Society of Saint Gregory

Some (possibly) useful odds and ends.

(1) The second article about composing music by Alan Smith is out in the latest issue of 'Music and Liturgy'.

(2) Useful technical exercises I sometimes have to do.

Try rearranging an accompaniment designed for piano (or at any rate a keyboard with a sustaining pedal) for an Organ or keyboard without one. Try this for manuals only as well as for manuals and pedal board. Think also about your choice of registration. Try doing this the other way round i.e. convert a piece for organ into something for piano.


Try rejigging your organ (or piano, or electric keyboard - yes, there is a difference between the two) arrangement so that it works effectively with any other instruments you may have. In other words set about avoiding the 'clutter' of lines and the mushy greyness of colouration that so often occurs when you simply ask your instrumentalists to play the same line as is already covered by your keyboard. When you do this, think about how you will match your choice of 'stops' with the 'colour' of your instruments.

This confers two benefits: (a) You really get to look at the structure of a piece and you can therefore identify the strengths and flaws in its organisation. Hopefully, you will then avoid the latter in your own compositions. (b) It makes you think about instrumental colour - especially the fundamental differences between different types of keyboard and their potential relationship with other instruments.


(3) Word setting. This figured quite a bit in discussion at the recent composers meeting in Clifton. It is also covered in Alan Smith's first article on composition. The conventional wisdom is to match the rhythm of the music with that of the text. Think of the old plainchant mantra 'Sing the chant as you speak'.

This is sound. However, be aware of the limitations of this approach. A piece can be strengthened if you occasionally set up tensions between the musical and textual rhythm. This was supported by no less an authority in the plainchant world as Andre Mocquereau and embodied through the 'rhythmical signs' in such volumes as 'Plainsong for Schools'. The effect of his 'arsis-thesis' or 'impulse and relaxation' system of plainchant rhythm sets up clashes of this sort.

Even if you do not want to go this far, notice how the act of setting a text to music means that either, you make choices between different ways you can 'legitimately' pattern the text or, at the very least, you produce a stylisation of the text rhythm, especially if your music is placed within bars of fixed duration. Be aware then of the variety of ways you can stress particular syllables at the expense of others. Here is a shortlist of some (but not all) of the ways this can happen:

(a) The obvious one: accenting the note. Observe this can also be done by the way you group sets of notes together and by where you place your bar lines (most simply, are you on the 'on' or 'off' beat?)
(b) Also pretty obvious: By dynamic changes - and note that going suddenly quiet in the context of a loud passage is a form of 'accentuation'.
(c) Less obvious, but widely used in plainchant: Grouping a set of notes into a melisma on one note.
(d) Lengthening the note allocated to a syllable: well known in measured plainchant as practiced between the Late Middle Ages and the late C19th. Virtually unknown (except at the end of phrases and in subtle nuances) in the plainchant purveyed by Solesmes, because this is predicated on the principle of the single indivisible note.
(e) By changes in pitch - particularly effective if you do this in a passage that otherwise is set on a monotone. Here, you are doing little more than introducing an oratorical inflection. You see a lot of this in simple plainchant and plainchant psalm tones.
- even within a melody, this principle should be understood - most obviously if you have a sudden jump in a passage that is otherwise moving by step, or if you go down instead of up in an ascending passage (or vice versa). Note the vast number of permutations this opens up. In other words, by making greater or lesser 'shifts' you can introduce gradations in your pattern of accentuation.
(f) By changes in the harmony: most simply by placing your new chord at the syllable you wish to accentuate. A useful exercise here is to study different plainchant accompaniments that use a more or less 'conventional' system of harmonisation (i.e. contrary motion of parts, use of 3rds, avoidance of parallel fifths and octaves). Even the 'bad' or 'dull' ones can show you what [url]not[/url] to do.
(g) By placing the entry of a new voice or instrument (even if it is on the same line) at the point of emphasis.
(h) If writing contrapuntally, you can have different musical and textual rhythms cutting against each other in all sorts of permutations - a principle well understood by the great polyphonists of the C16th and early C17th.
(j) Don't forget the larger picture. The tendency is to focus on individual details. Build your complex of individal musical/textual rhythms into a wider scheme of rhythmically patterned phrases and, indeed, the whole piece. Again, Mocquereau's application of arsis-thesis principles in his analysis of phrases and whole pieces of plainchant repays study, even if the scholarship is regarded as out of date alongside Cardine's principles of Gregorian semiology. For a useful example see the analysis of 'Tu Es Petrus' (In think) in Laurentia McLachlan's 'Grammar of Plainchant'.

