Some of you may listen to my music and wonder, "How did he do that?" More will probably wonder, "Why in the heck did he do that?" I think an explanation of my composition process will help clarify things. I was inspired by something I read in the booklet for a CD of John Duarte's English Suite. He once said, "...composition is improvisation, given the benefit of time to reconsider and refine the product."I then realized that music composition is not something reserved only for musical geniuses such as Mozart who could hear an entire symphony in their mind and then just go write it all down. Composition is something we can all do, since we can all improvise, even if it is just humming or whistling whatever comes to mind. A man named Win Wenger recently introduced me to his idea of improvisation. I have found great value in that method, and I have experimented with it as well, in order to improve my instrumental skills. The form of improvisation I use is somewhat different from the kind of improvisation John Duarte and Dr. Wenger were talking about in that I am inputting data into a computer using my mouse and the Finale NotePad 2003 Plus program, not playing a traditional musical instrument such as the piano or clarinet. It is similar however, in that I use a combination of intuition and randomness in my musical experimentation. I let the notes flow onto the page, and follow a pattern that looks good and feels good. I switch note lengths when it feels right. The refinement comes from adding notes to create more chords, adding accidentals to create the right sound in a chord, shifting lengths of notes to make a rhythm more pleasing, and shifting certain series of notes around to get the right progression of sounds. The music software allows for a kind of sculpting of the music, because you can hear how things change as you shift notes around. Sometimes I will find that a pattern I had laid down originally is very nice, so I will keep it. I may try to use that melody or chord progression in a similar way in another section of the piece. After creating a few pieces in this way, I came to see ways of inputting that led to more pleasing sounds. I found combinations of note lengths that led to more pleasing rhythms. In listening to my songs, I found how certain structures would reappear and mutate in my music. In this way my improvisation skills improved. I was then able to use my technique to write music to accomplish a certain task, such as telling a story or expressing an emotion. In my compositions you will see some of this progression as you go from the earliest pieces at top of the page to the most recent ones near the bottom. My songs all have different degrees of refinement. Sometimes I modify many notes a small amount, and add and take away a lot, leaving the finished piece very different from the initial improvisation. Sometimes I will change hardly anything at all. There are such infinite possibilities in music, just as there are in any art form, that anyone using a similar composition technique to mine will surely come up with their own unique kind of music. Give it a try! You have all the tools available to you. |