(no subject)

[phineasjones]

so, the dictation part of my interview with professor C was her playing the bass and soprano parts of a bach chorale (ein feste burg) on the piano and me furiously and quite sloppily transcribing them. this was easier than i anticipated because a.) i figured it would be all the parts at once and i'd have to pick them out and b.) she repeated small sections over and over until i had them so exactly that i could sing them back to her from my paper. and then she told me to take home what i have and write out the other parts as bach would have (haha, right).

counterpoint! part-writing! i cannot tell you how geekishly excited i am about this. i love part-writing like nobody should. it was my favorite part of music theory classes. it's where i see my mother in me - she loves logic puzzles and part-writing is not much more than a musical logic puzzle. i'm going to get started on it tomorrow and i can hardly wait.

i am such a nerd.

Comments

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

you're not alone--I loved part writing, and in music theory I had so much fun with my counterpart exercises that my AI suggested I take composition lessons. I have such a huge love for Bach and Mozart specifically because of the clean structural genius of their compositions; and at the risk of sounding totally pretentious (this is really something I've thought about a lot), I think that I write this way as well--I always focus on structure and layering and technical aspects of writing; I think of it as much more like Bach than Beethoven, if you get what I mean.

[phineasjones.livejournal.com]

it's funny... i don't know about you, but i was never interested in composition. i felt like composition and part-writing were very different... one a puzzle to solve and one a completely creative endeavor. but i suppose, if you create the puzzle yourself and then solve it, you've composed something. seems like bach (and brahms!) must have thought that way to an extent. and it's fascinating that you can apply that to your writing. if i could get myself to think of writing as more bach and less beethoven, i might enjoy it more.