Original subtitles

Now, as I told you my main instrument at high school

was classical guitar.

Guitar is still a great passion for me

but it wasn't something that I would like to study and work in the end.

One of the goals of Mr. Christofi (guitar teacher), was to

explain to me how a piece works, how it reacts, how it is structured

for me to understand what am I playing.

He is also a composer,

so he was giving a lot of attention on the:

why does the piece does this, instead of this.

And little by little I understood that I was more enthusiastic about how a

piece is structured instead of how it's performed,

I understood that I am a creator instead of a performer.

Now, little by little I started writting music,

with the little knowledge that I had about how to write music,

and with my intuition

in front of the piano, one piece of paper and later also the computer.

I wasn't very good at it but I loved it.

I was spending a lot of time in front of the piano,

from my breaks at school until 1 in the morning.

And on the 3rd year of high school, I took the decision to begin,

although late, contemporary composition lessons with Tasos (my teacher).

And despite the fact that I did not have any knowledge of contemporary music,

I remember that from the first lesson, I loved it.

He opened my eyes and ears to what truly means to be a composer and to write music.

That is not just a romantic guy, taking his hat, goes to the piano, write stuff down,

and that's it, whenever he has inspiration.

He explained to me what are my abilities and what my responsibilities as a composer.

Until now I wrote from piano solo to piano trio pieces,

and electroacoustic to open and graphic score pieces.

But, if I would say a few words about what kind of pieces I write most frequently, but not always,

is programmatic modal acoustic music and contemporary electroacoustic music.

Now, whomever understood what I said, raise your hands.

Could someone tell me what is the difference between programmatic and absolute music?

By the way, could we colse this?

Programmatic music is wirtten by having in your mind an external idea.

Something that is not about music, like a landscape, a story, a picture, something you saw.

(Is better if you use the microphone)

And the material, the tools that you use to create your music, come directly ftom that external idea.

Now absolute music is exactly the oposite. It is the music that is wtitten only for the music.

How you wrote the music and what you are saying with it does not have to have an external connection.

People asked me: ''What if you write with an emotion?''

But this is something that exist in programmatic and absolute music, you cannot escape it.

Just, in programmatic music,

you will hear a story, and you will try with your music to picture this story but with notes instead of words.

Now, could you tell me what is the difference between modal, atonal and tonal music?

(tell them in greek and maybe they will understand)

Often musicians think that modal music is just music that follows the church modes,

and that atonal music is music that only has random notes,

that do not make any sense, and this is a big mistake but firstly,

tonal music is music that follows one tonic center.

It has one note that around it there are harmonic functions and harmonic magnetism.

From that note, chord progressions are being formed that serve

the roote, the first. You always know the

IV - V - I . You always know where you are.

In modal music, the important is not that one note,

but the distance of the intervals in between the notes.

You can still have one important note, for example the ''mesos''

but you don't have harmonic functions, you don't have that IV - V - I.

It's something that I use a lot, for example I could write my own modes,

and not only the church modes.

Now, if I take whatever scale,

you are gonna say to me about major or minor, that are also modes,

it's one scale that I created and I am gonna follow.

Now, in atonal music, all notes, all chords have the same weight, the same value.

In reality, in an atonal piece you could have a note or a chord that is more important than others,

but is not like functional harmony, it doesn't have tonic magnetism,

one chord or one note cannot pull you. It could pull you musically, but because the harmony does it.

And normally atonal composers are trying to dismiss and escape the tonal magnetism, so that no note pulls you anywhere

One more confussion is that disconant music is atonal music, that is a big mistake.

In the beginning we have diatonic music, that is tonal music that means

that the piece will start in a tonality and finish in the same tonality without going anywhere else,

for example if it is D major it will finish in D major.

Little by little composers started to use ''wrong'' notes,

making their music ''chromatic'', and in the extreme we have chromatic music that is full

with ''wrong'' notes, and it is

the line between atonal and tonal music.

So for example, if chromatic music manages to arrive to a tonic center, to a tonic ''home''

it's tonal music. If not, it's atonal.

But for example we have polytonal music that uses two or more tonic centers at the same time.

Now this kind of music can be very conconant, or very disconant depending on what kind of tonalities you will choose.

Some other examples, so that I don't bore you, are serial music

that normaly is atonal music, and how it works is that

you have a series of note, and note only from down to up like scales, that you follow again and again in your piece.

Now this kind of music can be very disconant or not. Another example that I guess you all know is microtonal music.

In this kind of music the smallest interval is not the semitone, for example from C to C#, there are smaller intervals inside of that,

and this system is being followed a lot in the east, Turkey for example.

But now let's go to the basics.

What is composition? How do you start a piece from beginning to end, and most importantly what's the point, what is your goal as a composer?

For me one of the most important tools that I use in the beginning and throughout my process is improvisation.

For that, I would like to do with you an experiment about improvisation,

for me to show you what is in my opinion the biggest isue that composition and improvisation have in common.

I will need five volunteers.

