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ComposerBastard has kept rather quiet and to himself these last couple of months, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been thinking about his work.  Sometimes, you hit a wall – not in the writing process, but in the arching philosophical question of what you want the piece to be or rather what the piece wants for itself.  With the current piano work, the musical ideas, which are so strong to me at times, are one thing.  However, what seems to be more driving is the need of the work on it’s own to express something more organic for itself.  This has been shaping itself into threads of romantic / classical conversations and arguments. And not quite in a new way either, but rather in a more refined way.  So, its a bit baffling to make choices, or should I say commitments without fully finishing these conclusions.

With these references of the past, well..more like living in the past and today at the same time, the biggest question left on the table is intimacy.  Sure, we could commit and let it go where it wants to go, but even now, the debate is lasting on how much scale should be involved.  Should we scale it back to be not only a smaller work of 12-15 minutes (or even smaller) but also the number of instruments involved?  Do we really need orchestra a2, or should we look into just a few colours that lend itself naturally to the needs of the moment?

And on and on it goes.  It’s cautious to the extreme, but its also healthy.  And it feels right…(if any of this makes sense)

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ComposerBastard has been pretty creative this week chuggin’ away on his new piano work – every day seemed to generate new ideas under his nose – ideas that were already there but went unnoticed because he was thinking about new material too much or because he talked too much about the materials he already had!

Tonights romp was no different.  Looking at some threads that I was going to use for a more speedy section, by playing them slowly became a pretty damned good melody for a more mellow section that I was improvising and twiddling with.  The way this was constructed leaded itself to some new permutations that I’ll be scribbling with this weekend.  Not that much work but it certainly will allow for a more fluid melodic segment – just the methodology on how this was written lends itself for further expansion to some motivic sets I already have.   A new stream of confidence.

Sections, on hearing the bits and fragments, seem to become more clear.  Or I can write off that ok, it will work.  Needs details but ok, sonically it makes sense.  Other parts start to shift to other movements.  Ok, this musical object can go into the 3rd movement or maybe this one can be restated there.  And so on and so on – this is the right brain talking.

Talking in the middle of the night now.  Certainly a good thing although I am losing some sleep.  Fragments bouncing around and being sung.  Work is progressing the way a natural brain wants to work.

Which brings me to the shut up close – meaning I’m only going to do these status updates once a week to keep momentum on the right side of things.  Too many words get in the way of drawing.  From now on posts will be about other musical things – except a weekly close.

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Thinking arch ABCBA.  Thinking trisectionally – ABCABC.  Unsure which.  Varied repetition  but with real variants.  Shortened recurring materials maybe?

I’m pretty sure I are close to the end of this play period.  Thinking and writing here is much just for my own therapy and history.    Gets boring, I know.  But encouragining.

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Tonights composerly session was spent reviewing what I had accomplished these last few days and looking again in my chest of notes for anything else.  I also upgraded some software and plugins,and generally tuned up things a bit for the eventual decision on when to compostrate this work.

Beginning, I just let the piano roll its MIDI while I walked around looking at some of my artwork and collectives which are there to inspire me into this work.   What grabs me is that the musical objects that I am designing or have available all reference the work as a whole.  If you listen to any small piece, you hear the whole work.  It’s way beyond the simplistic motive.  I think it’s possible – just like a painting can be taken in full.  It can be overwhelming.  Gave me some confidence and for the first time a feeling of obsessiveness that I am finally on a correct path with this.

Looking through additional files tonight…digging up things I thought I noticed earlier, but came to me that perhaps it might prove useful and not reinvent.  Found one small fragment.  Just a reminder.  During this romp I came across a whole set of files I had made for cells and other materials on this long road to the smaller set I have now.  I had no memory of doing it but it was very elaborately edited and notated.  Arrows and cross related notations.  Someday, I’ll have to go back and decipher it.  I was taken aback at how much pre-compositional work I had done over the last 8 years to get where we are today.

Software upgrades – mostly catching up on some plugins and testing import/export facilities.  Still undecided on scoring software.  Leaning to Finale because of midi issues and features.  Sibelius does look great in 6.1.

Noticed that some of the secondary materials that I have available lend themselves very nicely to the gesture and contours of the main materials I have and can prove useful for some light contrast when integrated.  I need to explore this tomorrow night.

