October 18, 2018
Limits are not tyrannies.
Category Archives: composing
Aphorisms for Composers – September 2018
September 19, 2018
All or some, but not none.
Sound Poem (to be “translated” to instrumental music, maybe)
Thwap. Kunk. Thwapthwap. Burdbilp. Uck. Plibthwap. Thwap. Stornt ‘n thwapthwap. Stipuckniddle Wat. Uttnthaddlethwapstunndernip.
Pinnerrstenerrundir Ott. Watwat. Zup! Deedlythwap. Sussurrippendeeth…
September 18, 2018
To state preferences yet remain open to their own evolution or destruction is the uniquely poised position the composer hopes to strike.
September 11, 2018
The more exigent the issue at hand, the more eloquent the composer hopes to become. Can one enter the fray, yet also step back?
September 2, 2018
‘Considerable motivation beyond’ is needed to sustain the composer—reasons beyond the piece-making process, beyond practice and performance, even beyond personal expressive needs…A sense of larger unknowns, paths without clear direction, moraines imperceptibly carrying materials to new edges.
Like we can be enchanted by meeting a new person, ‘meeting’ a new piece of music can also beguile. Re-enchanting and re-beguiling is rarer and more difficult.
Aphorisms for Composers – August 2018
August 31, 2018
Visiting artist=enrichment w/o commitment, for both visitor and visited. ‘Just visiting.’
August 29, 2018
What used to feel like hard technical work sometimes feels like nothing by now. Does this mean I’m better at the task at hand, or do I need to re-start by aiming for something I know for sure I can’t do—or can’t do without considerable re-questioning of what seem like fundamental fluencies? Can we scan the keys or gauge the breath or re-balance the bow arm to find entirely unheard-of precedents?
…After many years, still trying to find a viewpoint that renews, even if only for a few beguiling musical seconds…
Let it fall apart; don’t put it back together—at least not the same way.
Weak, tired; ‘breathe’ through wrists.
How does a composer capture states of ‘vulnerability,’ ‘fear,’ ‘shutdown,’ among others, when performing arts teaching promotes what could be described as ‘power’ or ‘strength’? Is the composer’s ‘strength’ a contradiction, then? Is the expressive ‘power’ available through the practice of writing music tantamount to the ability to express ‘weakness’ along with a a full gamut of possible evocations of perceived emotional states? The next question: what technical preparation and set of tools is needed in order to achieve this flexibility?
August 23, 2018
Write what you want and must…but make sure you ‘teach to the test.’ (sardonic)
August 23-30, 2018
Quartets, Set 3:
Hit bottom, hit wood. (August 30, 2018; for the pianist)
Small adjustments; new universes. (August 29, 2018)
Analog composer; digital performer. (August 23, 2018, on the composer/pianist)
August 22, 2018
NEVER underestimate the intelligence of an audience. By the same token, ALWAYS attend to how you say what you say musically. Don’t expect understanding if you garble your words. Communicate, converse.
August 21, 2018
Don’t fear your own ideas. Accept or embrace them enough to figure out their maximal effectiveness. ‘What’ matters, but ‘how’ matters more.
August 19-20, 2018
Quartets, Set 2:
Under rocks: possible ideas. (August 20, 2018)
Difficult issues; careful solutions. (August 20, 2018)
Rejuvenate each musical moment. (August 19, 2018)
Don’t overlook musicians’ needs. (August 19, 2018)
Hand-weight; chords activate. (August 19, 2018)
To juxtapose: to develop. (August 19, 2018)
August 16, 2018
Be a schlock absorber. Internalize any material that works; do your thing with it.
August 12, 2018
Program notes and maxims/aphorisms have a common goal: the quick capture of fundamentally musical, non-verbal observations in a few well-chosen words. Tough to achieve.
August 11, 2018
Save or write down all your ideas. Plant seeds. Weed later.
August 8, 2018
In an earnest search for meaning, does your music really signify much? Isn’t it just sound, sense, sensation? Otherwise unattached?
