Between large musical projects back in the days of University, we had lots of other projects to do; conducting, orchestration, chorale harmony, general theory, arranging, production, performance and so on. It was tough, and I had to dedicate more effort in some areas than others.

So for me it was only natural to put it all in the creative parts. In arranging class, we were often given some sheet music and had to come back next week with it arranged based on whatever we were looking at and learning.

I can't remember exactly what the lesson was in this case, but the music we were given was the awesome song 'camptown races'. If you're not familar with it, just listen to 3 seconds of this, and you will realize that you are actually familiar:

It's super well known for whatever reason, and super fun.

I decided to take all the fun out of it for my piece, but I put a lot more effort into it than anybody else because that's just what I do. It wasn't for the grades, it was for the LOVE.

Spot the theme!

One could argue this is basically as good or better than the previous 'major' projects. I certainly prefer it.

You can kinda tell what I was learning but also what I was exploring myself.

I was still learning to intelligently interweave instruments with an acceptable level of dissonance while also playing with different keys that worked under the same classic melody. I pushed it as far as I could, and because it was a melody provided to me, I had no need to worry about structure, my main weakness, and just keep playing with the melody over and over.

But I also discovered how to effectively use modes, something only modern composers and guitarist-type people really make use of. The classical era rarely explored these by comparison.

Lydian Mode

Now this isn't a music teaching post, but in the most basic terms a modern musical mode is basically an altered scale, where you start from a different place in the scale. Ionian starts at the beginning, for example, C D E F G A B C and Lydian is the fourth; F G A B C D E F. This creates a difference in the sequence of steps and half-steps (distance between notes) and you end up with a different feel, some modes sounding whispy and adventurous like the Lydian mode, others sounding exotic and arabic, like Phrygian mode.

In the case of Lydian, the fourth note in the scale is sharpened, or raised half a step.

Chromatic scale

_{every note}

I was really becoming fond of chromaticism at this point, or basically using every tone and semi-tone. It's typically used in small passages and runs rather than have a whole piece of music based on it. It a piece is entirely chromatic, you would have no root note, no established point for your ears to rest on and you would be sounding very avant garde.

But used tastefully, it can be effective and I was improving to some degree. around 1:50, you can hear a high oboe dancing around a clarinet, and they slowly descend note by note four steps, over the main melody, which at the time was a stroke of genius for somebody so n00b at music.

I'm pretty sure I thought I was clever bringing the original theme back at the end too, but listening back and it was pretty poorly done lolz.

Anyway, so that's that.

Tomorrow I might look at some of the production work I was learning including Fleetwood Mac and Porcupine Tree!