IB Music: Experimenting as a Creator

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The material here presents some sample "student" offerings, which have used the aria "Non so piu" from Act 1 of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro as the basis for experimentation. Students have opted to re-contextualise the material in a jazz medium and it is hoped that through the three excerpts that development of ideas is in evidence.

You are reminded that these examples only offer a brief insight into the requirements and you should check the Guide for all the details.

0:00 Introduction to Experimenting as a Creator
0:56 The Process in Experimenting
3:30 Original Stimulus: "Non So Piu"
4:25 Fragment from the Experimentation Report - Excerpt 1
5:47 Fragment from the Experimenting as a Creator - Excerpt 1
6:21 Fragment from the Experimentation Report - Excerpt 2
7:42 Fragment from the Experimenting as a Creator - Excerpt 2
8:18 Fragment from the Experimentation Report - Excerpt 3
9:50 Fragment from the Experimenting as a Creator - Excerpt 3
10:21 Final Reminders
10:43 More Information on Experimenting with Music & Submission Dates

Ambient Music: Symmetrical Explorations in Two-Parts by Dr. Anton D. Luiten

Here are the accompanying notes for the "student" samples:

Excerpt 1:

My goal with my experiments here was to attempt to emulate the notion of improvisation in jazz by incorporating a range of expressive features. The running sixteenth notes (semiquavers), which became a typical feature of the Bebop style opens the excerpt, but standard forms of jazz ornaments pervade the remainder of the passage, namely trills, tremoli, acciaccaturi, glissandi, and mordants.

These were not randomly peppered throughout the passage, but rather strategically placed in order to draw attention to some of the salient harmonic features and to provide contrast to the repetitious phrases. In bar 3, for example, the 4-3 suspension (over Fm) is exaggerated by the use of the trill. This is similar to the treatment in bar 5 (over B♭7). Further, with the same material appearing in both bar 10 and bar 13, it was deemed more stylistically appropriate to include variation at each of these moments.

Excerpt 2:

As a classically-trained clarinetist, it was my aim here to experiment with the use of the blues notes and in some cases, merely with chromatic variation. The opening bars demonstrate this contrast immediately with the raised 3rd (G#), as a chromatically lowered neighbour to the ensuing 4th degree (A). In the following bar, the D♭ lowered 7th (blues note) is subsequently ‘corrected’ to D.

Careful research was conducted on the treatment of these blues notes and in most cases here, the ‘resolution’ in my experiments followed standard patterns of procedure to fall by step. However, I was cautious in my thinking that one should not always view these notes as intending to ‘resolve’, but rather form an integral part of the scale without any inherent ‘tension’. I have included examples where immediate ‘resolution’ is not always apparent, such as in bar 6 where the inclusion of the A♮ sharpened fourth (blues note) is later treated to the same form of ‘resolution’ as the earlier examples by falling to G later in the bar.

I also explored a greater register in my instrument from the original melody by Mozart, expanding the material, at times, to over the course of two octaves (bb.7-8).

Excerpt 3:

For this final excerpt in experimenting, I wanted to emulate the unexpected by injecting momentary rests within phrases. Thus, for the two-bar opening statement (bb.2-3), which is sequenced in the material that follows (bb.4-5), I have included quaver-length rests at the start of bar 4. These are more than mere examples of off-beat syncopation, but disrupt expectations, given the fluidity of sound in the opening phrase.

Further, I have experimented with the use of rhythmic interplay with the inclusion of the crotchet triplet that appears in bar 8 in relation to the accompaniment. In conjunction with strict adherence to the quaver-lengthed walking bass, this results in a fleeting example of cross-rhythm. Again, this is not unprepared, as triplets are introduced at the end of the first phrase (b.2), in the second phrase (b.4) and at the end of bar 6. Thus, I wanted an integrated variety in rhythms that are not only present for the sake of experimentation, but to unite the work by drawing attention to important melodic contours.

A form of long-term rhythmic diminution is also present in this material. The pair of quavers at the start of bar 10 has transformed themselves into a series of semiquavers at the complementary moment in bar 13, which is finally elongated further in the final bar (b.15). This is a typical technique in composition that helps to establish an increase in intensity.

Thank you,
dr anton d. luiten