CC21 #3: Siblings

3 pieces completed for my CC21 project!

Siblings is a short three-movement solo piano work I composed back in 2005 for my senior recital at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. I've just now gotten around to transcribing them, after some folks showed interest on my CC21 Facebook page.

Curious? You can get the PDF and MP3 (featuring yours truly at the keyboard!) for free on the project's webpage.

Up next: unaccompanied solo soprano work based on the Song of Solomon.

Music for a Rainy Day and the Creative Commons Conundrum

New Piano Album

As I mentioned recently, I just finished editing and mastering Music for a Rainy Day, my first album of piano music. It's practical, "useful" music in that each track is meant as an accompaniment to a specific part of the day: "Music for Waking," "Music for Sitting," "Music for Driving," etc.

I improvised these recordings months ago, but never got around to completing the project. It comes out to 14 tracks and nearly one hour of perfectly enjoyable music! I haven't yet decided what to do with the CD. Should I put it on iTunes/CD Baby? Post excerpts on my website? Offer it all as a free download?

Creative Commons

I've been thinking a lot lately about the business and culture of music creation and consumption, especially the Creative Commons movement. Through a Creative Commons license, an individual work is made freely available, with optional restrictions such as requiring source attribution, disallowing remixes (derivative works), and/or disallowing reusing for commercial profits. This model fits well with my gut feeling that art must be shared, passed around, and participated in as widely as possible. However, not yet having crossed the elusive (mythical?) threshold after which my art begins to turn a profit, I realize I am particularly susceptible to making the foolish mistake of signing away my money-making rights on my work.

After all, giving away music is the opposite of How Composers Make a Living (WNYC radio episode). My good friend Candace Bilyk once told me so. Frank Ticheli suggests trying film and video games, but doesn't mention Creative Commons. Composer Alex Shapiro, who regularly lectures on the business of composition, has forged an impressively successful online presence under the traditional copyright model.

Some successful composers do distribute their scores and/or recordings using Creative Commons licenses, but not most. There is a lot already written (or spoken) on the subject. In particular, check out the thoughts of one of CC's most well-known classical proponents, Kyle Gann.

For those of us still awaiting that first professional recording or commission, I can't help but wonder if limited use of this "free advertising" could be an important catalyst in forging a professional career. (By the time my annual score sales exceed $50, maybe I'll reconsider.) So I concocted an experiment to test this.

The Experiment

I've decided to write a set of chamber miniatures - companions to my Miniature Symphony No. 1. Each work will be released under a Creative Commons license, meaning performers may download, perform, and record the score at no cost. My goal is to get the works played in 22 different states over 22 weeks, with a quality recording required of each performance.

Why 22 weeks?

I'll receive my doctorate in Composition this weeked, May 14. A mere 22 weeks later is the College Music Society's National Conference. While there, I hope to present a five-minute talk on new music, copyright issues, and Creative Commons. Hopefully by then, I'll have greatly increased my music's exposure and recording volume through the use of Creative Commons. Maybe this CC project will even inspire a commission or two!

But, as for my recent piano album and future (more significant/lucrative) works, I'm still undecided. Any sage advice out there from those who are a little further down this path?...

Rhapsodic Thoughts

Rhapsodic thoughts on the Library of Congress, new music, my new piano CD, free music, my mom, and the Rapture. Here we go:

* Going to see Eighth Blackbird for the first time on May 20th. Really looking forward to seeing them for the first time, and it's free since it's at the Library of Congress! Speaking of...

* Saw a concert of George Crumb's music at the Library of Congress last week. Fantastic performance of his American Songbook (selections). Brilliant reworkings of these shared cultural artifacts, but decidedly not "for the people" - except for those people who have 100 percussion instruments and a lot of time on their hands. Really enjoyed his pre-concert talk; makes me want to write more practical music. Speaking of...

* I just completed Music for a Rainy Day, my first album of piano music. Each "practical" track serves as an accompaniment to a specific part of the day: "Music for Waking," "Music for Sitting," "Music for Driving," etc... [Subject for a future post.] Right now, I'm trying to decide whether to market the CD, or post it as a free download. Speaking of...

