June, 2019: How do you manage your signs and signals?

[sandalwood]

Do you deliberately write  genre/period/school/culture  (e.g. jazz/late romantic/impressionist/ethnic) markers into your compositions? Is it generally to  effect a local evocation/reference or to obtain a diffuse effect painting the whole work in a certain color?

[Patrick O'Keefe]

Okay.  I'll bite.

Do you deliberately write  genre/period/school/culture  (e.g. jazz/late romantic/impressionist/ethnic) markers into your compositions?

Yes.

Is it generally to  effect a local evocation/reference or to obtain a diffuse effect painting the whole work in a certain color?

No.

But to fill those answers out a bit, ... . 
I tend to write modal music which, depending on the mode (and mood) can imply late romantic, or impressionist, or ethnic, or sometimes even jazz (but not very effectively).  I'm not trying to insert something from those genres, periods, schools, or cultures, but the associations may be there anyway.

I also occasionally include Balkan rhythms.

But none of this to purposefully give a specific feeling, flavor, or color to my work.  It's just the musical vocabulary I feel most comfortable with.  I also resort to quartal harmony almost as a default if no other harmonies present themselves.  I like the sound.

[Jerry Engelbach]

Everything I do has a jazz flavor, as that's my background.
 
Much of what I've done started as original jazz tunes that I then developed into "classical" arrangements.
 
It's a challenge to try to break out of those comfortable extended chord cliches into a more adventurous language.
 
Some of the outstanding non-traditional work here by others is the direction in which I would like to go.
 
Cheers,
Jer

[RJB54]

In general, no, I just write using my technical base materials.

Although, sometimes (rarely) I might deliberately write something alluding to a specific genre. For example, in my withdrawn Suite #1 there was a movement which was a sort of rag. Sometimes a passage might have a syncopated feel which 'might' be thought of as jazzy, and so on. But, I generally don't deliberately do that sort of thing.

There is a another reason that I tend to not to want to include 'jazzy', 'bluesy', components in my pieces. This is, that in doing so the result is music that to my ear sounds like a second rate imitation of Gershwin or Bernstein. So why bother?

Similarly, a common method of writing 'American' music is to incorporate turn of the 20th century 'Americana' (folk songs, pop songs of the era, etc.). I don't do this either because to me the music ends up sounding like a second rate imitation of Ives or Copland. So why bother?

[@ADR2Music]

Years ago I used to do this, largely because it was comfortable.  Forms and styles with which I was familiar--and not unskilled in writing--were like a security blanket.  I felt safe in those worlds because I knew them so well and didn't feel capable of embracing the uncertainty of seeking a voice of my own.  While I may not have found that voice, I no longer deliberately seek to create "a second rate imitation" or pastiche of those who came before me, with their own unique voices, and spoke more authoritatively than I could ever hope to do.

[Jerry Engelbach]

Years ago I used to do this, largely because it was comfortable.  Forms and styles with which I was familiar--and not unskilled in writing--were like a security blanket.  I felt safe in those worlds because I knew them so well and didn't feel capable of embracing the uncertainty of seeking a voice of my own.  While I may not have found that voice, I no longer deliberately seek to create "a second rate imitation" or pastiche of those who came before me, with their own unique voices, and spoke more authoritatively than I could ever hope to do.

Welcome, ADR2Music.
 
I learned that no matter in which direction one goes in art, one is always being oneself because everyone has a unique signature.
 
However, we're all bound in some way to what we were taught, and only a tiny fraction can achieve the genius of true originality.
 
So I just quit worrying about it.
 
Cheers,
Jer