PorterTones

About this site

This site is basically the place to come if you want to find out about music that I have written, am writing, or are thinking about writing.  So, apart from this page, it’s divided into three main sections:

1. A collection of pages, one per genre, with information about my music, often with links to audio files or scores, so you can see what they sound like.  The pieces are divided into:
   • Instrumental
   • Chamber
   • Vocal
   • Choral
   • Orchestral
2. A page listing ideas I have for future pieces
3. A blog for discussion of work in progress

Please be aware that you can purchase printable copies of some of my scores via my online store.  When a piece is available there, I provide a link to it in the listing of pieces on the pages listed above.

About my music

It’s worth saying something about my style and how it’s evolved over the years.  One constant is that the music is strictly contrapuntal, with each voice being thematic in its own right (though each voice may carry its own harmony).  Another is the use of variation: exact repeats are rare, and the thematic material is reshaped and evolved as the piece progresses.  Finally there aren’t often ‘tunes’ as such; continuously evolving melody grows from a small number of thematic ideas, often only three or four notes long.

The pieces from the 1980s are broadly tonal.  What this means is that they’re very chromatic, and tonal harmony is used, if in an unusual way, and often spiced with dissonance, but it’s usually possible to work out what key the music is in at any time.  This changes in the pieces from 2000 onwards.  In these, except where a piece wasdeliberately written to be tonal, the music is entirely atonal (though there is often a pole of attraction).  Twelve-note (but not serial) techniques are used to structure the music, so, for example, a melodic line may use every note in an interval without repeats.