Ok I will choose, 1 2 3 4 5.

Do a semicircle for everybody to see you.

Now, our purpose as a team is to count from one to ten and back,

but only one can say a number at a time, for example if you say one, you say two but we say three, we have to start from the beginning.

The purpose of this exercise is to become from five individual performers into one ensemble.

First issue that you will see in an improvisation group is not that they do not know hoe to play, but that they don't know how to be a team.

Try to concentrate to the person next to you, listen how they breath, when does he want to speak, what does he want to do

I will start with the one, and then together.

I hope you felt that energy between you, right?

Now, imagine that each of you represent one note, one chord, one musical idea, something.

As you noticed, just like it happens in composition and improvisation, with the same way,

every musical idea, every person wnt to speak first.

The instinct that each of us have is when to speak, when to say the number instead of when to stop, and breath.

This is one of the most difficult abilities for a composer and musician to gain.

When to breath and listen.

My first advice for you tody is,

learn when and how to listen as much as to learn how to play, because the one cannot be without the other.

For example now that I was watching you, you were:

And because I wasn't speaking you were looking at me,

and when I stoped saying the one, you were looking at Maria.

So, instead of waiting or someone you have to work as five together.

Now let's say that you took your instrument, you started to improvise, to write music, because you have inspiration, because you liked a musical idea, for some reason.

But because you ran, like the exercise, and you wrote everything down, now your music sounds a bit raw, a bit pushed, a bit uncooked

you're listening to it and you think: ''In my head it was sounding good but now no''.

Or/and, you hit a wall. You always hit a wall. There is always a point in a piece that,

despite the amount of time that you've been writting music, that you panick and you think that you cannot write music.

My opinion is that, inspiration is a small myth.

Inspiration exist, but it is also trained.

You practise it everyday, everyday you need to write,

and you need to know how to get out of the wall.

For this reason, there are a lot of tools that me and a lot of other composers use to break the wall that you see in front of you.

A couple of these are:

Enhancement or diminution. With Enhancement and diminution,

you make bigger or smaller your idea with the parameter of time, or with cutting and adding pieces to your idea,

and for example from a small melody, you can have a bigger part.

For example this melody:

You can double exactly the rhythm, you can cut or ad parts to your idea

and automatically, from two bars it could sound like this:

I apologize for the sound that is in midi

and almost all of the examples today are from my own pieces, and most of them are going to be recorded soon.

This is the example of when you cut and add parts. I will show you now the one that

we stretch the music. For example these two chords:

What is it it going to happen if we completely break it horizontally in time:

And what is it going to happen if instead of horizontally we stretch it vertically:

Now, for my friend here, I am going to give you an example also from electroacoustic music.

At this time, my musical idea was this: the recording of honey bottle when it is empty,

and I really liked the sound, I recorded it and it sounds like this:

Now, whomever of you that doesn't write electroacoustic music would listen to this and say ''what could I do with this?''

but for me this is amazing.

This is the simpliest example from my piece.

Actually, this recording was used throughout the piece with different ways, but this is the simpliest and it sounds like this:

All of these pieces you can find them whole in my youtube channel or my website if you find them interesting.

One other tool, as I called it, is the technique of the ''flag''.

The technique of the flag is when you have a characteristic theme, like this one:

And you use it in different and strategic points in your piece, combining the different parts of your piece together.

This is a technique that was used and is being used by composers that were writing or that they are writting programmatic music,

and academically is called ''idee fixe'' or ''leitmotif''

that I am sure you heart this before in music history.

It means that you take this musical idea, this theme,

and you give to it an external point.

or you just use it again and again in your piece, telling to your audience: ''Here it is''.

Everytime they hear it, you are holding their attention.

Now, if you give to it an external point, you can say that it symbolizes a landscape, an image, the story of your main character.

This specific melofy is from my piece ''The Last Laugh'',

and it symbolizes the idea of war, in the minds of three different soldiers of the first world war.

and it's written from the poem of Wilfred Owen ''The Last Laugh''.

In the poem we have three different soldiers,

and the three of them have three different sets of characteristics, three different characters.

So, my goal with the theme, with the portraiture of the war in their minds is to shape

and work the theme in a different way every time a soldier speaks, so that I can show

their characteristics, to show how each of them feel about war.

So everytime that we listen o the theme, is different,

and this is writting programmatic music.

Another example from my cello solo piece, ''Myst'', the theme is like this:

This specific piece, comes with a full sotry.

Another famous piece that this is happening also the piece ''Symphonie Fantastique'' of Berlioz.

When you take the score, there s a full story representing every bar in the piece.

The story for this piece is that two brothers are walking in the forest,

they find a house in front of them, they go in, the house belongs to an elf

and the elf is trying to steal with magic and violence the small brother from the older one.

Now this is the first time we hear the theme in the piece,

and if you listen to the piece you will understand. What is happening:

In the first bar, the older brother is speaking to the younger one,

and the second bar is the younger brother speaking to the older one,

saying to him that he doesn't want to leave from the house, because he is under the influence of magic.

