Tag Archives: Improvisation

Spitting out notes

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Yesterday it was exciting to try out the pieces I had written. I toy with the idea to not write anymore on the fourth movement, mostly because I feel tired and want to work on a new project, but ultimately, I listen through the entire piece, and then just the “ending” of where I had left off. Suddenly I hear in my mind a cello line! That’s what I needed to get started. So I start writing the cello line. Then I have an idea of how to add a viola to it, but before too long, I know more of how the cello continues.

And I go back, and the second violin part makes itself known, and now I’m just wondering how the first violin part will present itself, and then I’ll have to finish the viola line that is gaping with its unfinished-ness. There’s this part I really like in the second violin part, and I’m thinking of how to extend it into the other parts. I have lots of staccato eighth notes in this movement. So that is kind of the default articulation, and anything outside of that sounds like melody.

You may have heard uncounted piano accompaniments that sound like arpeggios without end. Yes, if you’ve heard a lot of popular accompaniments on the piano, it is typical for the piano. It doesn’t really stand out that much anymore. I’m thinking now of Gounod’s Ave Maria, which is written to Bach’s Prelude in C major from the Well tempered Klavier. It is a lovely piece on its own. I also think that it has inspired a lot of people to try and write the same kind of accompaniment to any kind of inane melody they come up with.

My point today is that an accompaniment doesn’t have to mimic this style of arpeggiated chords going and going and going and going like Bach (nothing against Bach! See my post yesterday). You can pick a different style, and listen to some Bartók for inspiration! Also, my second point is that the accompaniment in itself can be worth putting a lot of effort into. It shouldn’t come as an afterthought. Include it in the entire composition. I’ve said it before: the melody informs the harmony, but it also goes the other way, so the harmony makes a framework for the melody to dance in. Just like in jazz, where you have a bass line, and then improvise on top of that, you can write an accompaniment, and improvise on top of that. Composition is typically one person writing all the parts in advance, but it really has a lot in common with improvisation. You come up with one thing, and then the next, and then the next. It is too difficult to keep the entire piece in one’s mind all at once, and if you can keep just an idea in your mind, and then develop that, it is good enough.

So I am happy to have spat out a few more notes into my piece, and I’m hoping that I can write enough notes to make it feel complete before too long. I’ve got to start on the next project really soon, and I struggle with multi-tasking. I might have to start on it before completing this one though. I’ll tell you how it goes.

More work on the string quartet

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I’m opening up the score for the string quartet, and it’s really fun! I’m seeing where the melody left off, where the parts left off, and try to write a little on each part, one or two phrases at a time, so that they all feel like they are part of the improvisation that isn’t really an improvisation. But I keep in mind that all the players want to play something that is meaningful. It has to fit with the rest, and they have to alternate having the carrying line.

I’m thinking that the studying of counterpoint proves pretty helpful at this point. J.S. Bach wrote so much contrapuntal work that his work is probably some of the most inspiring – but there are others too. Handel, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bartok, Schoenberg, Webern, just to name a few great ones.

It’s the idea that you have a theme that is short and concise, that you vary. You let each instrument say something, sometimes as the main melody, and other times as more of an accompaniment, but each new phrase will usually change the constellation of who leads and who supports. It’s very much like a dance.

So I find myself writing a few measures for the viola, and some for the second violin, etc, each time ending a little after the other line, so that it’s kind of like a puzzle, where each new idea has to fit into the framework I’m creating, and as I’m fitting the new idea into the framework, I also extend the framework for the next line to fit into.

At one point, the two violins and the viola all come to an end of their phrase at the same time, so that prepares the way for the cello to take the lead. Next, I write in a contrapuntal line in the first violin, and it ends about five beats after the cello line. The second violin comes in with the first violin, but then it diverges, and the phrase ends five beats after the first’s. Next comes the viola. I decide to give it a measure of rest before coming in, and then I write a contrapuntal line for this instrument. This time I keep going for twelve beats after the second violin before I feel like the line is ended.

