Exercises in Composing

This part is designed primarily with composers in mind, yet while experience writing music would be helpful here, it is not absolutely required to enjoy doing these exercises. The exercises may be done by an individual alone, and they are also useable in a composition class, private lesson, theory seminar, or improvisation workshop. Part V opens with an essay about creativity in general that also explores ideas of truth and beauty in music. Beauty is not discussed in a mundane sense—not in the sense of prettiness or loveliness—but rather the concept of Beauty within music composition as it is embodied in the relation of the parts to the whole, a sense of proportion, and the aptness of technique to the idea expressed. This is followed by a series of exercises designed to inspire musical creativity. These involve a range of approaches, including: imitating models; channeling composers; creating alternatives to existing music; using spoken text as subtext for composition; stylistic juxtapositions and confrontations; altering parameters such as meter; rewriting pre-existing music; using structural analysis to create new music; cutting and pasting; group composing games; versions and variations of a phrase; deceptive endings, detours, and interruptions; and music based on physical manifestations of emotion discovered through acting.

Leonīds Vīgners – komponists

The aim of the article is to highlight the creative work of the outstanding 20th- century Latvian conductor and pedagogue Leonīds Vīgners in the field of composition. The facts are based on the materials of Leonīds Vīgners’s archives found in the Museum of Literature and Music, which allows tracing the entire, versatile activities of the musician. Leonīds’s understanding of music, much like that of his sisters Beatrise, Meta, and prematurely deceased brother Vitālis, developed early in childhood, when they became the examples of the success of the new practical method of absolute musical hearing championed by their father Vīgneru Ernests. Later, the talented musician received a comprehensive musical education at the Latvian Conservatory. In addition to conducting the orchestra, playing the organ and percussion instruments, he also graduated from the composition class of Jāzeps Vītols. In the 1920s and 1930s, Leonīds Vīgners composed a range of instrumental works, from simple minuets to an extensive form of a piano sonata. In total, the museum’s collection contains 16 manuscripts of his instrumental works. The largest part of Leonīds Vīgners’s work consists of his solo and choir songs composed or reworked in different periods of time. He has mentioned that he has composed about 80 solo and 300 choir songs, but some of them perished during the war. Examining the manuscripts of Leonīds Vīgners’s songs, as well as many drafts that have been included in the collection of the Museum of Literature and Music, it can be concluded that he attached great importance to the words that evoked his musical ideas. Leonīds Vīgners always remained himself, with his own views on music and Latvian nationalism. However, behind his seemingly harsh exterior, there was a sensitive and fragile soul, which is truly revealed in his compositions with the plastic, bittersweet sense of melody characteristic to the Romantics and at times the impressionistic freshness and subtlety of his harmonies.

Rethinking Creative Writing Pedagogy in a Multilingual Composition Classroom

This chapter aims to redefine creative writing pedagogy in terms of a literacy practice to identify the role of creative writing in establishing community literacy in ESL classrooms and to determine the ways in which creative writing might be implemented in the ESL composition class with a view to fostering community literacy. The chapter defines the scope of the following concepts and defines the corresponding working terms in the chapter: community literacy, creative writing pedagogy, composition classroom, etc. The first part of the chapter provides the overview of the theoretical works of the researchers whose views and concepts serve as the foundation for the current research. The second part of the chapter identifies specific creative writing techniques to be utilized in the ESL classroom for establishing community literacy.