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March 29, 2024, 01:41:31 am

Author Topic: Music Question Thread  (Read 83718 times)  Share 

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jamonwindeyer

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #45 on: November 05, 2016, 11:14:15 pm »
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Thank you so so so much :) its music in the 20th and 21st century! so you think focus on expressive techniques or technology in general?

No worries! Okay cool; technology is a really cool thing to bring in for that topic. Pretty much all the new genres of this era have come from technological evolution (pretty much all rock genres came because we tried to amplify a clean electric guitar sound, and it came out distorted, and someone was like "Damn that sounds dope."). So if you can find some other things that artists have done to integrate technology into their sound, that might be worth a look! Your topic could be like, "Exploring the use of technology as a means of expanding musical interest for solo artists," or something? That's if you could find enough examples of solo artists doing cool stuff with technology without making it too repetitive, which I bet you could ;D

My advice would be to do some wider listening tomorrow, go nuts on Youtube, see what you can find! Feel free to run some pieces or ideas by me :) ps - if you could get a loop pedal and demonstrate Sheeran's techniques (even in a simple manner, very quickly), live for the markers, that would earn serious brownie points ;)

ajajaj

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #46 on: January 26, 2017, 11:02:47 am »
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Hi Jamon!!
I'm a Year 12 student complething their HSC this year and fortuantely was able to chat with you during your 2nd Maths ATAR Notes lecture yesterday!
Do you have any articles or could you give any tips to someone that is doing a viva on the topic 'Instrument and its Repertoire'? Is it necessary to research the instrument you play (I'm a vocalist, any suggestions)?? Overall I'm completely new to this and I don't know where to start.

jamonwindeyer

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #47 on: January 26, 2017, 01:52:16 pm »
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Hi Jamon!!
I'm a Year 12 student complething their HSC this year and fortuantely was able to chat with you during your 2nd Maths ATAR Notes lecture yesterday!
Do you have any articles or could you give any tips to someone that is doing a viva on the topic 'Instrument and its Repertoire'? Is it necessary to research the instrument you play (I'm a vocalist, any suggestions)?? Overall I'm completely new to this and I don't know where to start.

Hey! Welcome to the forums! I remember, was hoping you'd post! So happy to have you on the site :)

So a Viva on the Instrument and its Repertoire really needs to show an in depth understanding of the instrument, and how it is used in different styles. There is a historical aspect too - You need a basic understanding of how the voice has been used over time. Often this blends nicely with style - Opera is clearly different in vocal technique to heavy metal or rap. So yep! A little bit of research is necessary to give yourself that background knowledge on the topic :)

So the idea of a Viva is to formulate a main idea or Thesis, similar to English, that you will discuss and elaborate on in your 10 minute Viva. The one I got into Encore with was (roughly worded):

How the use of polystylism creates musical interest in progressive rock music, as exemplified by Muse.

So my Thesis was; progressive rock bands use elements of styles besides rock to add musical interest to their piece. I was going to prove/show that by looking at how Muse (a really cool band I loved) did it in a few of their pieces. So that's your first job; coming up with something (related to your topic) that you can discuss. It might be, How the role of the voice differs in different styles of music, or something.

So your next step is to structure your Viva around some musical excerpts that you will analyse. I picked three songs by Muse to demonstrate polystylism - One blended rock with jazz, one blended rock with classical, and one blended rock with contemporary/dance. I used these to discuss my Thesis, I could point to them and say, "Boom, here is polystylism, told ya so," and then I explore how the concepts of music are manipulated to create musical interest.

So that's a lot, but the idea would be this. Pick 2/3/4 (?) songs that you think demonstrate different aspects of the vocal repertoire, or different aspects of your Thesis, or whatever. Discuss them one at a time, referencing differences if you want to. Is one melodic and one harmonic? Differences in tone colour? What about expressive techniques? All the concepts should be there; don't fall into the trap of just doing expressive techniques because of the "instrument and its repertoire" topic. You'll have plenty to discuss if you pick good excerpts - Remember to keep them short! Mine hit about 20/25 seconds - And my entire Viva was based around three of those excerpts.

So -

1. Do some research to give yourself some background knowledge of the topic area
2. Come up with a Thesis/idea to discuss
3. Do lots of listening and choose excerpts to use in your Viva
4. Analyse those excerpts in depth (using concepts of music) to explain how they 'back up' your Thesis

That would be my rough plan of attack. I did write an article on this too, check it out here!

Really hope this helps - Welcome to the forums once again ;D

ajajaj

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #48 on: February 05, 2017, 10:36:08 pm »
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Hey again! Thanks for answering my last question, it helped alot (as well as the article on vivas)!
In your opinion, what aspects of your viva voce were the strongest / helped you get into Encore? I need to get an idea of what makes an average viva compared to what would make a Band 6 worthy viva.
Also, how did you come up with a sophisticated and original thesis?

