In my case, I have occasionally dealt with composition as a philosopher concerned with understanding aesthetic and cultural problems. My interest in composition is therefore theoretical and not practical. I also happen to consider it a good mental exercise, just like other people enjoy chess or crossword puzzles. I learned mostly traditional techniques and remain unconvinced about the utility of serialism to avoid tonality. I agree with Robert Walker, for example, that our hearing will lead us to seek a tonal center and that it is not just a matter of time till lay persons come to like highly dissonant and non-intuitively structured music. This does not mean that one should slavishly imitate Mozart or Beethoven for the rest of music history. Impressionism (Debussy, Ravel) and post-Romanticism (Mahler, Richard Strauss, Delius, young Schoenberg, Walton) are still valid aesthetic orientations in my view because of their openness and transitional character towards atonality. If I had to choose a label, I would call myself a Neo-Impressionist, because it describes how I experience music, what I expect from it (suggestive melody, harmony, rhythm).

To listen:

(1) Eleven O'Clock Train, Variations on four motifs, for wind quintet (2002)

This is an arrangement with variations of the song (samba) "Eleven O'Clock Train", by Brazilian Adoniran Barbosa (1910-1982, real name João Rubinato). It was originally composed for a symphonic band (!) competition organized by the  Conservatory of Tatuí , São Paulo, Brazil, in 2002, to commemorate the 20th year of his death. Regrettably, the competition was eventually cancelled. It is important to explain that the piece was written following several rules restricting length (max. 6'), level of technical difficulty (in this case, medium) and intricacy of part writing. I learnt about this competition a couple of weeks before the deadline, and since it was meant to be scored for symphonic band, it was not really possible to conceive something so grandiose. I therefore reduced it for a wind quintet, which is just right for the musical content. The piece has three sections: after the opening, which presents the four motifs, the first section is a sombre version of the samba, followed by an intermediate section with easily understood variations. I use mostly transposition with interval alterations, reharmonization, augmentation and diminution,  rhythmic accent dislocation, some motif fragmentation and avoid retrograde forms. The third and final section is happier and playful arrangement of the song. As a whole, the piece is tonal and traditional.

"Eleven O'Clock Train" is about a man who is telling his girlfriend he has to leave (not abandon) her at that moment in their date or else he will miss the last train that takes him to his mother's home. He explains he is her only son and that she won't go to sleep till he arrives. Nevertheless it is clear that he is torn between his wish to stay and his concern for his mother. 

(2) Today, Friday 13, June, 2007, I decided to re-release the only garage recording I have of my progressive rock power trio, made back in 1987 or thereabout. It's somewhat disquieting to think that it was 20 years ago. I wrote this song called Lydian Jazz Funk for a band competition, but for whatever reason our application was either lost or ignored. The piece has an introduction that is made only of major triads with added major seventh and augmented fourth, except for the second chord, which is a dominant chord with a suspended fourth. As jazz musicians know, the Lydian mode is used to improvise on these chords, so that's the reason for the name of the song. After the introduction I added a somewhat bluesy improvisation section, in which I make a guitar-like solo with the synth. I used a Roland Juno 106, which had a great analog synth sound and a good pitch shifter. As you will see, I tried to keep things simple and within standard format. I did not want to experiment or do anything weird. After my solo I sustain the dominant suspended fourth chord and my drummer, Ricardo Primi, plays a short solo. We then resume the intro and that's it.

The power trio was:
Tristan Torriani: synth (Roland Juno 106)
Renato Hoffmann Penteado: bass (Fender)
Ricardo Primi: drums (Premier)

To listen:

My thoughts on this whole thing are rather complicated. With a hindsight of 20 years, in my estimation very little has changed. I regret that analog synths basically disappeared. Keyboardists decided to treat synths as toys to play around with for some time, but clung to the piano as the only really serious instrument one should play. If you're going to go against the fashion of the day, you better be really hard-headed. At a certain point you're inevitably going to feel weird, unless you're in complete denial. People will be asking, "What is that crazy guy doing with that analog synth?" However, both classical and jazz musicians are wrong, or should I say, their perspectives are too narrow and self-serving. Classical musicians are primarily concerned with performing a repertoire that is basically closed, self-contained and "dead" in the sense that nothing new, significant or interesting can be created within its fixed boundaries. Jazz is also dead because the intermediate level (right below classical) became artificial and needed "an infusion of lower forms" such as funk and rock. When hiphop appeared, even rock took a hit, but may still recover because hiphop is not doing so well now. Anyway, if you want to "do your own thing", classical can be frustrating because it has no place for you unless you are a "loyal interpreter" of the composer's score, wishes and intentions. The conventional jazz idiom is now somewhat outmoded and quaint. So the only thing that is left over to do is what you can call "progressive rock" and think of guys such as Frank Zappa, who was fully aware of the more esoteric musical composition techniques but didn't wholly part with the exoteric rock or doo-wop from which he made a living. That's just my two cents.