August 7, 2018
Composers humanize and catalyze simply by doing what they do. Abstract or concrete—in the sky or down to earth—composing music is inherently peaceful unless or until the sounds are misapplied. Consider your work as a composer a particular type of activism: you are hearing humanity, documenting experience by shaping sound. (with a bow to TJ Anderson Jr on his 90th birthday)
I’ve stopped composing—for a few minutes.
August 7-8, 2018
Quartets, Set 1:
Inhale/collect; exhale/unleash. (August 8, 2018)
Humanize: write music, perform. (August 8, 2018)
Keyboard, mind, ears, two hands. (August 7, 2018)
Meditate rather than medicate. (August 7, 2018)
August 6, 2018
That new work of yours is a little like a new human being. You feed it, care for it, put it to sleep, then it wakes up and you have to feed it again. After repeated feedings in the form of tweaking, sleeping, re-thinking, perhaps it can finally rest.
Aphorisms for Composers – On Process / Procrastination
July 11 – August 6, 2018
I once attended a writing workshop in the early 1990s at which a colleague protested that he could not write “under pressure,” waiting for the last-minute “rush” that he perceived as the habitual preference of his students.
Instead of last-minute motivating pressure, this colleague opted to sleep as well as possible, eat his favorite healthy food, and reserve a place of special comfort in his workroom—all in careful preparation for embarking on the writing process.
Question, though: does this care represent preparation of procrastination?
For me, the morning starts with manual coffee grinding (electricity would be faster). Boil the water, pour it into the pot with the narrow enough spout; gently pour over grounds. Then I cut up and measure the smoothie ingredients and blend something with enough protein and flavor that one is nourished/satisfied. During this process I’ve already been back and forth to computer, sketchbook, and yoga mat, and piano from the kitchen. Has the work begun? Do those trips to and from the kitchen get me going on my work, or am I distracted by trying to create circumstances for a creative flow? Does the coffee and nutrition help? The stretching and breathing? The testing of phrases between poses near the piano? Then walking the dog and coming back, realizing the walk cleared the way in your mind to get those phrases you touched between pour-over, email response, and ward-off? Are these movements, false starts, or changes of direction all parts of a multi-faceted constitutional that actually dos help creative “progress?” Do the habits one works through at all levels inform the creative patterns used in writing or practicing music? Or are they just avoidances?
August 2, 2018
Does procrastinating by writing about procrastinating cancel out the procrastination, thereby constituting artistic progress?
Aphorisms for Composers – July 2018: Lunes and Fibs
July 29, 2018
Can’t Compose Just Now
Must need space
Can’t
Get it going
Can’t
Imagine writing.
July 27, 2018
Composers necessarily live the saying “don’t stop starting.” The empty page beckons; the open mind and ear crave new input; the imagined realization lets performers spring into action…
July 26, 2018
Lunes* About Composing At Night
*[The “lune” is a three-line, syllabic poem-form (“the American Haiku”) created by Robert Kelly, with a variant created by Jack Collom; Kelly Lune is 5-3-5, Collom Lune is 3-5-3.]
Lamplight by window;
Keyboard sounds
New adventure starts
House quiet; cat out;
Sketchbook page
To be filled again.
Putting this to that
With other.
Dark while it happens.
Sundown calm
Internal unrest
Keyboard balm.
Cloud cover.
Moon lurks there somewhere
Keyboard closed.
Humid night
Upper register
Cools front room.
July 24, 2018
Fib* As Instruction for a Composition
*[A “Fib” is a form of syllabic poetry based on the Fibonacci sequence. Most common seems to be the six-line, twenty-syllable Fib: 1-1-2-3-5-8.]
This
That
Other Thing
This That Together
Other Thing, This, That: These
Three things in interplay make plenty of material. (at Apple Hill Fidelio Trio concert)
Sample Questions About Sensation
What is a ‘sharp’ vibration?
How can a ‘touch’ be ‘rounded,’ ‘pointed,’ etc.?
