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.

Matter over mind - Piano composition

On Monday, Craig Cavanough and I set up to record another section for our composition. We spent a long time trying to expand on the very first riff that I started playing, before we realised that it was weak material. What ended up being recorded in the session came out pretty quickly and was more complementary to the bit we recorded last week. Craig also re-recorded his drum part from last week, to account for his drums being tuned differently.

I tried to do some composing on the piano Monday night, but I was feeling lost away from my usual set up. I spoke to Gail about it on Tuesday and explained how I felt more comfortable translating the notes I heard in my head with the guitar. She suggested that I should try composing on the piano using cells (I can't explain the difference between cells and motifs, if there is one) and concentrate more on the physical nature of the instrument, rather than getting too carried away with notating what is in my head. It is possible that what is going on in my head is too complicated a lot of the time, and the visual nature of the piano might help me to take a step back and start composing more efficiently.

I still place a great deal of importance in being able to write without an instrument. It may not be the most ideal situation all the time, but it is certainly a useful skill to have. It would certainly make commuting to Sydney by train - as I am inevitably going to have to do soon - a more productive way to use 2-3 hours of the day. I trialed the journey today attending a job interview. I managed to write some lyrics for the composition with Craig Cavanough, start notating a few ideas for my arrangement of Benjamin Kunkler's Theatre of Cruelty, and give some thought to the overall structure of the Benjamin Britten arrangement.

Piano lessons, Robert Schumann and syncopation

When I first picked up the manuscript paper with the Benjamin Britten arrangement on it tonight I noticed that I had composed 2 new bars without Finale. I was so tempted to hear them that I got up and started walking towards the computer to program them in. After taking a few steps (roughly halfway along on the journey from lounge room to bedroom) I realised how mundane and time-consuming that was and sat back down with guitar, pencil and paper. Good move, because I ended up breaking the time limit commandment again by continuing to write after my 40 mins was up. At that point I had just started a new bar of guitar and already knew what I wanted. I didn't trust myself to remember it without writing it down.

I have been thinking a lot about the melodic line of each instrument and trying to have less movement over time. I think what I am doing is mainly homophonic because the guitar is involved and I like lots of chord changes, but the guitar is now getting closer to four-part harmony than the usual tugging on the neck with barre chords. I've also picked up a few new chords from playing Bach.

I'm starting piano lessons next week! This is something I've wanted to do for a while, but I only recently thought to ask a great piano player that I already know. I told her that I want to learn classical piano and that all I can do at the moment is play bass in the left hand and chords in the right. To get the whole two hand thing working we're going to start with scales and the pieces in the Suzuki books. I had a look at volume 2 earlier and the highlight was a piece by Schumann. His use of syncopation is instantly recognisable. They come out gentle and slippery compared to the more measured, jarring syncopations of Stravinsky. The staggered moments at the start of the Britten arrangement that I mentioned in my first post have been a constant source of inspiration for new material. I hope that my syncopations come out as a pleasant suprise when they are eventually played.