Understand closely Ravels notions of a long composition time, and the germination of work-  that sometimes you need to start and stop – leaving it aside and come back to it.  Certainly I’ve done that enough, but what I am accepting is that it is OK to do.  And waiting or thinking about your work is just as valuable as working on it day to day.  Life breaths into it this way.  I see shapes and places a bit more clearer every day.  It molds itself and will let itself be known on its own terms.

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Short and sweet composer session tonight working on some variants of the main tetrachords on this octal set…rotating them this way and that way to see what kind of melodic materials and contrasting modal references I can find within the general confides of a scale like pattern.  Then improvising chains – either connected or in a stand alone fashion.  Found a couple of new and interesting arrangements…then improvised around very freely with it to see if the general style will fit into the second section of the work.  It’s tricky in that you need to constantly be aware of how to reference what has previously happened while introducing a relatively familiar style.  Lots of fun.  Nothing firmly written down into any section yet.  Just jots here and there across a general 4-piano score.  For the main work I’m going to write in open score with full orchestration.

Thinking more on timing.  Shooting for between 20-25 minutes, although I have a feeling this is going to be longer.  First movement – 8 minutes is my goal, but it may end up being somewhat longer – close to 12.  We’ll see how this middle section composes out as it seems like a lot of ideas can be presented in it in various ways.

Still undecided on composition tools.  Sibelius vs Finale.  I have both the latest versions…and there are various compelling and specific reasons to choose either one for this – make a change.

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Feeling a bit under the weather tonight.  Short compositional treat at the piano, but really nothing much in new material.  Looked at some old with fresh analytical eye.  Last evening in bed, sketched out a brief outline of the sections and the tonal areas for the work.  Feeling pretty good about that.

Learned a bit about melodic construction – a pseudo reference to lyrical modes – or how the same materials can be reorganized to lend variety to the melodic line – a mix of traditional melodic construction and set theory.

Words don’t describe what I do very well I am learning.  I try to write down something that is vaguely a reminder to myself how it is progressing.  It’s a far stretch from what actually goes on.  In some ways, words are the antithesis of spacial compositional activity – since speech and language are left brained.  I know I talk about transformations and sets and things of that nature, but really its something that I don’t spend that much time labouring at these days.  The homework there is pretty much done.  I occasionally come back to it to help me look at what I have with new eyes – learn and find new things.  Outside of this it’s really not all that interesting, and deep listening is the only way to ingest anything.  Seeing shapes and lines and colours that make up forms.  So much like fine art I sometimes think they are the same.

As for those concertos – Salonen, Ligeti, Lindberg, Carter, Wuorinen, Lutoslawski – not useful for me.  They are not close to the kind of materials or contrasts I am working with.  I might learn a few things, but not easily transferrable.  My music is much more a lyrical and resonant.  I’ll keep looking for others.

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The news year holiday weekend closes in good faith, as I got a lot accomplished on the piano work – driving through the materials I have, and finding new ones.  It’s surprises me how you can look at the same materials day in and day out, and then suddenly wholla, something else originates that you totally didn’t see before.  Not great big things, just the germ of a new idea that suggests a larger one.

As I jump around the various parts of the score, I’m trying to identify what tonal bounds the work will encompass.  Sometimes the sections come out and show themselves, and then retreat.  I understand generally what the first , second, and third sections will do, but no idea all the elements that will fit into it.  I have one idea how they will transverse, but I’m unsettled that is the only and best choice.  I know there are more.  Remembering the latent surprises that spring on you, making a decision too quickly is one of my greatest fears.

Looking back through all my notes, and pulling out the like materials, I found a few nice little ideas that will orchestrate well.  But generally, most of the ideas are newer, and some more relaxed than the academic approach I had completed.  Keeping it simple.  There’s no need to complicate it with a multitude of different set variants.  Put strict boundaries around what you have now.   Listen deeply to the simple hexachords and tetrachords you have now and see what they seem to suggest.

Then you forget obvious things you need to remind yourself.  For example, I was looking at this Octachord in bed last night and found once again that T2/T8 and T4/T5 cycles are the most invariant.  Of course, then why am I so focused on another transitional means that takes me directly to T9-6-3-0 cycle?