That maneuver means that I have twenty-two beats where the cello has nothing, but at least one other instrument has something. So that will be the next place where I put my attention. And I write a line for the cello, and I write until the end of the viola line, and then I see that I have an opening for a transition to something different. It’s a minute into the piece, and I feel content with having given an exposition to the first theme in that minute. There is enough repetition, and enough variation that I feel pretty content with the balance.

Next time, I’ll finish up the end of the exposition in all the instrument, and allow the upper three to join in the new part. Ha! That will be fun.

Keep writing

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At some point in grade school or junior high, I was invited to start writing poetry for some language arts assignment. I loved the medium, and when I was in high school, I started keeping a notebook with me to write down my thoughts in that form.

A few times I thought that the poetry was musical enough that it worked to set it to music. But mostly, it was just a way for me to put down my thoughts and feelings in a short form.

I had the idea when I was nineteen or twenty to try some improvisations with another musician, and I think I made a flyer that I posted at my former high school, to see if there were any students that wanted to collaborate. That was how I met Erik Hamrefors. He played the cello and the viola, and we got together a few times and made a lot of recordings of me singing and he playing. You can find some of my favorite pieces that we recorded here.

When I relocated to Germany, I met Anke Ames, who played the accordion, and we did a few improvisations as well. We used some other poetry which we hadn’t written, and I found it was harder to relate. It’s not like the poetry was bad – it’s just that it wasn’t ours.

A few weeks ago, I had an experience where I needed some words to guide my next composition. Late at night, poetry started flooding my thoughts, and I wrote it down in my notebook.

I was pretty pleased with how the music turned out, and since then I have been thinking that it would be good if I had some more words to help guide my next compositions.

Digging from within seems to work the best, so I jotted down some of my most anguished thoughts in my notebook last night. It’s maybe best not to publish them right now, but I feel like it’s helpful to me, like it’s helping me process my most desperate feelings.

There is this one poem I wrote back in high school which I still have a copy of at home. Basically, it is a description of the frantic search for the key to inspiration. “Where is the key?” I sometimes still feel this way!

Writing on this blog has helped me stay focused. Despite all the other things going on in my life, I try to create something every day, and it helps me be happier. It’s unlikely that everything I create will be great, but I figure that as I keep refining my craft, I will still be pleased with many of my creations.

The connection between improvisation and composition

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One of my most influential teachers in college was Christian Asplund. He taught me many things, being my teacher for fourth semester theory, beginning composition, and then he was my mentor for my capstone project (the composition part of it, I actually had another one for the theatre production part of the project, Rodger Sorensen). He also taught Group for Experimental Music (GEM), in which I participated in its first year, and later on, I was able to be a singer in an opera he had written and directed.

He encouraged thinking outside of what we had experienced before, and the pieces we performed with GEM were sometimes full of improvisation, and other times they had part improvisation. Usually at least part of the piece was up for interpretation, and whereas this is typical for all music, there was definitely more than the usual amount of interpretation in those pieces. He writes pieces called “Comprovisations” which means they were kind of compositions with large elements of improv in them.

This kind of thinking really helped me think about my writing in a new way. I had already been writing music for several years when I met Dr Asplund, but all that improvising together helped me discover that all music longs for form. It doesn’t have to be the same form every time, and it doesn’t have to be consistent, but even in improv, you want to recognize that you are going from one part to the next, and the most satisfying improvisations will feature a “going back to the beginning” or something similar.

When I’m writing today on the piece for a solo instrument, I’m feeling much like I’m back in the room with my colleagues in GEM, and I’m writing phrase after phrase, tweaking the first idea a little each time to make it move forward, and into a key change by switching one accidental at a time, repeating it and adding another so that it feels inevitable when we return to the original key. It is such a satisfying moment when I can write the opening phrases in the original key again, and while I don’t know exactly where it will end, as I’m expecting another minute of the song, I’m happy to have gotten to where I am today.