Thanks heaps again :))

jamonwindeyer

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #49 on: February 06, 2017, 12:00:06 am »
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Hey again! Thanks for answering my last question, it helped alot (as well as the article on vivas)!
In your opinion, what aspects of your viva voce were the strongest / helped you get into Encore? I need to get an idea of what makes an average viva compared to what would make a Band 6 worthy viva.
Also, how did you come up with a sophisticated and original thesis?

Thanks heaps again :))

Hey! Glad it helped, no problem at all ;D

I think what I did really well was musical examples. I had my three short excerpts, for sure, but I had a LOAD of examples. I played riffs and chord progressions and bass lines on my guitar, demonstrated expressive techniques etc. Incidentally, I held the guitar through the whole Viva, and I specifically had to train myself not to play it while I was talking (when I hold a guitar I play it, I'm bad). I printed a score for one of my excerpts and used bar numbers to reference things I was discussing. I drummed rhythms on the table, I sang melodies and demonstrated vocal techniques. I used an effects pedal to demonstrate tone colours on the guitar. Essentially, lots of stuff for the marker to listen to, and point to, in my Viva.

I think I answered questions well too. At one point I played a random chord progression for them to demonstrate the atonality of a power chord, and one piped up and was like, "What progression was that?"

I'm like, "Oh, it's a I-IV-V progression".

"In what key?"

"Oh, um (looks down briefly to check lol) A"

"Major or minor"

"Well, neither, and that's the point. That tonic chord is lacking that major or minor third, so the progression isn't major or minor so it's..."

I struggled a tad to find the word there, but I distinctly remember one marker smiling at me and completing my sentence for me, "Atonal, great, thank you!" That was the moment I knew I'd done well - It was near the end and she seemed really pleased with me at that point. Nice confidence boost to finish it was ;D

The point being, they pressed me. On all sorts of concepts of music - And I think I responded really really well to those questions. So if I were to pick two big strengths - Those would be it!

On coming up with a Thesis - It is hard. A good thing to look at is HSC questions from Aural Exams that focus on something besides a concept - Unity and contrast, musical interest, style, etc. Those normally make for an interesting take on the concepts of music, which you can integrate with say, a time period or an instrument, to form a cool idea. But it's a lot of trial and error! Hang in there, and feel free to run any ideas past me if you'd like to :)

DalvinT

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #50 on: February 06, 2017, 08:07:09 am »
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 Hey Jamon! Do you think a good viva voce question for my HSC could be this :

Discussion of the concept of music on the comparison between John Field's and Chopin Nocturnes.
2017 HSC:
English Standard 91
Biology 90
Earth and Environmental Science 89
Music 1 97
Visual Arts 92
General Mathematics 2  85

ATAR : 95.15

2018-2020: Bachelor of Oral Health @ USYD

jamonwindeyer

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #51 on: February 06, 2017, 08:56:37 am »
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Hey Jamon! Do you think a good viva voce question for my HSC could be this :

Discussion of the concept of music on the comparison between John Field's and Chopin Nocturnes.

I think it is good! What are you trying to demonstrate with that comparison though? Is it a comparison of eras? Comparison of styles? Comparison of ensembles? It works as it is but some sort of additional rationale would make it even better :)

waterdancer

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #52 on: February 19, 2017, 06:49:38 pm »
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Hello, I'm partway through a piano composition for the topic of An Instrument and it's Repertoire, just wondering if anyone could take a look and give me any feedback? Here's the youtube link with the audio as well as the score, so if I've made any errors in notating or just a part sounds bad please let me know. Thank you  ;D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XloGWZA85f0

ajajaj

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #53 on: February 19, 2017, 07:43:58 pm »
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Hey again Jamon!
From your knowledge what do you know about doing a comp for an elective?? I really want to try it out since I got full marks for my first HSC internal assessment, which was a comp, and was told that I need to refine it / add sections. However I've been told by many people that it's very hard to get good marks, and Band 6 comps are bascially professional level compositions. What do you think?

waterdancer

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #54 on: February 19, 2017, 08:27:47 pm »
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Hey again Jamon!
From your knowledge what do you know about doing a comp for an elective?? I really want to try it out since I got full marks for my first HSC internal assessment, which was a comp, and was told that I need to refine it / add sections. However I've been told by many people that it's very hard to get good marks, and Band 6 comps are bascially professional level compositions. What do you think?
Hi, I'm not Jamon obviously, but I will tell you what my music teacher told me about choosing composition.

