Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity

This evening I read an old friend's facebook status update that simply said "Jupiter". In a flurry of excitement, I opened up my planetarium software to see if it was in fact visible from my location and found that it was quite low in the eastern sky. I felt compelled to walk to the beach and look at it, even though this meant I would have to avoid plans to do some composing in Pro Tools and more exercises in Scales, Intervals, Keys, Triads, Rhythm and Meter.

I walked out into the cold winter air and noticed that I could actually see Jupiter from my house. I decided to keep going, as I'd already resolved to go the whole distance and as soon as I started walking down the road I noticed that my state of mind changed. That feeling of fascination and inspiration that comes from standing by the ocean at night and under a clear sky was activated instantly, and triggered all sorts of memories and emotions of times I had felt it before. Even though I was alone on this walk, I had the company of multiple imagined visions of myself in my home town at all different stages of my life.

I took my phone with me for the walk and pulled it out several times to record some vocal improvisations of words and melodies. After the first one I did, I listened to it and noticed that my attention started to shift from the customary appraisal of the recording's worth to a simple appreciation of having the ability to do these things.

I returned home and had a listen to the piano I recorded into Reason a couple of weeks ago. It inspired me to get more familiar with the key that I was working with and try out some chords, but I spent most of the time just adding comments to the ideas I liked for future reference. While there is a temptation to dedicate some time to collating every idea that I've ever recorded to make sure they're all easily accessible, I am wary of overcompensating by trying to organise everything and not placing enough trust in the more productive, spontaneous part of my mind.

New direction for the critical self

The more I look back over last week and recall conversations with people, the more I notice how much more productive and expansive I have become from changing my approach to composing. To become a master composer is my dream, and I am now free to just enjoy learning as I practice being creative daily. I have no obligations when it comes to composing and I can just experiment and continue finding new and exciting ways to use my time effectively.

At the end of last week I spent my train rides to and from work doing two things. The first was listening to the keyboard ideas that I recorded and making note of the parts that I liked. In that 40 min recording I heard many ideas that I can take and start crafting a composition out of. I look forward to this process, because I know that when I listen again I'll experience the creative energy I need to decide how the ideas fit together.

The second thing was writing lyrics! Yes, the dreaded lyrics. I know this is a frustration for a lot of composers in music of many styles and the most important thing I can tell you right now is that you don't have to be good at writing lyrics. Just write. Chances are you are already a lot better than most of the lyric writers putting their stuff out there. I can say this because I believe that if you are so critical of yourself that you fear writing lyrics and worry about embarrassment, then you probably know what makes good lyrics and have the potential to create them yourself.

There are many strategies and techniques out there to help you become a master lyricist and in the near future I will be starting to put my own ideas into an actual music coaching package. For now, I will just share the success I've been having with my writing during the train rides. What I did was just write a stream of couplets with no structure or pre-conceived idea for 40 mins. I wasn't trying to write amazing lyrics, I was just practicing and having fun, noticing how I think, how I think I think and noticing words and rhymes.

I'm just having a look over these lyrics now and I think it will be fun to share some of them with you. Notice the inner experience that this stream of couplets creates within you. Does it sometimes seem like you're reading about me and sometimes seem like you're reading about yourself? Remember that this is not a finished piece of work, it is just an exercise in becoming more confident with lyric writing. Try to imagine how you might take some of these themes and create a piece out of them. Could some of the lines be moved around to create a more consistent and powerful verse? Could some others be removed altogether?

There are ways you could try
To feel and act more alive
You might think that you've grown
But you're still on your own
You can block out the noise
And never use your own voice
All those drugs cause you pain
Yet you won't choose to refrain
Now you want people to meet
The true you that's unseen
And you've bought all the tools
And unlearned all the rules
You've prepared all the questions
And absorbed the suggestions
You're perturbed by your thoughts
While other people just talk
You wish you were bolder
And waited til you were older
How your unconscious goes
Towards what you want to disclose
You were taught dreams mean nothing
Just cause sometimes they're frightening
But you know they felt real
And it's important to feel
Put down your magazine
And turn away from the screen
The most beautiful people
Are the ones that can see you
You think you ain't racist
But do you hold the same gazes?
We all want the lunch special
But we're always too careful
And I always get sidetracked
And notice it's my trap
I turn to a blank page
And worry about the next phase
There's few friends you can lean on
And you don't have to be strong
This obsession with connection is killing us slow
There's nothing to gain and nowhere to go
And there's no way to tell other than in the flesh
Who the real person is and how they rank in the contest
And if you look inside then you probably know
If you think too much then you're labelled as slow
What's the point of talking
If you can't say what you mean
When you dance around the issue it will show
You'll never get the perfect thought
The inner search is unworldly
But if you practice long and hard
It won't be so unnerving

Reason as a compositional tool

I am becoming more confident in my abilities on the piano and now find myself composing on it as the instrument that the composition will be performed on. It think it is also useful for me to seperate the process of scoring the individuals parts for ensemble works seperate to this piano composition phase.

I have spent the last few nights composing on a MIDI keyboard hooked up to Reason. I have just been hitting record and playing for the whole 40 minutes, improvising and experimenting with different note combinations, and being free to leave decisions about what is worth keeping until some later point. There is still a lot of conscious effort being put in during this time trying to find the best ways to put notes together, and the beauty of recording everything is that I will get a chance to hear more of the unconscious playing when I listen to it.

Composition Diary Mk II

After months of not posting, I have decided to reevaluate my goals and start composing regularly again. Given my reasons for creating this blog, I can understand how the lack of entries appeared as a sign of me abandoning composing altogether; however, this was not the case. It was more my attitude towards composing that changed during this time. I became too concerned with achieving the end result and lost sight of why I commited to doing 40 mins of composing a day in the first place.

The main problem was trying to sequence the ideas I already had into a bigger piece. I became very frustrated when the individual sections didn't join smoothly and ended up dreading the whole composition process because of this! It is very easy to become uninspired trying to work through a composition from start to finish. Your unconscious mind does not work like that. The whole point of the 40 mins is to give the compositional part of the brain a workout and to train it to generate states of flow and inspiration automatically. It is a time to get as many ideas down as possible without thinking about whether or not they're up to scratch. Chances are they are all up to scratch. You should thank your critical mind for all the fantastic unique work it has helped you create in the past and ask it to find new ways to help you that are less negatively stressful during any creative process.

I am now looking forward to composing often and approaching it with a sense of fun and adventure, integrating all aspects of my life (=learning) and noticing the states of inspiration as they come more frequently with practice.