This is the last time that we hera the theme in the piece:

Maybe you don't understand a lot because you don't have the context of what happen before and what is about to happen in the piece,

but you can understand the difference, you can understand that it is more heavy.

What happens here in the story is that the older brother cries and mourns for the younger brother because the elf killed him in there attempt to leave the house.

In reality, the two versions that I showed you now are almost the same,

but the technique of the flag and the idee fixe, is not only how you write the music,

and what harmonies and notes you are going to put,

but also how are you going to place your piece on the paper. How you write your piece on the paper pays a big role,

and how are you going to speak to the performer.

What are you going to say to him/her, how are you going to explain the story,

and also, if the story is very specific, and very connected with your piece,

like this specific bar for example,

automatically the permormer is going to play it exactly how the story goes.

Another tool, and very underestimated, is the tool of ''Relocation''.

In relocation, you literally change the position of your musical ideas inside of your piece,

creating a lot of other dimentions and combinations

in your piece that you couldn't be able to think or it would be very difficult to, with a cold mind.

Now, why is it underestimated? Because a lot of composers think that it is a cheap tool,

''Where is your musicality?'', ''Is this how you write, with mathematics?'',

something that is stupid, because

it doesn't mean that if I change the order of the pages inside the piece

that I don't know exactly what is going on.

Your musicality does not get lost because you know exactly how is going to sound, you know exactly what you're doing,

you have a reason for what you're doing, you don't just throw the pages into the ground and whatever happens.

Or if you are going to do it, you are going to listen to it in your head and you are going to understand

''Is this what I want?'', if not, you do something differently.

This tool was used by composers like Edgard Varese and Igor Stravinsky

that if you don't know their music, please, after this workshop go and listen to some,

and you will understand that the musicality does not get lost at all.

My personal favorite tool, is the tool of harmonization.

With the harmonization of a melody for example, you can show the process of this melody in your piece, with a different way everytime,

giving it a different point, style, mood, emotion, temperature, weight, energy,

you can do whatever you can imagine.

For exxample this melody from my piano trio piece:

With a harmonic filter, it will sound like this:

With a different harmonic filter, it will sound like this:

You can give this dimention, something very different:

One melody, three different emotions, three different dimentions every time.

These examples could be also in the technique of the ''flag''.

One theme, three different parts of the piece, with a different way every time.

In these examples, instrumentation also pays a big role,

but it is a whole other workshop, so we cannot talk about it today.

Lastly, I would like to talk to you about the technique of ''Phasing''.

Phasing is when the composer uses one musical idea into two or more different poles, exactly the same,

and little by little the one starts to move in time, rhythm, tone or register,

creating different combinations every time.

The most simple example, is the piece ''Clapping Music'' of Steve Reich, that as you can see,

it is one rhythmic structure exactly the same into two performers, but one of them starts to move

little by little in rhythm one eighth note at a time, creating twelve different bars

different from each other, and in reality it is a very simple idea,

but it sounds very good, and because it is Steve Reich and he ''did it first'', nobody can ever do it again.

This one, is an example for my piece for guitar duet, that again I am using phasing,

but what I am doing, is that I don't use exactly the same idea in both guitarists,

they start together in a specific tempo,

and without changing the tempo, using phasing, little by little one of the guitarists starts to

slower or faster in time, using phasing and you will understand what I mean now:

We saw the energy, we saw the tools, now what is the point? Why do we write music? What makes you a composer?

And it is an answer that is always different so does someone want to tell me?

Do you write music?

Who told me that writes music?

You want to study composition?

To cure this confusion,

you do not go to study for the diploma, you go because it is a very nice compact place where you can get the knowledge that you need so that you can write music.

So, do you write music? Why do you write music?

(I write because basically I like to express my feelings

and I like it when someonegets identified by what I have to say)

For me, why do I write? Because I need it, because I cannot stop writting.

Because you need to serve the ''muse''.

You have the need to express yourself, to be heard, to share.

I say this for some time now,

that just like the simulators for games, just like the simulators for student pilots,

like that, music is the simulator of emotions.

You can make whomever to feel whatever. Whatever feeling you saw, heard of, felt, you want to feel or don't want to feel.

The biggest mistake that I and a lot of other composers do,

Is that, with knowing and aplying many and different tools and techniques in your pieces, it makes you automatically a composer?

Wrong. Just like my first composition teacher told me:

''Tools are only tools, they do not write the music but you do''

The piano, guitar, the musical ideas, the computer, are only tools

The composer inside of you is located between of your ears and your soul.

And it is not really how much knowledge you have.

So, for me, composer you are when you train your inner and outer ear,

when you are the master of your creation, when you are being honest with what you want to say and with the to whome you want to say it,

when you use tools to worship your music and not when you write music to worship the tools, like a lot of people do.

That's when you have completely succeed as a composer, that's when a piece distinguishes itself between others.

And if I had three words for me to explain to you what is composition fro me, are:

''Listen, feel, write!''

Thank you very much.