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These days I'm interested in the possibilites of what I call "pretty dissonance," largely involving chords made up from the stacking of thirds in alternating major/minor or minor/major steps (or other combinations). Another aspect of music which has become increasingly important to me since '96 is the application of traditional voice leading concepts to my "non-traditional" harmony and melody. I appreciate composer Graham Fitkin's implied philosophy that "pop harmonies, rhythms, etc. can be applied to strict-as-Bach development techniques." After all, real progress in any genre of music comes from mixing with other genres -- but in a disciplined way. This contrapuntal work instinctively simplifies the texture of my music in order to highlight melodic and contrapuntal combinations, and thereby discover interesting harmonic modulations, etc., which would not be as apparent in a more complex texture. The resultant counterpoint follows many older (pre-20th century) rules, but comes out consistently "dissonant". I now refer to this modified counterpoint as "21st-Century Baroque" writing. Listen to a radio interview from 2000 at Kalvos and Damian's Music Bazaar. |
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