Chamber CD - Day 36

Monday, December 11, 2006
12:06

Chipping away, just chipping away.

This piece is very hard to work on, like sculpting marble. Every hit of the hammer and chisel yields very small results.

And if I may stretch my metaphor a little further, what also makes this a lengthy process is that I am looking into the marble to find the form.

I don’t have a clear idea for the language, just a concept – to write something “pretty” without resorting to diatonicism, using a free chromatic language. It’s hard.

So every day is just small little marks of the chisel, then stepping back to see what form is emerging.

Adding notes, moving notes, removing, changing, moving bits around, connecting, disconnecting, changing the rhythms, displacing the meter, lengthening phrases, shortening, nip and tuck, chip, chip, chip.

I can see something taking shape now. It’s faint, but it’s there.

Chamber CD - Day 31

Wednesday, December 06, 2006
12:16 AM

Well, look at that, I am done. I’ve laid out my “colours” and I am ready to “paint”.

It’s hard to believe. Actually, I feel a little bit confused about it - like it can’t be true. I’m afraid tomorrow I’ll listen to my ideas, wind up hating them and tossing them all.

But I have to commit at some point. Always in the back of my head is “you could do better”, but if I keep thinking that I’ll never do anything.

So I have my colours laid, out; my motives, chords, melodic ideas, rhythmic ideas, tempo, instrumentation (flute and vibes) and even some idea of the form.

The ideas I have so far tend to sound kind of impressionistic, so I’ve been playing through Debussy’s “Suite Bergamesque” and “Prélude a L’Après-Midi d’un Faune” this morning, paying special attention to the harmonic and melodic language. I read through the beginning of Ravel’s “Daphnes and Chloé” as well. I just wanted to compare and build from there.

So now it’s lunch time, I have planned tomorrow’s composition time. Should be good.

Chamber CD - Day 30

Tuesday, December 05, 2006
12:20 PM

Still working on my drum rudiments. The practice is giving me a lot of insight that I hope will translate to great writing.

Then I worked on that slow piece. It’s a struggle that one. Everything I come up with seems too wishy-washy, too jazzy, too film score like, too impressionistic, too blah! I am starting to have anxiety in the morning before I come down to work on this piece. I have to relax about it.

This is composition as problem solving: having a goal and figuring out how to get there. Like coming up with a thousand ways NOT to build a light bulb. So I am getting pages and pages of rejected ideas and hours spent at the piano, trying out this and that.

Because this piece is a problem I need to solve, I am only working on it, nothing else. I find that being immersed in a problem is the best way to solve it. I was in the shower when I thought that quartalism in a bi-tonal/bi-modal context might be a good way to get the sound I am looking for.

And it does sound pretty good. I am not sure it has that pure, bright, wistful sound that tonal writing can have, though.

Will I end up writing tonal music? God, it would be so easy.

The instrumentation is also giving me a bit of a headache. I have flute and vibes in mind, but I am not sure. Perhaps flute and sting trio? I need to keep things small for this project.

Also, the fact that it is taking so long is causing me some stress. My wife says I always do that, I never take the easy road. I never do what comes easy and I look and look and get stressed out. She’s right.

I never trust an idea that was easy to get.