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EIS Student Examples

Craig Sharmat

Craig Sharmat

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I have decided to create a sticky for student examples. Everyone but Spud is considered a student including graduates of the course. The rules are simple, if you want to place a piece reply to the thread and start your own little section. Please add only to your own post moving forward by editing it and adding new pieces there. I realize this may not be a perfect system as there may be responses to some student examples but the other solution is to lock and unlock this thread anytime someone wants to put up a new piece. Hopefully on the new site it can be kept cleaner. If you have a new piece you want to be heard you can post it in your area here, but may also mention it in the main area for discussion whenever you wish. You can add pieces for whatever reason, in whatever format, mp3, pdf etc, you need not follow my format below. A pdf of a score takes work by the listener so do not expect any responses when doing that, however a pdf can still be useful for demonstration purposes which is what this sticky is about. Remember what you post reflects on you and EIS so keep this in mind.
Click to read more...
 
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These examples use mostly one technique with a few other ideas thrown in for musical variety, so I consider them exercises more than pieces, but am generally happy with the purposed result. These have been done over a period of time so production values vary per example. This is a very small sampling of techniques in the course. As you will notice I have added where in the course the techniques are acquired from. Hope you find this helpful. Be aware that someone else using the same techniques might come up with something so different it might be unrecognizable from my approach, one of great things about the course.
27 examples as of my last edit.



https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/trope-with-a-rope
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/thoughts-on-a-train-1-reflection
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/sms-164-pulsation
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/spuds-dissonance



https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/smj041a-putting-on-the-ms-full-book9-l1-2
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/shrouded-in-mystery-book-2-l5
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/polytonal-investigation
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/revolutions-interval-relations
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/requiem-for-a-dove-imitation
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/possible-tragedy-bk2l6
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/ongoing-investigation-minor-9th-resolutions
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/odd-occurrences-double-ground-motives
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/nyc-cacophony-tropes
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/h3-4part-example
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/falling-downbassruns
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/demonic-soul-trope
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/clubbers-in-danger-soharmonis
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/bk11-l12
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/bass-in-motion
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/bass-in-motion-cop
https://soundcloud.com/craig-sharmat/all-concerning-book-11-l8
 
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Thanks Craig for getting this going! I'm going to add an example which is one piece that I wrote using exercises from page 335-345, the end of Book 7 into Book 8. I'm constantly amazed by how much ground a dozen pages covers in this course and what it inspires in my professional writing. I turned these exercises into an Octet for Winds designed to be played alongside Stravinsky's piece with the same instrumentation. These are the Sibelius audio which I will update after the live performances later this year.

Also Composing with Equal Intervals Book 7 page 335. The title is "Horizontal Baby."


Horizontal composition Book 8 page 339. The title is "Marilyn Estates" for the peaceful neighborhood we live in.


Cheekily called "Ostinato This" is from Book 8 page 340.


"Flash Flood" is taken from Book 8 page 343 and was prophetically named on a rainy day in May one year before our neighborhood was drowned in our 2nd once in a hundred year flood in three years.


"Pattern and Design" from Book 8 page 345.


Also Composing with Equal Intervals Book 7 page 335 "Tuesday Morning"
https://soundcloud.com/13stepsmusic/octet-tuesday-morning?in=13stepsmusic/sets/octet-for-winds

I'll add some more tracks in the near future.
 
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Thanks for posting these Richard. I'm just starting with EIS - it's fun to hear what others are doing with it. And how it can be used to write in so many different styles.

Cheers
kc
 
kclements said:
Thanks for posting these Richard. I'm just starting with EIS - it's fun to hear what others are doing with it. And how it can be used to write in so many different styles.

Cheers
kc
Click to expand...

Thanks KC, and you're welcome! Can't wait to hear what you create.

Richard
 
I will be posting some things once I get into it.

I just received The first two books today in the mail. Very exciting.

Cheers
kc
 
Hi Craig,

As a new EIS student, studying under Glenn, I would like to know what the difference is between Bass in Motion from Book 2, and Bass Runs from Book 11. I cannot hear too much of a difference from the examples given (although that could just be due to my current inexperience with EIS), but I am guessing the difference lies in the way they are treated. How are they different?

Please don't go into too much detail though, as I've just started the course and don't want to be overwhelmed!

Many thanks.
 
Ashley Kampta said:
Hi Craig,

As a new EIS student, studying under Glenn, I would like to know what the difference is between Bass in Motion from Book 2, and Bass Runs from Book 11. I cannot hear too much of a difference from the examples given (although that could just be due to my current inexperience with EIS), but I am guessing the difference lies in the way they are treated. How are they different?

Please don't go into too much detail though, as I've just started the course and don't want to be overwhelmed!

Many thanks.
Click to expand...

Bass runs in Book 11 really have nothing in common with Bass In Motion in Book 2. Bass in motion is essentially a bass line moving in scalar fashion while Bass Runs is a technique that involves bass motions with root tones that move mostly in E1, but varying the intervals above the roots so that they don't sound like strict parallel transpositions. For example, instead of playing parallel fifths moving in E1, you could alternate 5ths with 6ths as the root moves along.

The technique is no more difficult than the techniques presented earlier on in the course.
 
Thanks jsaras for your time, and for that explanation. I had a lesson with Glenn last night where he also clarified a few more things about the differences between the two. All I can say is that I'm really excited now to get to future books! Book 2 is already really interesting to me, but I'm really looking forward to future things, in particular: going beyond the diatonic system (the contents of Book 6 and beyond sound really intriguing to me), and also learning about how melody works in this system.
 
Well, even by book 3 (and by book 4), you're thinking "outside the diatonic system", since you are building vertical structures that don't really correspond to traditional triads. Also, you're constantly having root motions in equal intervals, so you are moving in patterns that are not diatonic. But, I agree, Book 6 (polytonality) is eye-opening, and it really expands your compositional options.

EIS actually has melodic lessons peppered throughout its' books; there is one in Book 2 (P 100) I believe, which talks about the formation of good melodies. I'll look it up later. In general, though, a way that I like to think of melodic writing in EIS is (go figure) in line with Spud's central premise.... I think of melodies as linear patterns of equal intervals, that may or may hot have non-chord (substitute tones) added to create pleasurable shapes and forms.

Even just thinking it that way, gets me thinking away from a "scale" melody (unless I want it to be), and gets me into more interesting shapes, etc.

Mike
 
Here´s the Sketch for the lesson. I improvise the melody on the samplemodeling clarinet.
 

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Greatly enjoyed my firs EIS lesson. Was inspired to do some quick improvisations... These are played live, no MIDI tweaking (they also served as a test for a new patch I built). Hope you like them:





And here's A without any effects on the signal chain (I'm really not sure I improved the sound... whoops...):

 
ModalRealist, you've inspired me to post the first thing that I created using (or rather, being inspired by) EIS. After my first lesson in April, I ended up practising the Equal Interval progressions on the piano, and when I got to E5, I started on C, and followed the range limit, repeating it a bunch of times. As it naturally sped up while practising, I thought, "This would make a great ostinato!" – so I sketched out a short cue using the piano, and then arranged it. This is the result.

The bass line is the E5 cycle starting on C initially, but it moves up to Eb eventually, and down to D, before getting back to C, while always following the range limit. The melody line and chords are basically three-note stacked E5s, moving in parallel.

 
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