Thomas Muir

Arranging music for instruments: some notational tips: slurs, articulations, and phrase marks.

When scoring music for instruments, it is worth noting that slur and articulation marks mean different things with different instruments and, for that matter, voices. Here are some useful pointers:

(1) If you are writing for voices, use a slur mark when you are writing a melisma i.e. two or more notes being applied to a particular syllable.

(2) If you are writing for a member of the violin family a slur denotes an instruction to play two or more notes on a single bow stroke.

(3) With strings distinguish between the 'portamento' instruction (meaning the player is asked to 'swoop' up or down towards a note) and 'glissando', which is a highly controlled slide up or down the fingerboard. A glissando, you should note, can only be played on one string - so think carefully about the notes you are asking your player to 'travel' between.

(4) With woodwind and brass a slur over two or more notes denotes the absence of tonguing after the first note. On a reed instrument, on the final note of the slurred group of notes the player should close off the sound by pressing his/her tongue against the reed, thereby shutting off the supply of air. They ought not simply to stop blowing, though many do just that. Flautists and recorder players do something similar. A dot above the final note in a group of slurred notes is instruction for the player to lightly tongue that note.


Not to mark in bowing or tonguing slurs means you are leaving a whole dimension of music making - namely articulation - at the mercy of your players.

It also follows that in every case slur marks of this type do not necessarily give the overall shape of a given phrase. Phrasing and articulation can be two different things, though often they overlap. So sometimes an additional phrase mark has to be given above the tonguing/bowing slurs you have already provided. In recent times modernist/contemporary composers have sometimes used dotted or dashed slur marks to denote such phrases. The Sibelius music programme allows you to use this option.

You might also note, though, that passages that are entirely tongued or, in the case of strings, performed with one bow stroke per note, tend to have no phrase marks at all. This is an important deficiency in present day music notation. However, sometimes such difficulties can be overcome by the way you 'bar' a particular passage or 'beam' a set of quavers, semiquavers, or notes of shorter time length. 'Beaming' of this sort can now also be used with vocal parts with one note per syllable - the old convention of having no beams at all appears to have fallen out of fashion.

Tonguing: Note the variety of different symbols available. Here are some:

(1) A dot above the note: note the confusion that arises between a 'dot' meaning staccato and a 'dot' meaning the note is lightly touched or simply 'lifted'. So, if in doubt, make your intentions clear with a written instruction as well.

(2) Accents: pretty obvious. They mean what they say.

(3) Downward pointing small narrow solid triangles above the notes mean that they should be struck quite hard and precisely, but not 'blasted' as with an accent. This symbol appears fairly often in string parts too (cf. modern editions of Mozart's 'Eine Kleine Nachtmusik')

Bowing: Usually you can leave this to the initiative of your string players. They will usually go for a 'down-up' motion except with up beats, where they might start with an 'up' bow. Where you want to contradict this basic instinct you must provide bowing marks. For those who are not string players remember that the down bow is stronger and more decisive but on a long note tends to 'fade' slightly unless you counteract it with a written instruction. 'Up' bows offer greater potential for a crescendo into a note or passage, although 'down' bows can do this too. A crescendo on held note played using a down bow, although hard work for the player, can be highly effective - producing a very 'shaped' sound - although this is still rather unusual.

With string players, more percussive and jagged articulations across a passage can be achieved by judicious use of double stopping. More often than not, it pays to think of double stopping as a sound effect rather than as a device to 'cover' a line of harmony.

Don't forget with string players the option of switching between bowing and pizzicatos (give players time to do this - although really good players can often move fairly fast from an 'up' bow straight onto a pizzicato). There are also a variety of different bow 'colours' depending on whereabouts the bow is drawn across the strings. 'Sul Ponticello' means 'play near the bridge'. It produces a wiry sound and is particularly striking (and sinister) when a tremolo is applied as well. 'Sul tasto' means 'play nearer the finger board' and produces a sound more akin to a harmonic. Tremolos are a very useful - and often underused - resource. In your notation distinguish between tremolos that are written like double stops (i.e. as a chord) from trills between two different notes (for example a trill the length of a minim you write as two adjacent crotchets with double, triple or quadruple beams depending on how fast you want the trill to go.

