writing music is strange
sheltech
after picking up guitar again at age 40 in '97 , I took weekly 1hr.
"guitar" lessons , which were mostly about theory and basics of
composition . I got a good grasp of how music works in general, and how
the fretboard can be mapped out with the C-A-G-E-D system, and within a
couple of years I was coming up with listenable material . There was a
rush of writing, a real bonanza for a couple of years , and almost
everything that I'm playing now was done in the first 4-5 years since
'97.
Looking back, the creative outburst makes sense , but there are a couple
of things about it all that are just odd, not necessarily good or bad ,
but .... odd. One is obvious, that I basically stopped writing; it's
like a huge amount wanted to come out fast, and did, and then after that
it trickles out slowly when it damn well wants to, which isn't very
much. But that's ok, because I'm still working to be able to play the
pieces I wrote , some about 8 years ago. That goes into the other odd
part , still playing the same music I wrote in the early stages of
learning music . The good part is that I still like playing and hearing
them , and looking back at the whole process it's fine that I didn't
keep writing much because I wouldn't have been able to keep many more
pieces in the loop of playing them to get good at them . But it is odd
to be still working on playing "early " pieces. From a playing
standpoint , the way they feel, they are continually evolving , and
that's a really interesting phenomenon , how they feel more comfortable,
how I feel my hands gaining skill as the years go by.
Strange though, the new one I'm working on, started over a year ago,
when I finally got around to mapping out some harmonic minor forms .
A bunch of puzzle pieces fell in my lap , like they did way back when,
but they haven't really come together. Today (yesterday afternoon, my
morning) I was playing with the pieces again , and there are maybe 10
little bits with several ways of fitting them, and a couple little
subtle things clicked together . Subtle variations of what I'd been
tossing around off and on for months, and a couple of small clicks and
it felt huge . Very odd.... something taking so long to percolate, and
needing to be just exactly "so" , and finally becoming "so". Odd...
one little section coming together, and it feeling imporatnt somehow,
you know (here I go again) like it's symbolic of other , deeper things
going on . Yeah, it's all fairly strange, and I totally love it.
D
anyt...@contractorcom.com
wrote:
Not so strange. If you look at the writing habits of the classical
world you'll find hundreds of part works which have been eventually
worked up into symphonies and so-on.
Take Elgar's 'Nimrod' variation, for instance - it went into the
'Enigma Variations' as a nice little lollipop lasting about four
minutes, but also turned up as the basis for a half-hour choral work
'In the South'. Half of Beethoven's major themes and transitions turn
up in his string quartets etc.
What you are doing is pretty normal!
Pete
sheltech
favorite variations of chords) that they share. I also just remembered
how, in the early stages, I would sort of 'hear' internally these
powerful , majestic-seeming movements that, once I solidified them on
the fretboard , turned out to often be nothing more than a fundamental
resolution or chord change (or progression) . Often that left me with
a sort of empty shell that I had to build on and fill in with ...
real guitar playing stretches ; imagine that ! . So , what at first
might feel like a grand , full idea, ended up being just a basic
starting point for a guitar piece. And that's how my guitar pieces sound
internally when they play back in their loops sometimes : filled out,
larger than life in a way . Different , richer in ways than real guitar
music, but when I pick up the guitar and play, that sound is richer in
ways; a paradox.
ok, enough thinking for one day !.
D