode of the diatonic), and so on through Locrian (the seventh mode of the diatonic). Similarly, if we hear “G” as the primary pitch (‘tonic’) in a passage using the pitches of the C harmonic minor scale above, we could designate this scale as “the fifth mode of C harmonic minor”. (Study this scale. Depending upon the specific music of the music, this “fifth mode of C harmonic minor” is sometimes called the Phrygian dominant scale, the Freygish scale, the Spanish gypsy scale, the Hijaz-Nahawand maqam and so on and is popular in certain middle-eastern music, Jewish music, Spanish music, jazz, etc. We can feel free to use all these style-specific names when appropriate.) For in this class, however, we should also be able to identify this scale as “the fifth mode of C harmonic minor”. Likewise, we may wish to call the following mode G ascending melodic minor… but we should also be able to identify it as “the fifth mode of C acoustic”. Note that the interval patterns (1’s, 2’s and sometimes 3’s) are unique for each of the seven Pressing scales. By rotating these interval numbers we can see the correspondence between the acoustic scale (previous page) and the melodic minor scale (just above): Both scales use the same pattern of intervals but the intervals begin at different points in the cycle. We must, of course, also learn to identify the pressing scales in transposition. Of course the transpositions use the same interval patterns but start at different pitch levels. Identify the following modes in terms of the non-symmetrical scales above. Identify the scale type (one of the four asymmetrical Pressing scales), the transposition (by note name), and indicate whether the scale is written as the 1st, 2nd or 3rd…. 7th mode of that scale. David Evan Jones Ewha Womens University SYMMETIRCAL PRESSING SCALES: The Pressing symmetrical scales are three of several symmetrical identified by the French composer Olivier Messiaen and used extensively in his compositions. (For a brief review of Messiaen’s scales the wikipedia article on “modes of limited transposition” is a good start.) Pressing and Tymoczko assert, however, that only the whole-tone, octatonic, and hexatonic are used extensively by the impressionists, in jazz, and in a wider body of 20th century music. Because symmetrical scales don’t normally have ‘tonics’ as do non-symmetrical scales, we don’t normally identify their transpositions by note name. Instead we identify them by transposition number. There are many conventions for determining which transposition is T0 (transposition zero) but the most logical takes the original pith-class set versions of each collection as “T0”. These are the scales identified as symmetrical Pressing scales above. The same symmetrical scale a half step higher is called T1 (transposition 1) and so-on until the pitch collection begins to repeat itself. For the whole-tone collection, only T0 and T1 are possible before we start to repeat pitch collections: there is no “T2” whole-tone collection because it would be the same as the T0 collection. Therefore (because symmetrical scales have no tonics) the following collections and many others are called “whole-tone collection T0”. Counting T0, how many different transpositions are possible for the octatonic collection? How about for the hexatonic collection? Identify each of the following symmetrical scales by scale name and transposition (e.g. “whole-tone T1” or “hexatonic T0” etc etc): Write down your answers and we’ll go over these problems in class next time. .