* I've been thinking a lot lately about the business of music, especially regarding the Creative Commons movement, wherein an artist allows the free distribution of their work, presumably spreading it around faster and leading to greater word-of-mouth. [Subject for a future post.] I'm pondering releasing Music for a Rainy Day under a non-commercial CC license. Free music, yum! I'll of course give it away to family, especially considering it was conceived as a gift for my mom, so she'd have some music of mine she might actually enjoy. Speaking of...

* Mother's Day is tomorrow, Sunday, May 8th. Don't forget to call. My immediate family and a few others are making the trek from South Dakota to see my graduation next weekend. So excited! Just in time: the piano CD gift is actually a 4-months-late Christmas gift. Speaking of...

* Okay, Christmas and the Rapture are only tangentially-related. Have you heard that the Rapture is coming May 21, 2011? That's in two weeks! 6 p.m. local, to be specific. I'm considering hosting a Left Below/non-Rapture/Reason party that night. Any takers/suggestions?

BEDA Day 6: Bartok Piano Music

One more, this time for Monday. Bela Bartok (forgive the lack of diacriticals) (1881-1945) is near the top of the list of major twentieth-century composers. Boosey & Hawkes has some great info on him.

You can also read his bio at Wikipedia, or you can jump right to the page's audio samples.

What makes Bartok so great to me is his effortless mixture of tradition and innovation. Every work I've heard of his makes perfect sense musically and artistically; his music is eminently listenable. Yet there is always something of interest - asymmetric meter, octatonic collections, invention and variation - that shows a great intellect.

He is also direct and not prone to unnecessary notes or gestures, marking a clear musical intent - something basic yet quite challenging to most composers.

Bartok's solo piano music is a particularly good place to start for the beginner, as he was prolific and exellent in this genre. His Mikrokosmos (Wiki), a graduated series of 153 pieces in six volumes, is a monument to the diversity and quality of the composer's entre oeuvre. You can preview and purchase the scores at JW Pepper, or search for the volumes at sheetmusic.com.

I have greatly enjoyed exploring his easy to moderate works in a tutoring situation this semester, and I strongly recommend you do so as well if you're interested in hearing some solid yet playfully quirky music.

New Music Appetizer Week #6 - Teamwork Is the Key

trembles on the brink
MP3

A fascinating yet popular chord progression. An ambiguous and slightly pretentious title. This piece already seems bound for greatness!

For this week's New Music Appetizer, I'm joining forces with a handful of musician friends to write some music "just for fun" (whatever that means). The online music collaboration site Kompoz allows people to upload and download individual tracks of a song, facilitating remote collaboration. There are some great projects and great potential on the site.

trembles on the brink combines the soft strings chord progression of Jerome Kern's All the Things You Are (perhaps the most perfect song ever created) with... well, I don't know yet. That's the joy of collaboration!

To hear two other versions of the progression and learn more about the project, visit its Kompoz page.


Switching gears, also note that the Home and Projects pages of my website have undergone revisions and added a bunch of links. I finally got around to learning basic HTML coding yesterday, and I do mean basic! (A HREF=what?)

Enjoy, and have a good week. As always, say hi through comments. I'm off to imitate Boulez! Sort of...

New Music Appetizer Week #5 - A Trip Down Memory Lane

Mark
MP3
Darn, 24 minutes late.

Here's a mini-blast from the sort-of-past: a short piano work I wrote while a senior in undergrad and finally coming around to the slow realization that a "composer" is one who actually composes music... like, for real... and has it performed.

Mark is a character piece dedicated to my older brother. While the dissonances now sound far too harsh to my ears, the piece was meant to reflect the odd beauty of my brother's firm resolve through any sort of adversity. Some call it persistent. Some call it stubborn. But in any case, this is what it sounded like to my 21-year-old mind.

The recording features yours truly at the piano during my senior piano recital, the high point of my piano playing prowess!


Kind of a departure from the newly-created music theme of my New Music Appetizer, I realize, but I hope I will be forgiven. Last weekend was the insane 24-Hour Musicals, and I've got another collaborative project in the works starting this weekend.

As always, if you stop by, take 15 seconds to say hi. Leave a comment, or go to www.kylegullings.com, poke around a bit, and send me a message through the Contact Me page! Bye until next Friday.