Twenty-first century song

The fact that I haven’t updated this blog since September doesn’t mean that there has been a lack of composition-related activity!  In the early Autumn I finally managed to finish the ensemble piece which I began writing during the Britten-Pears Contemporary Composition Course last summer. I’m now looking forward to the premiere this June, more details of which can be found on my main website www.elizabethwinters.com. After the Aldeburgh piece was completed, I then entered into the mysteries and challenges of writing for the solo harp.  I am extremely grateful to harpist Fionnuala Somerville for answering all my questions and patiently helping me to transform my ideas into idiomatic harp writing! I learned such a lot from writing this piece; the prospect of including the harp in my next orchestral piece now seems far less daunting.

Over Christmas, I faced a new challenge – writing the first of two songs for tenor Tom Edward Robson and pianist Justin Snyder.  I chose to set a text from James Joyce’s cycle of 36 poems entitled Chamber Music, written in 1907.  The cycle tells the story of a love affair from innocence to experience, and then finally to dissolution.  I chose to set the first poem in the cycle, ‘Strings in the Earth and Air’, and plan to follow it with a setting of the final poem, ‘I Hear an Army’. (I’ve firmly avoided listening to Barber’s setting of this last poem, although I look forward with interest to hearing this once my setting is complete!)

As I began planning the piece, I realised that I’d never written anything which might be termed a ‘traditional’ song.  Also, as the song genre is so loaded in history, I might have approached it with the same trepidation as I would the string quartet – had I thought about it too much!  Despite this, there were some fundamental questions which I kept in the back of my mind as I began the writing process.  What is a song?  What does writing a song mean for me?  What role does the song have in the 21^st century?  I can’t claim to have answered any of these questions definitively – but they did make me reconsider certain aspects of my writing.  However, there was one issue which kept recurring; the use of melody.

I like to think of myself as a melodic composer (when I choose to be!) but would never lay claim to writing a ‘tune’ – to the eternal disappointment of my dad!  But here I was, writing a song, and that screamed ‘melody’ to me loud and clear!  Another factor was Joyce’s text.  I soon discovered that there was such an amount of inherent melody in Joyce’s words that I found myself writing in a naturally melodic way.  But was this actual melody?  The material I finally came up with certainly wasn’t the sort of tune you’d whistle walking to catch the bus.  As I progressed further with the piece, I found myself thinking a lot more about the problems of writing something which could be classed as melodic, or even melody, but would still sound fresh, new, and never obvious.  I wanted something which would be memorable, but would still challenge and intrigue the performer and listener.  This was something I kept coming back to throughout the piece.  

For me, one solution lay in the way that the tenor and piano interact during the piece.  I found it interesting that the poem isn’t set in the first person, and I used this in my setting to create a sense of detachment between the tenor and the piano.  While the constantly unfolding piano part brings across the sensual, otherworldly atmosphere of the words, the tenor has more of a narrative role – watching and describing the scene rather than participating in it.  This allowed me to write a much more direct tenor line, balanced by the intricacies of the piano part. In fact, if I took away the piano, some of the tenor part would sound almost scarily simple! 

This didn’t solve the melody issue, but did give it balance and perspective. It’s the relationship and interplay between the tenor and the piano which make the piece – like so many other songs.  I hope that my 21^st century song is both interesting and singable!  I look forward to hearing the results soon.

The process of composition

Those of you who read my previous blog, which I wrote during the LSO Panufnik project last year, will know that I very much enjoy the planning aspect of writing a piece.  Going back to the Aldeburgh course again, it was very interesting observing how the other composers worked, especially compared to my own methods.  Recently, whilst attempting to complete the piece I began in Aldeburgh, I have been thinking a great deal about my process of composition and how I have perhaps been making life more difficult for myself than it could be!  More of that in future blog posts, but first I’d like to define what I mean by the process of composition.

The process of composition is the whole compositional journey right through from the initial ideas to the finished work.  Along the way, this will result in a number of different stages. To give you a rough idea of what I’m talking about, I’ve set out the stages below in relation to my own working methods.

Preliminary Ideas

This is the hardest stage for me to define as much of it happens subconsciously.  I usually carry a notebook around with me to jot down ideas – and have got a few funny looks from people glancing over my shoulder as I scribble away on the train!  These ideas may not even include any musical notations; in fact I usually use more words than notes at this stage.

First Musical Notations

I normally find this stage quite exciting, as it’s when I play around with ideas for the piece in a very free kind of way.  I think of it as a musical brainstorming session – and a lot of material is discarded at this stage!  One of the questions I often get asked as a composer is whether or not I use the piano to work with.  The answer is that I sometimes do and I sometimes don’t, depending on what stage the piece is at.  This is one of the stages where I almost always use a piano; however my preliminary ideas need to have developed enough so I know what sounds I am searching for.  In other words, I need to have a strong aural picture of the piece before I begin.

Systems and Processes

I find this next stage the hardest and tend to leave the piano for a while to sit staring at a piece of manuscript paper!  The aim is to work out how the ideas I have sketched out during the previous stage are going to work together to produce the piece.  Many composers work in quite a systematic way.  For those of you who aren’t composers, writing a piece can be as systematic as working through a mathematical equation.  This isn’t always the case however, and there are many composers who work without any form of conscious system (although perhaps there are subconscious ones at work all the time).  When I began writing, I wrote very intuitively.  Gradually, as I’ve learned more about how other composers work, I have begun to experiment with a more systematic approach to my composition. More of that in future blog posts!

