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Aesthetic Tributaries for a Personal Musical Style
: Portfolio of Original Music Compositions and Accompanying Written Commentary

  • Kang Ning Lim

Student thesis: Doctoral ThesisDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Abstract

This portfolio of compositions offer an insight to the composer’s development of a personal musical style. After reaching a creative impasse following years of writing intuitively with melodically-driven ideas, a deconstructive approach was pursued to re-examine the importance of structure, pitch material, harmony, rhythm, timbre and texture during the compositional process. Scrutinising these musical parameters created new aesthetic tributaries that flowed into my current compositional style
and could be summarised into the following:
• Remodelling structure
• Creating a heightened sense of rhythmic fluidity
• Developing pitch material through the balance of intuition and system-generating processes
• Use of repetition and silence
• Harnessing timbre as vital musical material for motivic development
The accompanying commentary provides further context to these new aesthetic tributaries, delving into specific compositions from the portfolio to illustrate their applications; ranging from music for solo instruments, to chamber ensembles and orchestra.
Date of Award18 Mar 2025
Original languageEnglish
Awarding Institution
  • University of Bristol
SupervisorJohn Pickard (Supervisor) & Kate Guthrie (Supervisor)

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