Finally, note that with string players the nature of a particular entry is determined to some extent by the 'colour' of the string used. So it is worth considering planning your passages for, say, a violin, around a particular string or pair of strings. On a Violin the low 'G' string is richest in tone. For thinner sounds, you use higher strings. Note that a note played on an 'open' string has a 'rougher' or more 'raw' sound. So if you want a more 'civilised' start on a note that could be played on an open string consider instructing the player to use another string e.g. for the 'D' above middle 'C' you might tell a violinist to use the 'A' string by writing 'Sul A'. The same trick can be used with 'Classical' Guitar players.

Possible (new) composition technique/exercise for responsorial psalms/gospel acclamations using Gelineau type psalmody.

Take the melody/motif used in your response and build it into the accompaniment (or instrumental descant) of your chant chord sequence as a piece of counterpoint. I tried this recently in one of my own efforts for the local church up here.

To pull this off the following manoevres might help - they are not essential of course.

(1) Make sure that the basic pulse (minims, crotchets or whatever) is the same in both the chanted verses and the response. Using a ratio of 2:1 or 4:1, as is conventionally recommended, complicates matters.

(2) Ensure that the length of each bar is the same in every verse. This means that the chant sung by the cantor/choir has to be rigidly metrical rather than in free time. It helps then to lay out all the verses in a full vocal score above your accompaniment.

(3) Go for a regular chant pattern: e.g. an 8 bar sequence for a psalm with four line verses.

(4) Easy points to start your motivic counterpoint phrases are where the voice rests on the same pitch e.g. on a semibreve in bars 2,4,6, and 8 in an eight bar sequence in 4/4 or 2/2 time. This has the added advantage in that you avoid cluttering up your score with too much moving counterpoint.

(5) Don't think you have to stick rigidly to the motif as it is presented in your response. Adjust/adapt it as you drive it through the permutations of your chant harmony. You can also hand the motif from voice to voice within the harmony. Don't forget such old fashioned devices as inversion, reversal, retrograde (i.e. reversal of your inversion), augmentation (lengthening the note lengths of bits of your motif) and diminution (shortening the note lengths of bits of your motif) of your motivic material. You might also consider using the motif as an ostinato foundation running through the whole of your chanted verses. Alternatively, you might choose only to use fragments from your motivic material.

Thomas Muir

Here are a couple of useful devices I am trying out for the forthcoming 7th Sunday in ordinary time (C):

(1) Communion Antiphon. My parish priest, who chooses all our hymns, wants to have the 'hymn' 'O Sacrament Most Holy' sung at communion. It has only one verse; so, as it stands, if you want to extend it, all you can do is repeat it in a Taize like manner. However, this time I have resorted to the expedient of inserting a setting of the communion antiphon using an appropriate Gelineau chant chord sequence of my own composition between each repetition. The result is a sequence of 'O Sacrament Most Holy'- the communion antiphon (sung by the choir/cantor) - 'O Sacrament Most Holy'.

If the communion antiphon text seems appropriate, you might be able to use this device on other Sundays.

(2) Responsorial Psalm and Gospel Acclamation.

Usually I compose these myself; arranging matters so that the Gospel Acclamation material - especially the response - employs the same musical material as the Psalm. This means the congregation has less new stuff to learn all at once.

However, this time the Psalm response is:

'The Lord is compassion and love'

I checked back through my old stocks and found a setting to the same psalm text except that then occasion the response was:

'The Lord is compassion and love, full of love and rich in mercy'.

This is what I then did:

(a) I left the music for 'The Lord is compassion and love' alone; but turned the material for 'full of love and rich in mercy' into a very short instrumental interlude simply by cutting out the voice part and leaving the melody to the 'accompaniment'.

(b) When I came to the Alleluia part of the Gospel acclamation, I reversed this process. So, the music for 'the Lord is compassion and love' became an instrumental introduction, and the music for 'full of love and rich in mercy' was reset for singing the 'alleluia'. The Gospel Acclamation verse I then set, as usual, to the same through composed material that I had used for the psalm.

In other words, the congregation 'learns' the alleluia response from the instrumental interludes at the end of each response in the psalm.

For those interested in instrumentation, you might care to look at the third of Alan Smith's articles in the latest issue of Music and Liturgy.

Thomas Muir

Using 'O Sacrament Most Holy' has worked well with us in the way you desribe, Thomas. We've used some of the less familiar psalms. and 'O Sacrament . . .' as a response.

Small correction to the Responsorial Psalm text I cited in my last message.

