Writing music helps me deal with depression.
Saturday night I got a music composition challenge from darkwillow, which you can read HERE.
I had to write something which included all 12 tones of the chromatic scale. Grace notes didn’t count. It couldn’t be more than three minutes long.
Because of the 12 notes, I called it “Unsettling Dozen”.
Instrumentation:
2 Trumpet, 1 French Horn, 1 Trombone, 1 Tuba, Piano
Here is the file, and below are some screencaps of some pieces of the score.
One has color coding so you can see that all 12 notes have been represented.
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Thank you darkwillow for the challenge.
I had a lot of fun doing this.
I’m not sure I will be posting as often now, for various reasons which came to my attention today.
Thank you all for listening to me, thank you to everyone who has commented, and thank you for hearing the music.
50 comments
Awesome work, Cordless. Your dedication to the challenge certainly paid off.
Thank you for listening. 🙂
Here is a 2-liter of mountain dew and half a bottle of vodka for being the first person to comment.
Thank you! :). To be honest, listening to your work was a good reward by itself… but, um, I will take the Mountain Dew and vodka because I don’t want them to go to waste. 😉
I love it. Different to anything I’ve ever heard. You must have worked your ass off to achieve that level of theoretical knowledge and composing skill. Kudos.
Thank you, mus. 🙂
I have to put those six years of college to good use somehow, right?
I’m going to listen to this later. Right now i’m monitoring a foam sword fight.
Foam sword stabbings have a surprisingly low death rate.
Well they managed to beat the ever loving shit out of each other and now one is in the shower and the other has disappeared into his perfectly designed room. I am waiting for The Walking Dead to come on so they can kill off all my favorite characters. I swear I am going to fall on a foam sword if they kill off (redacted).
I’m also watching TWD. My mom, sister, and I are placing bets on who gets a taste of Negan’s barbed-wire bat this ep. Honestly I’m too attached to all of them to let any of them go. Ugh. The anxiety.
Who won?
My sanity won, since I didn’t have to keep separating them from doing real damage to each other. They kept picking up sticks and fighting with them. The little one almost got knocked out cold the other day and she stood up and ran at her brother screaming bloody murder while he ran across the yard with a look of sheer terror on his face. Prices shit.
I hope you don’t feel like folks personally attacked you today. I think the fun needs to continue. There are times around here is it just so quiet I think I’m the only one here. Or rather I pretty sure I’m the only one and I feel totally stupid because I look at the news feed to the right and all I see is me commenting and think “really am I such an attention whore that i need to comment on every fucking post, am i that pathetic that I don’t have a life and I’m the only one commenting on this site”. Then I sit and refresh and think some more about how fucking depressing it is and how damn lonely I am and how pathetic my life has gotten that i am desperately looking for anyone to talk to about anything at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon. I mean really? Christ.
I’ve been in that situation, Hazy. Recently, actually. (Sorry to interrupt…)
So yeah you totally get it right? Someone asked me how a successful person like me could possibly be here. I don’t have an answer. I guess I”m just that much of a loser that I can be decently successful and just plain spent in my personal live. Fucking broken. I’m just that broken that I can’t keep a decent relationship intact and find myself talking to strangers online in a way that ThIS is more real then the people that populate my personal life.
BTW are you a veteran?
So yeah you totally get it right? Someone asked me how a successful person like me could possibly be here. I don’t have an answer. I guess I”m just that much of a loser that I can be decently successful and just plain spent in my personal live. Fucking broken. I’m just that broken that I can’t keep a decent relationship intact and find myself talking to strangers online in a way that ThIS is more real then the people that populate my personal life.
BTW are you a veteran?
I get it more than I care to admit, Hazy. There are times here that I also see my username straight down the ‘Recent Comments’ list and I realize that it might be time to go for a walk or do something else. I truly value the friends that I’ve made here.
I can get things done in life when on a ‘stage’ in public. However, in private, things are the opposite. unsettling.
BTW: Yes.
Thought you were a vet. Which means minimum you get preferential treatment with job placement and homeless help, even if you don’t want it or God forbid it is a the VA hospital . It just dawned on me when I saw you talking about the homeless outreach service.
Are you a chick or dude, I have the worst problem figuring it out. Is that wrong to ask? Should it matter to me if you are a chick or dude. fuck my mind is a mess tonight. I should have just got blind drunk last night like I wanted to.
Its not wrong to ask. Guy.
I’ve worked for the government before. Once this latest mess is fixed, I’d like to go back to what I was doing. I enjoyed it but my personal issues were (literally) killing me.
There are clearly some issues with the VA but I understand that there are heavy caseloads and other factors at work. I’m not their biggest fan but I try to be objective.
Okay. Well I am going to just be honest. Originally I though you were a woman. And I was highly concerned about you showering at the truck stops and sleeping in your car. Not that it can’t be dangerous for men out there showering at truck stops and sleeping in their cars or staying in shelters but there are some inherent dangers that women face that men don’t typically run into. Not that homeless men can’t get raped or propositioned for sex and beat up, it just isn’t something inherent in the gender. Women accept that this is something they are always in danger of that it is simply part of being a woman. Which totally sucks.
