Composition Study 4 - One Note

Single Note

Create a composition using only one note. Transposition to different octaves allowed. No sustaining sounds. No drums or percussion.

Try and think about the quality of that note.

Rhythm.

Texture.

Dynamics.

Silence?

Research

One Note Song

 

This piece contains a number of different people playing E notes on a wide range of different instruments, played along to a drumbeat and bass line. The interesting part of the composition comes from the variety of sounds that come from the different instruments, each having a difference in texture and dynamic. However in the creation of this weeks piece, no percussion is allowed, so to create any interesting rhythmic patterns would have to come from other instruments.

Musica Ricercata by Gyorgy Ligeti (Musica Ricercata, 2014).

This first piece of music comes from a set of eleven pieces called Musica Ricercata, written for piano by Gyorgy Ligeti (1951 - 1953). The piece consists of mainly one note being played throughout, the note being A. A notable feature of this work is Ligeti confines himself to a range of pitch classes, with each piece adding one more pitch class. With not much room for any tonal movement within the composition, Ligeti instead focuses on texture, dynamics and the use of poly rhythms. At the end of the composition he uses the note D to finished the piece.

Methodology

When beginning to compose the composition, a number of different factors had to be considered, without being able to rely on any interesting melodies or harmonies, focus would have to be put solely on rhythm and the creation of interesting sounds, texture and dynamic just like in Ligeti's composition. 

The main part of the composition is focusing on the array of different sounds that are used. I try to make use of silence as well. The beginning of the compositions starts with an idea that is later repeated towards the end of the piece to give it some form of structure. Using the Spector VST plug-in in Cubase, I had access to a vast array of interesting sounds to build the piece.

Final Composition

Conclusion

I'm quite happy with the composition, it would have benefited from being longer but I think it demonstrates some of the different elements that were discussed in the brief. If this task were to be undertaken again, rather than using a VST synthesizer I would have looked into real instruments being played, to give a more human feel to the dynamics and texture.

References

1. Rob Scallon. (2013). One Note Song . Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IVaDoCQhTo. Last accessed Sep 2014. 

2. Thomas Ligre. (2011). György Ligeti - Musica Ricercata [1/11] . Available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIs3jechQ_E. Last accessed Sep 2014.