You have to be willing to put in a lot of time to perfect your work, and it really has to be able to impress the markers. It's all well and good writing a nice four chord pop song for simple guitar and voice, but in reality, that isn't going to get you those top marks. Within the piece you really need to show off, use expressive techniques and above all else know how to score for the chosen instrument. Bow markings for strings, knowing whether an interval is possible to reach on a piano or not, that sort of thing.

It's a lot of hard work, but if you really enjoy composition and did well in the internals, I'd say go for it. It can't hurt to ask your teacher for their advice, they are there to help you do the best you can after all. You find that it is mostly Music 2 that does the really professional insane compositions, since they only have two minutes to play with, but for Music 1, with four minutes you generally get a bit more slack, and the course is designed for beginner/intermediate musicians anyway. The markers understand this, they understand that composition is most likely a new thing to most students. Just play around with any ideas you have, get advice from as many people as possible on how to improve, and honestly don't stress too much about it.

Good luck with whatever you decide to choose  :)

jamonwindeyer

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #55 on: February 19, 2017, 09:18:21 pm »
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Hey again Jamon!
From your knowledge what do you know about doing a comp for an elective?? I really want to try it out since I got full marks for my first HSC internal assessment, which was a comp, and was told that I need to refine it / add sections. However I've been told by many people that it's very hard to get good marks, and Band 6 comps are bascially professional level compositions. What do you think?

Hey aj! I really agree with water dancer on this one - You really need to be passionate and invested enough to be able to sit at your computer/instrument for a long time and perfect what's in front of you. Plus, you need to keep a portfolio, which is a huge task by itself. I did two compositions - The portfolios nearly killed me ;)

But with those two negatives out of the way, you should definitely consider giving it a go! They won't expect Hans Zimmer or Beethoven levels of compositional genius, they are just seeing (from the rubric):

 - Composes a work that successfully and coherently represents the chosen topic, demonstrating perceptive and accomplished understanding of style, the concepts of music, and the relationships between the concepts - This just means, how well have you understood the requirements for the piece you are composing (EG - not putting a sung melody with lyrics in a film score designed to sit beneath dialogue), and how well you've understood how to use the concepts of music to achieve the correct style

- Demonstrates comprehensive knowledge and understanding of score conventions and performance directions appropriate to the chosen topic - This is your score, have you notated tab for the guitarist correctly? Written a proper sheet of music with the right directions for a pianist correctly

- Demonstrates high level skills in organising ideas into musical structures Basically, how well the piece fits together and flows, both on a high level (verses/choruses) and a low level (how well does your drum beat match your guitar riff)

It's not about being the next prodigy - It's about starting to demonstrate some key compositional skills :) it sounds like you did well and are interested, you should give it a go!!

Would it help if I uploaded my composition(s) and scores for you to see the standard for? I don't know the marks for these directly, but I got 95 in Music 1, which means they have to be Band 6 quality (no way I got full marks in my other sections to compensate, lol ;))

jamonwindeyer

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #56 on: February 19, 2017, 09:36:47 pm »
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Hello, I'm partway through a piano composition for the topic of An Instrument and it's Repertoire, just wondering if anyone could take a look and give me any feedback? Here's the youtube link with the audio as well as the score, so if I've made any errors in notating or just a part sounds bad please let me know. Thank you  ;D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XloGWZA85f0

Bloody gorgeous!! I love it water dancer! Seriously, seriously good stuff ;D

Take my points with a grain of salt; you are composing for Music 2 (I'm guessing?), which means you likely possess far greater musical knowledge than I ;) I also can't provide much guidance on the performance direction for piano, on my knowledge the score looks well notated!!

- On the whole, really enjoyable piece to listen to - Loved it and some really great melodic and harmonic ideas
- I'd maybe like to see a bit of unity a tad more obvious throughout - Perhaps the more obvious repetition of some melodic phrases. I'd love for those accented quavers in Bar 7 to appear again, for example, those appearing in the middle of all the faster passages was really enjoyable to listen to.
- I think you could do a little more with dynamics (though actually, now I think, this is the Sibelius MIDI audio of the score? It should be better when you perform it live, perhaps even throw a bit more rubato in there for some expression)

Yeah, not much I can say - I really enjoyed this and really keen to see where it goes from here!!

Edit: I'm going to ask one of our moderators Rui to check this out, he's a pianist, reckon he'd give better feedback than I ;) )

RuiAce

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #57 on: February 20, 2017, 02:00:29 pm »
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Hello, I'm partway through a piano composition for the topic of An Instrument and it's Repertoire, just wondering if anyone could take a look and give me any feedback? Here's the youtube link with the audio as well as the score, so if I've made any errors in notating or just a part sounds bad please let me know. Thank you  ;D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XloGWZA85f0
Here are the things that come to mind when I listen and study this composition.

