C.90 - "A Day in the Life of a Mode (Sunday)"
Composed: 17th to 22nd December 2015
This is the ‘bell’ motif that persists throughout the entire piece, and is slowly expanded into a dense blend of chord tones from C-ionian (figure 12):
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Figure 12:
The vast majority of melodies that coincide with this underlying motif have also been constructed from it (figure 13):
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Figure 13:
But I eventually found this consistency far too difficult to maintain, so I took some transcriptions of bell-ringing and implemented adjusted versions of those within the piece (figure 14):
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Figure 14:
Further, as bell-ringing cannot truly modulate, I held back from modulating out of C-ionian until the climax, where the motifs all shift up a sequence of minor 3rds until an octave is reached (figure 15):
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Figure 15:
Similarly, with each modulation comes the return of a previous motif, now as a modified variation (figure 16):
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Figure 16:
And continuing straight from "C.89", here is the portion of the commentary that discusses "C.90":
Composition 2A – CW2 – Commentary
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[..."Monday" discussion...]
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Analysis (‘Sunday’)
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‘Sunday’ was vastly different to ‘Monday’. Here, the influence was strictly from bell-ringing, insofar as even the tempo marking being a reference to a psalm. Not only did I try to use ionian for the entire piece, but I also attempted to constrain myself to construct everything from a single motif (figure 11):
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Figure 11:
Finally, in an attempt to emulate the decay of a bell and the numerous harmonics that are produced as a result of the blurring tones, the sustain pedal is depressed for the entirety of the piece. This hopefully also helped emphasise ionian by blending the notes together.
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Reflection
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Looking back, ionian was far more challenging to work with than locrian – it was very difficult to restrain myself to a single motif in one mode. Ultimately, I think I strayed away from ionian and into the typical major scale far too often, particularly with the transcribed phrases which heavily emphasised the resolution of the 4th – 3rd, which is not characteristic of ionian at all.
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Similarly, I think I picked the worst modes to possibly experiment with, as neither truly have obvious character tones making it very difficult to show that I am using these modes. Thus, I don’t think I was very successful in my use of modes.
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With regards to melody and motif, I feel I was successful in using them, but not with respect to the lecture concepts, particularly with nonchord tones as I wanted to adhere strictly to the modes. Regardless, I think the use of variation in the motifs was also successful, as was the euclidean rhythm in ‘Monday’ (although a little monotonous, though, so too are my Monday’s).
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Appendix A – Other Information
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The final word count for this commentary is 980.
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This excludes the main title, all text in the appendices and all italicized text within a graphic/figure.
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This includes all other text within the essay, including subtitles and figure numberings.
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Appendix B – Discography
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Holst, G. (1874 – 1934) ‘Mercury, the Winged Messenger’ (1916), The Planets Suite
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That commentary sums it up quite succinctly. This was one of my favourite projects that I had yet worked on, and I actually planned out what each of the seven days were going to be:
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Monday – Locrian – Commuting Chaos
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Tuesday – [Aeolian] – [Duet]
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Wednesday – [Lydian] – [Rain and Wind/Storm]
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Thursday – Phrygian – [Funeral]
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Friday – [Mixolydian] – [Partying/Clubbing]
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Saturday – [Dorian] – [Hiking/Adventure]
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Sunday – Ionian – Tolling of the Bells
The bracketed words are those I was not yet completely certain of. But from what I had planned, there is actually an underlying narrative that progresses through each day, which I won’t spoil here so you can figure it out for yourselves! So far, two other movement have been written: "C.95 - A Day in the Life of a Mode (Thursday)" and "C.103 - A Day in the Life of a Mode (Friday)", which I shall discuss later!
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Nonetheless, the overall mark that these two compositions received was 75%.
Reminiscence written on 22nd July 2016
Last updated: 20th October 2018