Well I feel marginally better now that I know you are a guy. Minimum you are a little safer than a woman. Unfortunately men are more successful at killing themselves because they tend to use more lethal m@thods.
So um, yeah don’t try to kill yourself this week, well unless you check in with us and let us know so we can at least attempt to talk you out of it.
I do try to be gender-neutral here. I’d rather give insight as a person. Yes, there are absolutely situations in which I might not be able to offer insight based upon being a guy. However, I try to at least give support.
I appreciate what you wrote, Hazy. Thank you.
It’s okay if I keep thinking of you as a woman though right? Since I already associate the name with a woman. LOL. I’ll just write a subroutine for my brain so that the variable of you being raped and propositioned for sex is 50% less than the average woman.
Um. Er… Hmmm…
Can’t you auto-correct yourself to get the gender correct?
😉
WOW. Amazing! I have no idea what the “12 tones of the chromatic scale” are, but this sounds soooo nice. Congrats on the skills!
Don’t stop posting, we’ll miss you.
All the notes on the piano. The Black and White keys.
@doublezero: Thank you! I enjoy writing music.
@darkwillow: Exactly! This was a great idea. It was 4 or 5 hours well spent.
This is really haunting in areas. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for listening and for feeling haunted.
Or something like that.
😮
BTW keep posting fun threads We have gotten much better at consolidating things around here. If the admins had a problem they would step in. Trust me they are around, they are watching and they take action when they feel it is appropriate.
I’m just not convinced that they’re around, because none of them have ever answered anything I have ever sent.
It’s like a vampire looking in a mirror; no one is looking back.
Cordless. You are an Angel!!!!!!
Your brilliant and sweet. Your smart and fun.
If you were near me right now I would give you a big hug and a kiss.
Email me if you ever need anything.
@phantom: You’re very kind.
Thank you for saying all those nice things.
You were the very first sp person ever to email me, you were so kind to reach out when you didn’t even know me. For all you knew, I was a pyromaniac mermaid with an addiction to soy sauce.
Thanks for taking the chance. 🙂
I listened to this piece yesterday. Its really lovely. The notes flow really nicely, you can hardly tell on most of the parts than an accidental was used. Thank you, for this chordful ^.^
Thank you!
I was hoping you’d like it.
I think my favorite bit is that part where the 1st trumpet has that high chromatic series of notes (about 20 seconds into it. It’s also repeated later on).
And here I was sure I’d like the french horn part best. 😮
It really was a lot of fun to write this, and it momentarily took my mind off things.
Good therapy.
Thank you again.
Do you want to talk about, why you wont be posting as much?
Mostly this.
http://suicideproject.org/2016/04/i-just-wanted-to-say-something-about-whats-been-happening-as-of-late/#comment-499823
I feel like you should be able to post whatever you want. We’re all a community here. If theydont like what you’re saying, they don’t have to read it. I rarely post about depression related posts. If thats all there was here, it would just be depressing to go on..
Hugs for you.
I needed that today.
yo, Cordless
I enjoy reading your posts. I bet if you keep putting love out there like that, you’ll get *something* back
So far everyone I love is either
1. disinterested
2. already in a relationship
3. unaware I exist
4. possibly from Mars.
But thank you for reading and listening.
I’m glad you stopped by!
okay, but I have a prophecy for you and people like you:
You shall eat bread.
YOU. SHALL. EAT. BREAD.
Today I had pizza… there was crust attached.
Does that count?
short answer: Yeah dawg.
long answer: Yes…. in a way, it does count. Yes.
Question: Why do some people call the note G-flat that others call F-sharp? Is this a music theory thing, where a certain note *has* to be expressed a certain way? (I was taught that G-flat and F-sharp were interchangeable terms, and that that note could be expressed as either, but I’m starting to wonder if that’s actually the case).
It’s called an “enharmonic” reference.
On a piano, g-flat is the exact same note as f-sharp.
Same with other notes:
C# = Db
D# = Eb
E# = F
F# = Gb
G# = Ab
A# = Bb
B = Cb
B# = C
It all depends on what key signature the music has.
The keys that have their notes expressed as “sharps” are G, D, A, E, B, F#, C#…
The keys that have their notes expressed as “flats” are F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Cb…
The key of C-major (which this song is in) can have its accidentals expressed either way. I just happened to choose flats.
Thank you for answering.
Yeah, I knew that F# and Gb are the same note, I just wondered why somebody would express that note as one or the other. Your explanation about playing in a certain key makes sense.
I listened to most of your composition and found it pleasant.
hi cordless I’m sorry about the post I wrote but i wanted you to know that your posts are appreciated and i love you *hugs*
PS: Its ‘not interested in life ‘here incase you don’t know who this is
@Cordless: I don’t think anyone would be annoyed by your posts… You articulate yourself perfectly (even while intoxicated, as you demonstrated the other night), and you are a valued contributor around the forum. I commented on another thread earlier that it’d be appreciated if people only put up one off-topic post *each* on the front page, and you already do that, so I don’t see anything that *you* should change.
I enjoy your avant-garde approach to your compositions, btw. 🙂
@Cordless, this was pretty great. Your compositions are so eerie yet peaceful and wonderful. please keep posting.