As I progress:
- The trill in the opening seems effective at evoking some kind of suspense, and it resolves down. Complements the arpeggio melody in the bass line well.
- Followed by a whole sequence of arpeggios. An idea of what the piece will be like is developed.
- LOVE the contrary motion in bar 3
- In bar 3, the second set of semiquavers involves LOTS of ledger lines. Looks very exaggerated. Maybe try replacing with an ottava
- Chords chosen in bar 7 are effective in continuing the melody line, however this may just be me (and for all I know, a better pianist will tackle it) but
I feel I must look at it again. The melody line is more legato and I'm not sure if the transition of the chords will be smooth.
- A resolve doesn't seem to occur at the key change, but rather in the middle of bar 17. Fascinating. But it seems to just keep continuing.
- The key change brings out a new character. This is good.
- A resolve comes in at bar 24, although it feels early. Here's one important thing: I begin to feel that the piece is lacking direction. After this bar, I feel like I've basically been walking around in a circle. The melody line is beautiful but it becomes difficult to shape a story out of it, because the only really unexpected effect happened in bar 17.
- Once again, the key change brings out a new character. As I hoped for. But of course, this section is to be continued and thus I won't comment too much on it.

Praises:
- Very pleasing melody. I can imagine it as both calming and soothing (which, was probably the intended), but also suspenseful at the same time.
- Wide range of keys hit. "Simple" things like arpeggios and contrary motion well synthesised.
- The key changes over to the key of the dominant (of the original keynote) with added effect.
- Several characters observed.
- 2 against 3 was well used in my opinion
- Trills and ornaments fill in some otherwise blank spaces

Critiques:
- As mentioned above: lacks direction. The melody doesn't seem to portray something (or possibly just not yet)
- Could do with more cadences; need some more effective resolutions every now and then (hopefully this is to come). Even an interrupted cadence if you're good enough to incorporate one in the middle of the piece.
- Jamon and I both thought about this - calm down a bit. There's beauty in simplicity every now and then; there's no need to make it so continuous unless your goal is to compose a study (which even then it should be calmer).
- The new character introduced in the key change to C# minor (unless that was E major...) presented a much slower pace. I would like to see more of these tempo changes.

Questions:
- What period of music are you aiming to reflect?
- Is this piece going to follow some form?
- Which composers influenced you to produce this work?

Overall: This piece is promising. I can see good results coming out of it. But sometimes it may help to take a piece easier rather than focus on the fanciness. Very nice job. :)

DalvinT

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #58 on: February 20, 2017, 07:57:42 pm »
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Hi Guys! I'm learning these pieces right now and I'm not sure whether they will potentially be Band 6 quality pieces...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMMycSccobc - Btw, im struggling with the rhythm and on the verge to giving up learning this piece.  >:( :'(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKjUDHghgjw - Dreading the hanon exercises to help with this piece and also, the metronome  :-[ :-[ :'(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92HtJHxosWg - Learning just the notes/rhythm for now...
« Last Edit: February 20, 2017, 09:16:12 pm by DalvinT »
2017 HSC:
English Standard 91
Biology 90
Earth and Environmental Science 89
Music 1 97
Visual Arts 92
General Mathematics 2  85

ATAR : 95.15

2018-2020: Bachelor of Oral Health @ USYD

jamonwindeyer

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Re: Music Question Thread
« Reply #59 on: February 20, 2017, 09:19:58 pm »
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Hi Guys! I'm learning these pieces right now and I'm not sure whether they will potentially be Band 6 quality pieces...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMMycSccobc - Btw, im struggling with the rhythm and on the verge to giving up learning this piece.  >:( :'(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKjUDHghgjw - Dreading the hanon exercises to help with this piece and also, the metronome  :-[ :-[ :'(

On the first - I think that technically it could definitely be Band 6 quality piece if you performed it well!! I do think its a little repetitious though, definitely could do more with dynamic range, and perhaps (not a piano expert) a bit more with expressive techniques as well?

On the second - I don't think it's quite to the same technical level as the first, but it does have a better dynamic range and so would probably let you play more with expression - Add in a bit of rubato perhaps :)

I think both definitely have potential to be Band 6 level pieces though! As they are performed in the videos, I think both would get a Band 6 level mark for sure - The dynamic range in the second makes up for the slightly less technically difficult piece ;D its about what you can play the best, and also what you enjoy more!!

Edit: Really like the third one - Quite technically interesting, dynamically interesting, LOTS of room for expression as a performer ;D
« Last Edit: February 20, 2017, 09:22:48 pm by jamonwindeyer »