Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Ben Weber - New Adventure

This is a fairly easy piece I've taught a number of times, though only a few of my students have taken to it.   There are lots of useful technical and expressive features in this piece and its quite beautiful companion, Lyric Piece (alas, no Youtube).   I like Ben Weber's music a lot, it has its own particular and quite individual character.  The composer Roger Tréfousse wrote a very moving memoir of his teacher.



Update:  Going to his website, here is Roger Tréfousse's tribute to his teacher, Fantasy on the name Ben Weber

This advice on composing, from the memoir  linked to above is rather intriguing:

Ben emphasized the value of finding ways of encouraging your unconscious mind to lead your thinking and, with luck, take you to places where you might never have consciously planned to go. For example, he suggested beginning work on a piece by writing a list of words—not poems, just words. Adjectives were his choice. He said he often used this technique to get his creative thoughts flowing. To illustrate, he chose two words, “peripatetic” and “voluptuous,” and wrote a line of music inspired by each word. 

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