Re: composing every day
- From: "Marc Sabatella" <marc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 15:03:36 -0700
> yes, part of my motivation is that often an idea that does not seem to
> me to be particularly interesting at first can often metamorphasize
> into something that is. many times in the past week I have written a
> phrase, then written another and so on, eventually going back to
> change
> the first phrase entirely.
Over the years, I've kind of developed a "method" to composing that is
probably worth sharing here. Not everything I've written follows this
approach, but quite a bit does - especially piees written during the
last 10 years or so - and every time I've done this, I've ended up with
interesting results.
I start by sitting down with some blank manuscript paper. I start
brainstorming musical ideas and jot them down. I can do this at my
instrument or away; I've also done it using recorder (the woodwind
instrument, not the electronic device), and with a melodica. At an
instrument, what tends to come out are very specific melodies and/or
chord progressions - often just a couple measure long. Sometimes it
will be an idea that starts firmly for a few measures, but then could go
in one of several directions. I write it all down. Away from an
instrument, what occurs to me might be just a shape, or just a rhythm,
or a texture (eg, "fast moving angular lines in trumpet over descending
half notes in strings"). If a specific melody does come to me away from
my instrument, it tends to be something very simple - nursery rhyme
simple - and I notate it as well as I can. In the case of the symphonic
piece I'm working on now, I wrote down a six-note scale that occurred to
me while awaiting dinner at a Chinese restaurant, and I then went
through those notes and wrote down all the chords tht I could think of
one could make from those notes. A couple of pieces started coming to
me with lyrics - in both cases, though, it was because I specifically
set out to write a song on a given theme.
After some period of this - hours or perhaps days - I've got a few
pieces of paper littered with musical notes and words describing my
ideas. Some of the melodies are just note heads - no rhythms. Some of
the rhyhtms are just stems - no note heads. And some of it is just dots
that are spaced more or less in relation to the pitches and rhythms I
envisioned, but there are no note heads or stems to pin it down
specifically (these are things that come to me away from the instrument
that were too complex to notate by ear, but interesting enough to
capture in some way anyhow). And a good chunk is words, like the
description of the trumept over string texture mentioned above.
Here is where an element of trust comes in: because all these ideas came
to me in a relatively short period where I was focused on writing one
composition, I now take it as an assumption that there must be one
composition that can contain all - or most, anyhow - of these ideas. So
I start looking for connections. Like, "hey, this rhythm fits that
sequence of notes". Or, "this melody could be used as counterpoint to
that one". Or, "this chord progression and that one can follow each
other if I transpose one of them appropriately". Or, "this sequence of
three notes in one melody and this sequence of three notes in this other
melody have the same intervals, or the same rhythms, and can be used to
tie them together in some way". And of course, I start looking for
specific notes to put to my lines with indefinite pitch, specific
rhythms to put to my note heads with indefinite rhythm, and specific
harmonies to add to my unharmonized melodies. At this point even some
of the nursery-rhyme simple melodies can start to take on new meaning.
In the piece I am writing now, there is a melody I almost rejected at
first because it was just an arpeggiated major triad. But now I have
discovered I can harmonize it using some of the chords I had derived
from the six-note scale I wrote at the Chinese restaurant. I have yet
to fail to amaze myself at how these sorts of connections can be found
if you look hard enough.
I might spend another few hours or days in this process. During this
period, larger "chunks" of music start to coalesce - 16 bars here, 9
bars there, 27 bars there, whatever. And I start to develop an idea of
of how those chunks relate to each other. So then I spend time playing
them and improvising over them, finding which sections of the piece make
sense to open up for solos, and how much soloing makes sense. Also to
see what order the sections should go. Note I don't start by assuming
there will be one "head" and solos will be over the underlying chord
progression, although a couple of pieces I've written this way do turn
themselves into that. For my symphonic piece, I do not plan to have
solos, but will probably still go through this same part of the process
to see which parts need development and how much of it there should be
at each such point, as well as to get some specific ideas for that
development.
After spending some time at that stage - which is always at my
instrument (piano), I'm ready to open up Finale and start gluing these
chunks of music into a whole. I usually don't bother to write out a
complete lead sheet or score by hand first. Sometimes, I *could* do
this before going to the computer - I've already successully played
through the complete piece start to finish and see exactly how the thing
goes - although just as often, the process of entering stuff on the
computer and hearing the playback leads to yet more editing. But I
never go to Finale until I've got a pretty good idea of the overall
shape as well as most of the individual pieces.
As you can imagine, this process tends to result in pieces that are
several pages long, with lots of discrete sections, as opposed to basic
32 bar tunes. But I *have* written a couple of pieces this way that are
essentially just tunes with changes to solos over - during the "looking
for connections" stage of the process, a clear center developed, and
nothing not directly related to that center seemed to make sense to keep
at all. Or there just weren't that many different ideas in the first
place. So I ended up with one big chunk instead of several medium-sized
ones, and that became the complete tune. One of these I wrote about
five years ago and I'm *still* not convinced is finished - the idea of
soloing over the form still doesn't quite seem right. But no better
alternatives have presented themselves.
Note that except for one piece where I knew I had a winner from the
first couple of measures to come out during the initial brainstorming
(which was done at the piano, and comprised a series of completely
notated chords with carefully worked out voice leading), most of the
time, I come out of the brainstorming thinking I have nothing to work
with, and I launch into the "looking for connections" phase convinced it
isn't going to work this time, and I'm going to have to put it on the
shelf until a really *good* idea for a piece that writes itself just
hits me over the head. But so far, I haven't had to do that - I
*always* find enough to work with even when I think I don't have much.
So I will start looking for connections well before I really believe I
have enough material for a complete piece. New ideas will always come
up during the later phases if I want or need them.
> btw marc I'd love to hear your piece if you get a recording.
With any luck, it will be performed at a concert later in the spring
featuring student compositions, and that will definitely be recorded.
But I should also be able to get a passable MIDI-based recording Finale
2006 long before then.
---------------
Marc Sabatella
marc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Music, art, & educational materials
Featuring "A Jazz Improvisation Primer"
http://www.outsideshore.com/
.
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