Structural Overview

In a piece driven by systems, this stage will be determined by the chosen system and will already have been worked through in the previous stage.  However, even when I am writing a more freely composed piece, I always explore ideas for the structure.  I find it useful to know how I think I am going to end – even though the piece may then develop in quite a different direction!

Short Score

For me, this is finally where the actual writing gets underway!  I sometimes find it hard to resist trying to write the music out in full score first but it is certainly beneficial (and quicker in terms of getting ideas onto paper) to write it out in short score first.  When writing a short score, my first attempts may only have a few designations for instrumentation – these develop as I rescore numerous times.

Full Score

Before the arrival of Sibelius (the music notation software!) I expect composers used to copy out numerous full score drafts before making the completed full score.  It’s a lot easier today – I am normally happy enough with my second or third attempt at a full score to put the music onto Sibelius.  Then, I can ‘tweak’ the odd note at my leisure, without having to copy out the whole page again! 

So, that roughly defines my process of composition (at least at the time of writing this blog) – naturally this process varies from composer to composer.  I will be exploring the process of composition further in future blog posts, so if any composers out there read this and would like to give me an insight into their working methods I’d be very interested indeed!

Belated follow up…

Well, the Aldeburgh course has been and gone, and I’ve realised that it’s been two months since my last blog post!

Aldeburgh was an unforgettable experience – very intense and hard work – but incredibly beneficial.  We were very lucky in having such a fantastic ensemble to work with over the week and a half.  No, I didn’t enjoy it all (sometimes I find it a little daunting having my work pulled apart in front of colleagues – particularly when I’m right in the middle of writing), but now I’ve had time to reflect and recover I’m busy finishing off the piece for the concert next year with fresh energy and lots of new ideas.

One of the great things about Aldeburgh was that all 7 composers were so different, with very diverse ways of working, and we were encouraged to develop that.  For example, a couple of my colleagues managed to produce about 5 minutes of music (to my 3 minutes) but there was never any pressure to conform.  Within the confines of the course schedule we were all able to write in our own ways and at our own times (I have confirmed my suspicions that I am definitely not a night-time composer!).  Each day there was an opportunity to have what we’d written rehearsed – but again there was no pressure to produce something every day.  I found that a couple of ‘thinking and reflecting’ days were very valuable.

Thankfully, not all of the time was spent sitting staring at a piece of (hopefully not blank!) manuscript paper. One of the best things about these sorts of courses is discovering new music and composers.  Composer sharing sessions were set up where we introduced each other to our music.  This was a very enriching experience and I felt privileged to be there alongside my very talented colleagues.  Of the course tutors, I’ve known and admired the music of Oliver Knussen and Colin Matthews for some time, but the US composer Michael Gandolfi (www.michaelgandolfi.com) was a new name for me.  I was particularly impressed by his Points of Departure for chamber orchestra and will be looking out for more of his music.

Another composer I discovered whilst at Aldeburgh was the music of the French composer Edith Canat de Chizy (www.edithcanatdechizy.com).  Towards the end of the course I found myself with a free hour (quite a rare occurrence!) and so shut myself in a room with a CD of her orchestral music.  I am now looking forward to discovering more…

Now back to the piece!

Time to think…

I’m off to Aldeburgh for the Contemporary Composition and Performance course next month, so having just finished one piece, I will very shortly begin sketching and planning ideas for the piece I will be working on there. The brief is to write a piece of
approximately 5 minutes duration, for chamber ensemble.  While the piece will be written during the week and a half at Aldeburgh we’ve helpfully been given the instrumentation in
advance and plenty of time to think and to sketch ideas (in fact, they’ve asked
us to arrive with at least an outline sketch, and I’m hoping to have some small
sections of the piece written too).

Although I am very much looking forward to the fantastic opportunity of working with Oliver Knussen, Colin Matthews, and the other composers and instrumentalists, I have to admit I am feeling a little daunted by the prospect of writing a piece in such a short space of time.  Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about the demands which are made on composers in respect of time frames – i.e. the total amount of time given from receiving all the information needed to start writing to producing the final score.

Having had a mixture of experiences in the relatively short time I’ve been writing it would be all too easy for me to think that the solution must be to work faster!  But, I don’t want to fall into the trap of simply churning out note after note, and I’m afraid that I’m a bit of a perfectionist as well!  Plus, I do write at a pretty average speed – although I need to have plenty of time to think about the piece before putting pen to paper.

So, given that I don’t write particularly slowly then what is the problem? For me, it’s the time allowed for the preliminary thinking which is the issue.  I have come to the conclusion that this is perhaps the most important aspect of my process of composition.  I find that time spent writing things other than notes – words, diagrams, even drawing pictures – is essential and without this first stage the rest of the process takes far longer
and often produces a less satisfactory result.

Sadly however, I have found that this necessary first stage is often overlooked by everyone except for the composer!  Even simple things like knowing the instrumentation and duration well in advance is important, and while I find there is often enough time given for the writing stage the thinking stage is a luxury which I often have to keep to the bare minimum.  I do feel that this is a particular problem for ‘young’ or ‘up and coming’ composers – we have to take advantage of every opportunity which does often mean writing pieces at very short notice.  Of course, this can be a useful challenge in itself, but unless that is the point of the piece having enough time can make such a difference.  This can be achieved – the LSO Panufnik Scheme I was lucky enough to participate in last year was extremely well organised.

Luckily, Aldeburgh has also been great in this respect, and having had plenty of time to think and sift through ideas I’m hoping the writing experience will be equally enjoyable.  I’ll keep you posted…In the meantime; I’d love to hear anyone’s thoughts on the above.