ec1968 said:
What type of music are you writing? Is it vocal, instrumental, how do you approach the composition process etc? I'm very interested in the creative process behind composition, and like to find out what influences composers. I saw a performance of 'In C' at the weekend and was just blown away!
Hi ec1968,
I don't know if this thread is really the place for this, so the mods can move it to the music board if they like. But I will try and answer your questions as best I can.
I would call it 'songwriting' more than 'composing', although much of what I do is actual written notes on the staff. And it is vocal, although I have thought about writing some instrumental music for my saxophone. I like writing blues tunes - I've played a lot of that - and everything else kind of falls under 'my own style'. Sometimes it has a Latin feel, sometimes folk/rock, sometimes funk, and usually with horns. I am not one to try and categorize anything, and I like to write as many different styles as I can. Or at least, I write it the way I feel it and it very seldom sounds like the one before it. I hope that makes some kind of sense.
I have a computer program called "Finale" that allows me to write notes on the staff. I can have as many staffs as I like and each one can be assigned a different instrument. At any point in the writing I can hit play and it will play back, with the sounds of the chosen instruments, the entire score. So I use that program to write all the parts of the instruments that I don't play, or don't own. At the moment I am trying to stick to the instrumentation that I would have if (when) I get my band back together - drums, bass, guitar, keyboard, saxophone voices, and any instrument that our keyboard player could fake with a good synthesizer.
After that, I transfer the wave files into a mixing program that allows me to record live tracks over top of the "band". In my case those are the guitar, vocals, saxophone and violin. When I have recorded all the tracks I do the mixing - balancing volume levels, adjusting equalizers, adding effects. At that point it's pretty much finished. But since all of this is done on the computer in my bedroom, I would have to go into a real studio with real musicians to make a more quality recording if I were to try and sell CDs.
As far as the creative process is concerned I imagine everyone has their own approach, but I usually go about it in one of two similar ways. Usually I am sitting down with the guitar and playing around with chords in order to come up with a progression that I find interesting, different, pleasant or just plain cool. Sometimes I know it's good because I get goosebumps and all the hairs on my body stand on end, something that often happens when I hear a song that really gets me (
At Last by Etta James, for example). When that is the case, I find the rhythm that suits it best and then the melody that goes with it comes very quickly. Then I choose a subject for the lyrics, but I don't write any of them except the chorus. These days, the subject matter is always something inspired by the work, things for which I feel as passionate about as I do for music. And that's a pretty wide field of topics.
Other times it is the subject that comes first. I start thinking of what I want to say and the melody, or chorus, comes as soon as I form one phrase that sounds just right. Then I figure out what the chords are that are already implied by that melody and then go through the above process. And of course, many times throughout the process there are all sorts of changes and adjustments made, usually because I just feel there's something missing or not quite right.
Influences? That's a tough one. I think that the best way to find out what influences me (and maybe others, as well) is by letting someone else listen to my songs. My sister says that the last blues I wrote reminds her of Joe Cocker's
Leave Your Hat On. And as it turns out, I love Joe Cocker and that song, and I have performed it many times. But I was certainly never thinking about it when I wrote the song. I believe that any songwriter/composer is influenced, at all times, by anything and everything that has made some kind of impression on them at all stages of their lives. When they sit down to write, they will write what comes to them in the moment, what they feel fits the mood or emotion of what they are working on. And when the piece is done, someone always hears a similarity to something else, and more often than not, the artist of which it reminds them happens to be one that the composer is familiar with.
Interestingly enough, I think that description fits in quite well with Gurdjieff's point that it is all imitation, especially music, poetry, art, etc. Although there are probably exceptions, like Mozart or Beethoven, those who innovate and others try to emulate.
I hope this has been helpful in some way.