What does ‘unison’ mean? Hands together, people together, sung together, united effort?
How is ‘unison’ different from ‘solo?’
July 21, 2018
While enjoying where you are in the process of forming musical thoughts, you face difficulties with enhanced awareness. “Play with it,” as a colleague just told me. The sense of play will last; you will come back for more.
July 19-20, 2018
Five Fives
Walk; sketch. Discover a place. (July 20, 2018)
Tense spot. Delve further in. (July 20, 2018)
Blank page; think, fill, repeat. (quick description of composing continually; July 19, 2018)
Conceptualize, improvise, solidify, improvise more. (July 19, 2018)
Musical security comes and goes. (July 19, 2018)
July 18, 2018
Composing can be a vibrant illustration of your own never-ending story of trying to get it together (for Rebecca Sacks)
July 17, 2018
Maybe you never met, or only met fleetingly. Yet the time spent composing your memorial music, now that they are gone, is still time spent with the admired person.
July 11, 2018
How about writing preludes to the preludes?
July 9, 2018
The difference between many notes and too many notes is often incredibly small.
Sometimes the piece you’re writing feels like it’s all you’ve got.
July 8, 2018
Things just play themselves in my hands—I don’t know why [variant of an excerpt from A. Platanov’s Soul spoken by the girl Aidym; New York Review Books Classics; 2007]
June 6, 2018
To continually shape a particular rock, you chip away…To grow a plant next to the rock, you water, prune, add or subtract soil and sediment…An attention to texture and consistency rather like involvement in writing music (stacking chords, nurturing melodic shapes, removing excess, and so forth)
July 4, 2018
One gets at the center of a musical notion by hand; on foot; with lungs, back, arms, shoulders. Not as much with extensions like laptops, loudspeakers.
The crunch of a particular chord; the size/shape/sentiment of a melodic curve; a pianist’s varied touch or turn of phrase; the instrumentalist’s restraint or ability to cut loose while exciting the string, gauging airflow through reed or mouthpiece, rumbling or flam-ing with hand or mallet. Do we consider these subtle, everyday musical actions when we think of the vitality of “the arts?” What constitutes the nature of our education as musicians? Keep fine-tuning this question as you continue to ask it.
July 1, 2018
If chords thicken, can they still leave light footprints?
Aphorisms for Composers – June 2018
June 26, 2018
Recurring dreams about going back to school to study composition suggest possibilities. New input? New forms/fashions? New necessities?
June 12-17, 2018
Eights and Nines
Without support, without deferred judgement, new work dies. (June 17, 2018)
Is temperature a musical parameter? Hot, warm, cool, cold? (June 15, 2018)
No matter how remote, bring it to the surface, OR
Thoughts in the deep must come up for air. (June 15, 2018)
Flaws are important; mistakes can work; take stock often. (June 12, 2018)
June 7, 2018
Finding the right sonority in the right rhythm at the right time is almost as satisfying as finding the right footwear. Forward motion is the idea.
June 6, 2019
Doing stuff in order to do stuff takes so much energy that you’re often too tired in the end to actually do the stuff.
Aphorisms for Composers – May 2018
May 31, 2018
If you concentrate on small, important things, does the urge to create spectacle fall away?
May 20, 2018
Dispense with niceties, frills, surface distractions. But retain respect for all attempts at honest expression.
May 17, 2018
Dying strains come back to some kind of life each time they are sung/played.
May 11, 2018
Sometimes writing more music just can’t be helped.
Just when you think you’ve developed your language enough, you realize you have nothing to say. But when the language fails and you can’t quite articulate, ideas sprout anew from your very inability to speak! You are again at the beginning—after all that.
May 10, 2018
One harmony; myriad worlds.
Can there be variety in regularity?
Think about rates of change.
Get the right schwung.
Aphorisms for Composers – April 2018
April 30, 2018
Exercise “textural taste” at all times.
