Guitar P.I.C - Performance, Improvisation and Composition

I was really enjoying brainstorming some ideas tonight for a talk on Mahler that I am going to give to some Year 12 Music 2 students (Music advanced or Music extension, something equivalent to that). Here I was writing about ways I could motivate others to immerse themselves in music and how important it is to just create something or anything without trying to be good, when I realised that I had been slacking off on my own composing. I have been stuck at home all week with a fairly severe head cold, so I haven’t really felt up to it for a while.

I recorded myself singing and playing guitar for 40 mins tonight through the inbuilt mic on my laptop. I started off just trying to improvise for the duration with little hope of striking gold. A few minutes into my announcement of whatever sub-lyric idea I had over the same old chord patterns, I felt the self-loathing coming on; however, I quickly reminded myself that I was just warming up and that improvisation is a continual process of practicing and reviewing (hence, the recording).

I don’t think that I came out with anything particularly substantial, but this cannot be decided until I’ve listened back to the recording. It was a really excellent experience though, and I actually had a lot of affirmations about things that were not entirely related to music while I was sitting there singing and playing. I’m pretty sure I managed to capture some of these thoughts because I sang them. Thinking about this process now makes me really look forward to entering this state again. I will become better at describing it, as I practice it more often.

Composition Diary

I have created this blog to document the thoughts and actions involved in creating my music. On the one hand, this is a feeble attempt at gaining self-discipline and on the other, a way to keep track of music composition techniques that I might usually take for granted. Hopefully this is a worthwhile resource for other musicians as well, particularly those who may be interested in performing my music or simply learning more about music composition.

During December last year I began working on an instrumental interpretation of At the mid hour of night, which I came to know through Benjamin Britten's version from Vol. 4 ('Moore's Irish Melodies') of his Folksong arrangements. The song is sung from the perspective of someone who is remembering and trying to recapture the experiences they shared with a lover who has passed. The mood of the music and the text is regretful, but contemplative. The persona finds solace in the midnight sky and in song (the respective subjects of the two verses), as these things allow him/her to still feel connected to their lover.

My arrangement is for two classical guitars and string quartet. The dynamics are always a major concerrn when writing for classical guitars, as their sound tends to get drowned out by most other orchestral instruments. Being a guitarist myself, I naturally want the guitars to be a prominent element of the work. In order to achieve the correct balance I have to use the string quartet sparingly, so that the guitars have a chance to seep through the cracks of the entire instrumental mass. When I say sparingly, I don't mean to turn any string players off this piece. Every instrument is important to me and the players should all get their turn in the spotlight. I have been searching through the scores of composers such as Mahler and Debussy in the hope that their amazing treatment of the string section might rub off on me. Maybe delicately is a better word than sparingly. I can work with that.

My starting point was at lifting the 9/8 time signature and Eb major key signature from Britten's arrangement. Since then I've just freely composed little bits here and there, only thinking about the actual melody when in need of some inspiration. My main focus has been on instrumental colour, rhythm and of course, dynamics. For the opening (see excerpt below), I tried to recreate the celestial mood of the first verse's text with the instruments. The second guitar plays harmonics, while the first guitar, viola and cello pluck around an Eb major chord. The rhythmic and dynamic changes in the first guitar part create the effect of a stumbling start to a waltz-like dance. In fact, I like the idea that the memory of this funny dance incident could be what takes the persona's mind back to their beloved.

Fig 1: Opening bars of At the mid hour of night arrangement