Another exercise I am undertaking these past two nights is analyzing the structure of Ravel’s and Prokofiev’s concerto first movements.  Ravel’s simple structure just is astonishing – ABC|A’B'C’|A” with varied repetition.  Hardly seems like much, but what he puts into that and how he builds and bridges his ideas is really craft.  Took him two years to write this work btw.  A short 21 minutes.

Prokofiev’s concerto is much more complex in structure.  It’s going to take me a few days to break down what’s going on here.  It too has a unique modernesque blockage, but not so simply stated.  Many themes.  Many sophisticated variants.

I will also dig into a few of these:  Bartok, Salonen, Ligeti, Dohnanyi’s 2nd, Liebermann’s 2nd, Barber, Ginestera, Magnus Lindberg, Eliot Carter, Wuorinen 3, Lutoslawski, Khachaturian.

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Composing most of the day, which consists of jumping around different parts of the score, notating down little fragments, slicing things apart and together.  Get bored in one area and then you jump into another.  Every once in a while, you get a giant swirl that you can hear the whole piece in your head from beginning to end in one big moment.  No, not hearing it play sequentially, but actually as if all the notes were played at once and you make sense of it.  Then you play bits and pieces of sections as they become vaguely familiar or lend themselves to your imagination, and then it is lost.  Even if you have the means, you couldn’t write it down fast enough, and memory would just distort it.  Oh well, it’s in there, and there are still so many choices left structurally.  Do you go into a thematic section, or just play it as a rhythmic / dance?  How about foreshadowing other movements?  You lay out some bits into a pseudo-exposition intro, but then back off as the other sections will reveal themselves with interesting material that you can include here.  And so it goes.

The materials themselves are certainly more than I imagined.  And as well as you think you know them, sudden surprises occur – I’m meaning more in the left brain side of things – relationships.  So, you bounce between your imagination right brain, and stopping every once in a while to analyze.  In between you need to take a break.  Walk around.  Eat lunch.  Work out.  Play a speed game of chess.  And while you do these other activities contemplate what it is you are seeking or are undecided about.  Then you come back and test it.  And let the right brain take over.  Back and forth it goes.  Exhausting work.  Used to be so easy.  But this isn’t your typical tonal music; nor is it atonally structured.  Somewhere in between complex systems and neo-classical.

The remainder of the night, I need to figure out how long this piece should be targeted as.

Van Gogh letters complete.  Inspirational.  I feel it support for my naive personality.  We make no apologies.

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The cool thing is it doesn’t sound square or boxy at all – harmonically or in structure.  It feels more organic, more novel.  Anyway, it was a light afternoon exploration.  Had to do some day gig stuff.  Will be back at the piano in the morning and try my hand at this transition.  The solo piano kick in a bit here to take us to a new pitch area.

Tired…time for dishes and sleep.

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An interest group of composerly sessions these last few days as I work through jump starting the middle movement.  Seems that composing off the seat of my pants produced some rather mundane materials – boxy phrases and harmonies which I found annoying and for a while useless.  I had hopes that it would be repairable and still do on it’s own.  It can also be useful as a sort of background quote in the musical space, but on a more useful level it can act as a sort of study for a total rewrite with my more generative and DNA musical language.  So, it’s not without value, and for now should just retire as a study – similar maybe to what painters go through in their quest for painting worthy craft?  I’ve got enough of the sketch to hang it on the side for a while and move on.

I’ve already jumped back into reviewing the first movement ideas, and decided to bounce there for a while – which is more DNA-centric.  I was jumping all over the place in the middle study, and now it’s time to go someplace more original and organic.  For that, I not only have my notes, but also a number of other sketches in the past that will provide various figures and melodic fragments.  Playing around tonight in a 2 piano score highlighted a lot of stuff.  Feel very excited.  Warming up nicely.

Yes, it’s definitely a piano and orchestra work.  At one time in the past I imagined a large chamber ensemble that included two pianos and two batteries of percussion as well as string quartet and some winds.  But think this is a more expandable option for my colour choices.  Orchestra still 2222-4231-2T-Hp-PA-16/14/12/10/8 – and need the resonance due to large harmonies and sets.

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