The response should read:

'The Lord is compassion and love'; followed by 'slow to anger and rich in mercy'.

Thomas Muir

Just a quick reminder of the composers group meeting at Salford Cathedral this Saturday (March 3rd) starting at 10.30 am for 11.00. Composers, arrangers and authors of texts of all types most welcome.
For further details and travel directions, see the 'composers' section of the SSG website.

A possible useful contact has just been sent to me. The organisation is called 'heartnotes' run by a Mancunian with interests in Methodist church music. He offers (for a fee) to publish music on the internet. He is also offering an afternoon course on May 12th at the Shoreline Church, Southport called 'Developing instrumental skills', which might be of use to performing instrumentalists of all standards. The website is http://www.heartnotes.org.uk

Thomas Muir

Here's a tip I've probably mentioned before: GO TO A COMPOSERS' GROUP MEETING!
Yesterday, five of us met at Salford. I have returned not only with a happy memory of time spent with like-minded friends, a renewed incentive to write, but also an mp3 of our live session on my song, to which a piano part and two instrumental lines were added spontaneously. All I provided was some guitar chords, and now I have material from which to score it properly.

Thanks, guys - you were

Dot

Prompted to this by the St Patrick's thread, but felt it more appropriate as a possible tip for composers.

Our use of folk tunes for hymns and liturgical music is long established by the likes of Vaughan Williams and John Bell, to give just two examples. Perhaps the tradition fades as one seeks to set more non-metrical texts. Even so, as a person who finds a good tune hard to come by, I have often wondered if it's worth trawling the vast collections of folk tunes as a starting point in composition. They're easily available on the internet: for instance, see this site. A quick trawl will find examples already in liturgical use, eg. "Ailie Bain O' the Glen" used in Barbara Rusbridge's Hebridean Gloria.

Don't know whether it's a good idea to draw on existing tunes. I have noticed that, when new music is well received, it often has a melody that people almost feel they know already. In a way, it's a disappointment that people aren't as willing to accept something a little less conventional, but you have to start from where the people are.

Dot

Reminder

Want to share your composing/arranging skills and see what others are doing?

Then come to the next SSG composers meeting on June 23rd in Leicester. Details and directions on the composers section of the SSG website. Anyone can come. However, if you have not already done so, it would help to let me know so that we have some idea of numbers and therefore which room to use. If you have them bring instruments as well as voices.

Here are some further details:

(1) Directions as to which room to go to will be put up in the car park
(2) Coffee/tea making facilities are available but the nearest place that serves lunch is about 5 minutes drive away; so you might find it more convenient to bring your own packed lunch.

Thomas Muir

Here are a few useful tips I observed at our last composers meeting in Leicester.

(1) Two pieces showed the technique of alternation between contrasting passages of block harmony and simple contrapuntal polyphony. Note how, when you use linear counterpoint, this encourages you to use interesting suspensions (For good, old fashioned examples of this, study Correlli's Trio Sonatas - standard fare on old-fashioned keyboard harmony courses!).

(2) In one hymn setting the harmony switched between passages using conventional techniques and passages where the harmony was built up from a continuous drone or pedal note. Observe how this usually forces you to use more sophisticated chords, chord combinations and 2nd or 3rd inversions.

(3) In several cases melodies were harmonised using III (mediant) and VI (submediant) chords instead of I (the tonic) at cadence points. This is because an exclusive reliance on chords I, IV (subdominant) and V (dominant) - especially if they are all in root position - tends to split up a piece into self contained subsections. By all means do this if this is the effect you want; however, if you want harmonic unity and development across the whole piece, then these other chords - along with inversions and excursions in and out of major/minor keys become pretty useful. A wider range of chords and inversions also enables you to avoid parallels (should you so wish), which in turn often gives greater vitality to your linear part writing. You can, of course, use such devices not just in your own original compositions, but if you decide to rearrange a piece that is out of copyright!

Thomas Muir

Two different messages:

(1) Next composers group meeting will be on Oct 13, 2007 (NOT Sept 29th as originally advertised) at Stanbrook Abbey, near Worcester. Further details and directions will come up shortly on the composers section of the SSG website. Otherwise contact me here. All welcome. Ideally, let me know if you are coming, as this gives me some idea of numbers.

(2) Further lazy - and easy to play - ideas for arranging instrumental/organ pieces as voluntaries (I need at least 2 every week).

