Show threadGygesringtoneJul 21, 2025

3/3 What I didn't know, and makes the piece work WAY better than it might otherwise, was that it actually started in the key of A and had a similar sort of tonal w/chromatic notes flavor for the first 10 bars. It goes all sorts of places harmonically and thematically in between, but by luck I had managed to bookend the piece pretty well.

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Show threadGygesringtoneJul 21, 2025

2/3

(You can look at the score at the review I linked to in the first post)

All I got was this ascending line in bar 50, E, F#, A, C, D, then a strong 4 with a Double stop C# and E. The key signature implied we were either in D or b minor, but to me those notes really called to mind an A blues scale, and I decided to swing big and assume we were in some flavor of A. PLUS I had stomps and rags on my mind, and the rhythmic emphasis of the bar I had gotten worked perfectly. It's basically a slight emphasis on 1 and a bigger one on 4, giving it a sort of dotted feel.

I had the luxury of being the last person to go, and choose the time honored trick of tagging the last note in a mini cadenza and did the sort of sequencing and shaping of a line I'd expect to see in a cadenza: start mid range, go up, go way down and then go up to a high point; sudden drops in volume, dramatic crescendos; etc. A nice solid ending.

#ModernClassicalMusic #NewWorks #GroupEfforts #SoloViolin #Composition

GygesringtoneJul 21, 2025

1/3

So I just had a piece I worked on reviewed by modern classical music.

https://www.modernclassicalmusic.com/echoes-in-the-tenth-measure-the-making-of-boston-rhapsody/

It was fun little project where I worked with 5 other composers and we did an exquisite corpse type of thing. Each of us wrote 10 bars of music, and we only had the last measure of the last person's music. So I wrote bars 51-60 and only had bar 50 to work off of. None of us knew each other all that well (in fact, one of us lives on another continent from the rest). So I had no idea what sort of music the gentleman before me wrote.

It was an interesting challenge, because I always try and compose in a way so that when the the climax or ending hits the audience feels like OF COURSE, that's how it goes, and in fact they've known that's where it was going the whole time. But I had no idea where we'd been the last 40 bars.

If you're interested in my thought process details will follow.

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Echoes in the Tenth Measure: The Making of Boston Rhapsody

On July 18, 2025, the official release of Boston Rhapsody marked the arrival of a unique and deeply original collaborative work by six composers from the Boston New Music Initiative. Independently released and distributed by TuneCore, the piece is now available on all major digital platforms, including Apple Music, YouTube, Amazon

Modern Classical Music