Holly Mead - Composer, Pianist

Five more prompts from Jorge Variego's book Composing with Constraints:

Exercise 5) Compose a melody for trumpet that uses the scale on page 10 in the given order and register. 

Three more prompts from Jorge Variego's book Composing with Constraints:

Exercise 2) Compose a melody for oboe that starts and ends on different pitches and uses a prescribed scale and…

Hi! In preparation for a 10-day artist retreat this August, I would like to thoroughly and systematically exercise my orchestration and  composition muscles. I have chosen Jorge Variego's book Composing with Constraints: 100 Practical Exercises in Music Composition to guide…

In September, I went on tour with the amazing and talented ONIKHO! We performed in NYC, London, and Berlin. Here is a photographic/videographic retrospective of some of the highlights. 

We kicked things off at Nicky's Unisex in NYC:

Soundcheck…

A musical send-off will take place at UMA Gallery in Oakland this Thursday, May 5th, 2022, 7:30pm. This hour-long program of original solo piano will be my last performance as a Bay Area resident. Thank you for everything. I…

I will be taking a brief leave of absence from my current residency at the Dorland Artist Colony in Temecula, CA, in order to attend Awesöme Orchestra Collective's EOY concert and fundraiser on Sunday, December 12th at the Freight and…

With only two months left on sabbatical before I return home, the time has come to assimilate my newly minted skills and check a few things off of my composerly to-do list. Here is my capstone orchestration project, Syrinx Symphony…

I have enjoyed sweating my way through "Part One" of Paul Hindemith's bootcamp-esque Elementary Training For Musicians. I was initially dismayed by Hindemith's cosmically grumpy introduction which is rife with abrasive/exclusionary language, but I'm glad I shrugged off his…

I had the privilege and pleasure of collaborating with ONIKHO to create an orchestral arrangement of her new song "Love Bold" for Awesöme Orchestra! You can see/hear it (and two other beautiful new works) in this documentary produced by…

Here are exercises 1, 2, 4, and 5 at the end of Chapter Six of Twentieth Century Harmony, pg. 158-159!

Here are exercises 2, 3, 6, and 7 at the end of Chapter Five of Twentieth Century Harmony, pg. 133-134!

Here are exercises 1-7, 9, and 11 at the end of Chapter Five of Twentieth Century Harmony, pg. 119-120!

Here is a combo of Wednesday and Thursday's experiments:

Today, I combined a Phrygian-Major tetrachord with a Lydian-Major tetrachord to create a modified v.2 of yesterday's tune. Tomorrow, I'd like to try combining/lengthening yesterday and today's snippets to create a more substantial piece.

I've been puttering my way through Ron Gorow's Hearing & Writing Music: Professional Training for Today's Musician for quite some time, and I was able to finish it this week. There are already plenty of descriptions/reviews of Gorow's book floating…

Here are exercises 7-10 at the end of Chapter Four of Twentieth Century Harmony, pg. 107-108!

In Chapter Four of Twentieth Century Harmony, Persichetti discusses quartal harmony.

The chapter concludes with ten compositional prompts. Here are exercises 1-4 and 6!

Here are exercises 6, 8-13, 17, and 19 at the end of Chapter Three of Twentieth Century Harmony, pg. 91-92.

In Chapter Three of Twentieth Century Harmony, Persichetti discusses the cycle of fifths, thirds, and seconds, and sevenths, ninths, fifteenths, seventeenths, and twelve-note chords.

The chapter concludes with twenty compositional prompts. Here are exercises 1-5!

Here are the remaining five "applications" at the end of Chapter Two of Twentieth Century Harmony, pg. 65!

Here are exercises 14 and 16-20 on pages 64 of Chapter Two of Twentieth Century Harmony.

Here are exercises 8-13 on pages 63-64 of Chapter Two of Twentieth Century Harmony.

In Chapter Two of Twentieth Century Harmony, Persichetti discusses scale materials: modes, synthetic scale formations, pentatonic and hexatonic scales, and the chromatic scale.

The chapter concludes with twenty-five (!) "applications" (i.e. compositional prompts). Here are exercises 1-4 and 6-7.

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Here are the remaining six "applications" at the end of Chapter One of Twentieth Century Harmony, pg. 30.