(a) I recently purchased a miniature score collection of Correlli's Trio Sonatas (2 violins, Cello and continuo bass) and have started arranging some for organ manuals only. You can do the same thing with other Baroque pieces of the same type (Handel's Water Music is a good source of supply). Apart from anything else, it helps you really study the work as a composition identifying its strengths and weaknesses - Correlli's craftsmanship is usually superb. Note that many of these Sonatas by him are 'Church Sonatas' and so designed for use in services.

(b) If you have instrumentalists you can accompany them on the organ with works of this type anyway. This generally works pretty well if you confine yourself to manuals (with an occasional touch of pedals). Curiously enough violins usually contrast nicely with a Fl.4 and Fl.8 combination (Diapasons and Principals can be a little too full). Baroque recorder sonatas work well too provided the lead part goes high. If you substitute a Flute for a Descant Recorder, remember to write out the part an octave up. A touch of astringency (a light reed or mixture - I often find Nazard useful) in your choice of stops gives a sense of contrast otherwise lacking if you just stick to Flutes. The common structure of such sonatas also fits in well with the particular occasions when voluntaries are needed -simple slow movements for communion/offertory, faster more aggressive movements for after the final hymn. Note that many such sonatas have common thematic material across all the movements, thereby giving musical unity to your 'voluntary' material in a service.

(c) Take a 'modern' St Thomas More style hymn, rearrange the voice part for your lead instrument and adjust the keyboard part so as to avoid overmuch duplication of the melody on it. If you are adventurous make different arrangements for extra 'verses' or simply substitute another lead instrument for that purpose. Another 'lazy' approach is to have alternate phrases of the melody dealt with either by different 'lead' instruments or by your 'lead' instrument and the keyboard. Apart from anything else, this sort of arrangement is one way of gently familiarizing your congregation/choir with a hymn they do not know.

I have found such approaches a useful way of bringing forward my instrumentalist musicians with more technically challenging material and giving them a sense of contributing something special to the service. I face strong competition from the rival Sunday morning attraction of rehearsals of the Lancashire Schools orchestra. Their loving parents do not want to see them 'marking time', musically speaking, playing nothing more than simple melodies. They want to see their children's musical-religious upbringing developing.

Thomas Muir

Just a general reminder:

The next SSG composers group meeting is at Ware Carmelite convent on Saturday Nov 17th. Usual routine (as described in the composers section of the SSG website), but note that, as I need precise numbers, can anyone who wishes to go please let me know (t.e.muir@hotmail.co.uk) and I will then forward travel directions.

Thomas Muir

Thought I might try and revive interest in this thread by drawing attention to the article (by yours truly) on writing additional instrumental parts in the latest issue of Music and Liturgy. This was intended only to be a starting point; and it certainly does not cover all the other permutations and approaches you can develop; so why not add to the 'common store' of knowledge here.
Thomas (Muir)

I notice that for several months virtually nothing has been contributed about the craft of composition/arranging. Instead we appear spend a lot of time on liturgical texts, ecclesiastical legislation and other things such as notational software. These are, of course, important subjects; yet, if we want to have effective music in church we neglect compositional craft at our peril. So often good creative ideas can be 'cast in the shadow' by inadequate delivery.
It would be nice then if we could revive this particular thread. Here are some possible pointers:

(1) Come along to SSG composers meetings. The next one is at the Carmelite Convent, Ware on Feb 12th.

(2) Look over 'the other side of the fence' to see how composers who do not write for the Church solve technical problems. We can learn from popular and Classical composers/groups here ('ancient' as well as 'modern'). Baroque composers, for example, show us counterpoint; C19th Classical composers, can be especially useful for developing effective techniques for writing for the piano (for that matter other instruments with sustaining pedals); early-mid C20th composers are a good source for the skills of writing for small instrumental groups (Try scores by Stravinsky, Prokofiev (Quintet), Poulenc, Milhaud, Hindemith - not forgetting the great woodwind/string/chamber compositions of Mozart two centuries before). Skills in modern vocal writing can be quarried from composers such as Part and Taverner (whose repertoire is religious as well as secular).

(3) Notice the connection between expanding technical vocabulary and providing challenges for skilled musicians - Yes, they really can be found at Parish level! Greater skill in performace is often characterised by greater 'precision' (in intonation, timing etc) without which many technical devices cannot be properly deployed. If we do not challenge our better musicians the idea arises that the church music group is only for beginners - especially amongst instrumentalists. The trick then is how to compose/arrange material that caters for congregations, beginners and the more skilful.