April 18, 2018
Music is not real estate. Composers are not developers. [reaction to a critic stating that a colleague’s new piece was “thin on development”). Ask the question: what is development? Figure out what it means every time you write something new.
You start over every time. Even after hours, weeks, months, years, decades of practice and increasing fluency, does ‘ample technique’ ever make the endeavor easier? Not if each new project leads to new territory where you’ve never been. More experience and more ready technique just up the ante; with more tools you are compelled to build more innovatively. Continue to honor your ability by creating ever-new blank slates.
When working on a big project, with your inching-forward music commanding your attention, days blend together. Non-day in, non-day out. Inspiration can be depressing!
Aphorisms for Composers – March 2018
March 27, 2018
Do you hear what I hear? The composer who has figured out a piece provides you (the listener) with an open invitation to hear “their way.”
What part does fear play in your evolving work process? Can you use the fear in order to harness or conquer it?
March 26, 2018
To encompass yet penetrate with music, study and listen like hell for maximal intake, then minimize to find exactly what you want/what you can offer.
How do you “interview” your sounds before you use/embrace them? Is this interview process an “art form in and of itself?” Can the process be presented as “performance”?
Parameters do not equal rules, but they ARE informative directives.
Is staff paper a “blank page to fill”? Even if it has those staves?
March 24, 2018
To be able to do what you ask performers to do is a composer’s imperative (within reason). Prepare to demonstrate your intentions in some effective musical way (conduct, song, play, describe). If you are unsure of something, admit it and take well-intentioned advice. But don’t wait or hold back specifics out of uncertainty or the rationalization that a performer will “take freedom” and decide for themselves — commit; regroup later if you have miscalculated.
March 21, 2018
Using a digital notation program from the get-go squeezes chunks of personality out of a score well before it is performed.
March 20, 2018
Contradiction/Negation 2: You’ve proposed a new musical skills course after long-standing encouragement from your colleagues. As it is about to run, they suggest that a student teach it.
March 16, 2018
What you say isn’t what you play. [This refers to vocal notation that organizes declamation in syllabic, neumatic, and melismatic divisions; this obscures the rhythmic clarity of “beaming notation” that would be necessary in instrumental notation in favor of the “sculpting” of the words/text]
March 13, 2018
Question from performer: Why on earth do you put a natural sign in front of every single note that doesn’t have a sharp or flat? I am now having to go through and white out every one of them…too hard to read
Answer: [Explanation for the extra accidentals]: chromatic harmony that sometimes changes unpredictably to most ears (or so I think). A cellist previously flagged the same problem some years back when I took it to a really ridiculous extreme. Another way to say it is that my “courtesy” accidentals are in the end discourteous. Maybe it’s a pianist thing in the end (harmonic thinking). Sorry if it is taking you extra work! Hope the scores are readable otherwise.
March 6, 2018
If music is medicine, “pieces” of music are doses.
Fountain pen found: inflow rhythm regained. (for Peter Desmond, poet/writer and tax preparer).
(Follow up from March 3, 2018) The big issues of your compositional language are perhaps best addressed in brief, specific offerings. Writing big, important-sounding pieces is a different proposition that may or may not develop your personal quirks and qualities.
March 3, 2018
Big things can often be best addressed in small forms.
Aphorisms for Composers – February 2018
Six-Word Aphorisms for February:
February 19, 2018
Surfaces often change. Fundamentals underneath don’t.
February 17, 2018
Composing. Separate yet close, ordering world.
February 15, 2018
You think you’re finished. Are you?
February 11, 2018
Stimulus, refuge, protection, insecurity: your music.
Oh to revise! Erase and replace. (while reducing an orchestration at the request of a conductor)
February 10, 2018
Be aware. Work well. No delusions.
February 6, 2018
Closed system: lid on the saucepan.
Wine/coffee stains: signs of devotion?
Season manuscript: spill wine on it.
February 3, 2018
Requiring other composers’ constraints=style tyranny?
February 2, 2018
Remain poised on your creative precipice. What will happen?