Three stages
One, The Blank Page;
Terror.
A few lines of inane nonsense.
A desire to give it up.
Cutting and pasting.
Tossing rhythms and harmonies carelessly around with no specific plan in mind.
Two, Discovery
Wait a minute, that sounds alright.
What if I try....?
Wow this is great!
That stupid tune I started with really comes alive on the horns.
I bet oboes would work here.
Et cetera
Three, The Wall;
Damn, I've rewritten the solos six times and nothing seems different.
It's almost there.
The whole piece is starting to sound stupid.
I'm getting tired of this.
I'll call it done.
The violin concerto is "done" I'll post for your annoyance soon.
Terror.
A few lines of inane nonsense.
A desire to give it up.
Cutting and pasting.
Tossing rhythms and harmonies carelessly around with no specific plan in mind.
Two, Discovery
Wait a minute, that sounds alright.
What if I try....?
Wow this is great!
That stupid tune I started with really comes alive on the horns.
I bet oboes would work here.
Et cetera
Three, The Wall;
Damn, I've rewritten the solos six times and nothing seems different.
It's almost there.
The whole piece is starting to sound stupid.
I'm getting tired of this.
I'll call it done.
The violin concerto is "done" I'll post for your annoyance soon.
posted by Lane Savant at 11:41 AM
5 Comments:
Hey feller, I like da way you write dis stuff!
So much so that I pasted it on the sister blog, FEEL FREE TO READ, under your moniker. The world needs to see stuff like this.
I was looking at those two plays you loaned me, and wondering why you don't type some of your earlier work up in Word, and then paste it on FFTR. Maybe the person who needs to read it will, and God only knows what might happen then.
Your composing pains are evident, and there must be some similarity between that creative process and that that a writer goes through to give birth to "words".
Do you get visualization as you compose? Do you write in imagery or in tones and auditory cues? Like I mentioned once, I rapped with a jazz musician one time that said he always saw images, pictures, and he blew his trumpet. I seem to be able to let that process of visualization run rampant when I listen to your music, or Alex's music. We used to use music as a "writing aid" back in college creative writing labs. People's responses did vary immensily. I hear music like I was seeing a movie, mostly cuz all the thousands of movies in my head are scored with music, and I once read where even the great composers of the olden times created music to illustrate myths, plays, events, pageants, and like that. What is your true and absolute feeling about that?
Does most of, or much of, your composing happen with the computer programs, or do you hear the notes in your head first? I ask, not as a smart ass, but as an ignorant cuss who is curious.
I finished a 22 page review on the film MEMENTO that I sent you on email. It is posted on FFTR too, and on the TFC website and annex site. That must have been a film you found intellectually challenging?
I am very pleased that my messing around with Alex's prose after she does a posting, incorporating it into the body of one of my poems, disguised as one of her poems, does not piss her off. She is very progressive and open-minded, thank goodness. Was she a commentor and contributor on FFTL for more than a year?
Glenn
P.S.: Anonomann, bless you wherever you are. And where might that be as we speak, or type?
Anonomann is ensconced in Redwing house 'till late in February.
I compose entirely by ear, listening to the sounds my computer makes and tossing them about until they sound "right".
I'm considering posting some of the plays, at least the one I've got on disc.
I only found about Alex a few months ago. We belong to the same musician's organization; (I cant think of the name right at the moment).
Hallo, Lane!
Here's the reminder you requested:
Don't forget to invite your sister and Mack to the concert on the 25th; I'd like to met them again, too.
Are you going to it, Glenn?? I'd like to meet you, too while I'm in The Peoples Republik of Seattle.
Tschuess,
Anonomann
Doug, how the hell did you get inside my head??
Glenn, you have no idea how frighteningly accurate his description is. Or maybe you do: surely, writers endure their own creative misery. It's just quieter.
Doug composes by ear, and I play by ear. Man, the side of my head really hurts.
I found Doug by blog-surfing, I think. One of my finely honed procrastination techniques. I'm guessing we're both members of the American Composers Forum.
I'm trying to clear my desk of a bunch of time-sensitive publishing/admin stuff, and then hole up this weekend and the following week, and get really close to finishing the band piece, so that I can come down to the Composers Salon. It would be great to meet in our non-pixelized forms (no promise that any of us actually exist in the physical world) and I'd love to hear Doug's music live. Or, if it's a CD, hear you, live, perhaps even freshly showered, talking about your music.
That same weekend is the Seattle Chamber Players new music series, as well as the Seattle Chamber Music Society mostly-dead-white-guys series. Christ, can't you artsy-fartsy northwest folk synchronize better and avoid musical collisions?
;-)
Alex, the whole business of creation is facing the unknown, journeying into the unknown and arriving at the unknown.
Terror at the outset, frustration, through the trip, and incomprehension
at the goal.
Looking forward to meeting you at the salon.
It always seems that everything wants to happen at once, there is also a free performance on the 25th by the SSO at city hall which I'm going see if I can get away with attending. That with the SCP's On the boards show makes for a busy day.
I'm going to the SCP's Chapel performance tonight.
Not to slight Laura or Mikhail or David, but Paul Taub's flute work boggles my mind.
And we all know what PDQ says about a boggled mind.
Both the ACF and the Society of Composers International, I believe.
Post a Comment
<< Home