Writing about the music I compose is difficult for me to do. I feel that the music I compose should express beauty without rhetoric, and that the music I compose isn't mine, even though I composed it - explaining it as if it were mine seems foolish to me. However, I can give some insight as to my thoughts about music as a whole which may help flutists understand the flute music I compose.

’Music is an infinite possibility of arrangements of tonal and rhythm patterns which define a comprehensible syntax’ - this statement has been a mantra for me. It drives me to understand the music around me and in me. I arrange tonal and rhythm patterns that I hear in my mind and body when I compose. The tricky part is understanding them, as I cannot just explore music when I compose, I must understand the tonal and rhythm patterns I am exploring. My effort to understand music brings about a syntax and formality. This statement brings back the thought that the music I compose really isn't mine.

The idea that music can be recorded and packaged in a CD or notated (lines and dots) and then published, and then branded with someone's name, and then further sold for ‘value’ is a wonderful and awesome fault of our Western Culture, giving the illusion of self expression. As if recording, packaging, and sending it through the exclusive media pipelines is the self-expression. Indeed, I do express myself when I compose, but it still isn't mine. The music isn't the flutist who performs it or the audience members who hear it because when the performance is done the music exists in everyone’s mind. It exists in their music imagination, or audiation. At least, I hope it exists in their audiation.

In this context a performer may understand the music I compose. The music I compose is based upon a principal of developing variation - a music pattern is stated and further developed into a phrase. I work to sustain the timbre, tonality, and meter, yet feel that it should transform into ‘something’ different. Variation is used to build interest, as I cannot sustain the same texture or music character repeatedly over time. However, too much tonal, rhythm and timbre variation brings about a lack of syntax, where I am unable to comprehend my own variation. The balance of too much or too little variation is a feeling I have when composing - there is no science to explain it, it is simply a feeling of "this works here, and this works there, or this isn't working, etc...". However, my mind is mainly hearing tonality and meter when I am composing, and very little rhetoric.

I often use dorian, phrygian, lydian, mixolydian, aeolian, and locrian tonalities when I compose. This doesn't mean I compose only on the white keys! These tonalities can be performed in a variety of keyalities. I also tend to use unusual meters with time signature like 5/8, 7/8 and my favorite 8/8. I don't prefer to change meter in the middle of a phrase, however I do prefer to move from one tonality to another in a single phrase.

I am a narrative composer as opposed to a decorative composer. A decorative composer works to compose beautiful (or ugly) effects that move over time without relationship or syntax. It is one unrelated effect after another. The Rite of Spring is a decorative composition. A narrative composer develops each phrase from the previous phrase so one phrase ramifies into the next phrase. This produces a ‘story’ with tones and rhythms. A Brahms Symphony is a narrative composition. I enjoy narrative composing because it offers more challenges to my audiation.

The piano plays an important role in the flute sonatas I compose. It is an equal partner in the expression and the flute often accompanies the piano. I do play the flute, less than I used to play, but I play piano more often than I play the flute. A music critic once wrote that the piano part was more interesting than the flute part of a third flute sonata that I composed…

I will generalize and analyze the opening section of the second movement of the second sonata. I am using this piece because it is easy to generalize, especially the white key e phrygian. Measures 1-4 are in duple meter and e phyrgian tonality. E phrygian is easy to read. The phrygian tonality is a defined by the chord movement between (e-g-b) the tonic and (f-a-c) the sub-dominant and (d-f-a) the dominant. The main theme is stated by the piano in solo. The flute enters (in the role of accompaniment) in bar 5 with a elongation on the tone b, which could sound like a dominant, but it isn't. The flute then takes over the main theme, but ramifies the end of the phrase into a different rhythmic division. In bar 13 the piano and flute both perform a variation of the main theme that bridges to the second theme which is a tonal and keyal contrast, but not a rhythmic contrast. Bar 17 is a phrase that starts in b-flat locrian. I tease with the e as the dominant, which really isn't the dominant. The dominant in b-flat locrian is a-flat, which is performed by the piano in the second theme. Bar 22 is in b-flat minor, which quickly moves to a bold multi-tonal phrase which is combination of e-flat mixolydian and g mixolydian. The phrase at bar 25 is punctuated by the removal of division patterns leaving a macro or bigger rhythm pattern. Later in the piece, in bar 72, I develop a stronger use of the busy division sound moving to a contrasting macro rhythm.

The above paragraph is only a verbalization of what is happening in my mind when I compose. I don't think about starting a piece in phrygian and then moving to mixolydian. The tones and rhythms are audiated and then generalized into verbalizations, and finally written as symbols for others musicians to perform. I must return to the main point of this discussion that the music I write isn't mine. I don't have a copyright on mixolydian tonality, duple meter, or the keyality of e-flat. Music isn't mine. Composing is like being a farmer. In other words, I am farming phrygian tonality and duple meter, it isn't mine, I didn't make tonality and meter. It is a foolish idea that the plants that a farmer grows are ‘his’. The earth and sun creates plants!

I write about ownership in this article because we, especially United States citizens, live in such socially critical times, where greed has all the attention. We are barraged with news about how some massive corporation along with some massive government "has all the things", and how they are going to charge you (a lot) to get those things because you don't have those things. I am expressing music, writing music, and performing music to be with and comprehend music, not package it up in CD, wrap it in shrink wrap, and sell it as mine. The funniest part of our Western music culture is how we value music, or how we show honor to it with cash. The more cash a musician has, the better a musician he or she must be? I have not a single penny being earned from writing music, so I laugh as a part-time Buddhist.

The most important moment in my development from childhood to adulthood was when my father grabbed me by the shoulders and told me "You don't own anything, all of it will slip through your fingers when you die some day!". Yet, day after day, I pretend to own things, keep my check book balanced, pay for ‘my’ mortgage, buy milk, and pretend to get stressed out if someone threatens to take those things away. So, the only thing I can do is pick up a flute and blow into it, and pick up a pencil and write music!

You can download my flute music from an internet service for free; you just need to work to play it!

First Flute Sonata - http://www.box.net/shared/4okv7999sj Second Flute Sonata - http://www.box.net/shared/8kffx1fvb6

Music For Flute Choir Score - http://www.box.net/shared/mljp277fat Music For Flute Choir Parts - http://www.box.net/shared/svk4apb6ad

I have just finished a cycle of concertos for (instrument) and wind ensemble: Trumpet Concerto, F Horn Concerto, Flute Concerto, Soprano and Wind Ensemble, and Saxophone Concerto. This project took 2 and a half years to finish. I targeted this cycle of compositions for college ensembles or advanced high school ensembles. I am currently typesetting the cycle. I have written a Third Sonata for Flute and Piano. I have not finished typesetting it yet.

Craig Bakalian composes music for a wide range of instruments, and makes his compositions freely available. Please email Craig if you want a piece written for you at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it