Interview with Linda Dusman PART I

The music of Baltimore based composer Linda Dusman is diverse. Her piece, Solstice, which she discusses further in this interview, is an adventurous exploration for students performing in concert band. O Star Spangled Stripes is a battle of wills between a snare drum and piano. Much of her music is intended for chamber performance, though she has created works for interactive and installation settings and is currently preparing a piece for orchestra.

Dusman takes inspiration from nearly everything around her. Even in pieces she has been commissioned to write, the music is based on ideas she finds compelling in literature, nature, the experiences of others, and other music. The music of other composers is also important to her in the study of music theory, which she teaches at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in addition to music composition and instrumentation.

In this interview, Linda Dusman discusses the inspiration for her music, the concert experience, and offers advice to other composers

You write music for many different genres. How would you describe your music as a whole?

I think I’m pretty eclectic actually. I do not use traditional harmony. I don’t have objections to triads...[but] sometimes I don’t do that at all. It tends to depend on the situation and what it is I’m trying to convey. So I think in some ways I’m multilingual. I choose the language that I’m going to write in based on the situation. For example, I’m finishing up a piece right now that’s going to be premiered in October. Actually I thought it was finished two months ago, but I’m still working on it (laughter), still refining some things. You know how that goes. This was a piece inspired by an artist who I met at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. I did a residency there in February of this year. I just love this artist’s drawings...they felt very sonic to me. I wouldn’t say musical, but sonic. Somehow it felt like they evoked sound. I went to her studio and actually recorded her making these drawings. So then I had these sounds of pen strokes that were quite strange. I wanted to combine them with Michael Richards’ [Chair of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County Music Department] clarinet playing. He does a lot of noise-based extended techniques on the clarinet.

In that particular situation I was finding a single note that would, I felt, blend with the sounds of these pen scratches and then everything came out of that. Now that’s a very different situation from say, a wind ensemble piece that I did about ten years ago where I was asked to do a piece for a high school wind ensemble. There it was a different kind of audience. I really, as a composer, think of myself as somebody who is collaborating with the performer, the audience, and myself. So there are three entities involved in this, not just me, [and] I’m trying to find a way to teach people the piece, particularly if I’m working with unusual sounds and dissonant harmonies. I try to find a way to write the piece so that people can learn about it as they’re listening. That’s part of the reason I often have very evocative and slow moving openings: to kind of get people’s ears warmed up before I actually get into the meat of the material...to give them a chance to sort of wake up their ears, get a sense of the sound palette that I’m working with, and then take off and move in a certain direction with it.

I’m also very often influenced by extra-musical things. Things outside of sound themselves...literature, for example. I did a piece for flutist Lisa Cella and Jane Rigler’s duo. It was inspired by a passage from a Virginia Wolf novel. The passage says something like, they sat next to each other melting into each other with phrases. They formed an unsubstantial territory. I’m not saying it as well as Virginia Wolfe does, but it’s something to that extent. So when Lisa asked me to do a duo for her ensemble, this passage (I was reading The Waves at the time) struck me, the idea of two people together blending into each other with phrases and forming at the same time an unsubstantial territory. So it took off from there. I used piccolo and alto flute in that particular piece, two very dissimilar members of the flute family, to try to create that separateness, but then I used their overlapping ranges. They have a bit of an overlap in terms of ranges and certainly in terms of noises that the two of them can create. Within that [is] a kind of unsubstantial territory. They go apart, they come together. That’s an example of a concept or a piece of literature that inspired me to work on that piece in that particular way.

The wind ensemble piece, when I wrote for [high school] band, I started reflecting on, “What was it like for me in high school? What was it like to be there?” Because I’m writing now for students that are this particular age. I don’t remember high school with great memories, frankly. It was a very unsettling time for me. Puberty, all that kind of stuff, complications, emotional complications. So, I wrote this piece called Solstice that was actually bi-tonal to create in a bi-tonal framework these kinds of clashes. You feel like you’re OK, you’re in this tonal, particular key, and then suddenly this other key buts up against you creating some tension there. In that sense, it was a little bit, I think for the high school players, quite unusual because They’re used to playing straight tonal music. But, I felt like it communicated with them about my memories of that time.

You said you consider yourself, the performer and the audience when writing music. One of the things I enjoyed about playing music in high school was, playing the horn, I didn’t always have the prominent part, but usually there were fun parts written for the instrument. How much did that cross your mind as you were scoring Solstice?

I’m always trying to write parts that people enjoy playing. To me, that’s what gets communicated to the audience. If the performers are not enjoying the piece, there’s no way the piece is going to succeed. Of course, you can’t always control that. You can’t control if the high school bari sax player is going to be happy with the part, but I do try to think about that. And that’s something I try to encourage my students to do, too. To think not just about the overall ensemble sound, but the sound that each instrumentalist is playing so that they have something rewarding in their part in and of itself.

You mentioned the piece inspired by literature. I noticed a lot of your music is based on some literature or poetry. In addition, some relate to an idea or a situation. How does that differ from writing music with a freer approach like working intuitively?

Well, I think I do work intuitively, it’s just that I draw my inspiration from a variety of things. I certainly enjoy my ears, I enjoy listening to things, all kinds of things. So, not just music, but the sound of the world and the sounds of nature, urban landscapes, you know, I find interesting sounds all over the place. I enjoy my eyes. I enjoy what I see. The light on the water, the lace that trees in winter create against the sky. Literature; the kinds of emotional palette that’s available there, or the ability to kind of get inside someone else’s head, how someone else is seeing the world through what they write, helps me to know more about myself. [In] all these things, life is a process of learning about yourself, learning about other people. I look to the concept for the inspiration, but then once the music starts, I look to the music. I keep thinking about the concept until I begin to hear something. Once I begin to hear something, then I listen to that (laughter). I used to try to stick with the concept. I don’t do that any more. I think that’s been a change in the last ten or fifteen years. Now, I end up loving the sound. As a composer you fall in love with the piece (laughter). Then it’s all about the piece and the sound, not about something you’re trying to impose on it from the outside.

continued....see Part II

Interview with Linda Dusman PART II

continued from Part I....

So you take your inspiration and allow it to grow...

Sonically.

When did you start composing music?

I always fooled around on the piano. I was always making pieces better. I grew up in a very small town. There wasn’t a very sophisticated musical environment where I grew up. I had a piano teacher who taught me from method books and stuff like that where a lot of times the music is pretty boring, so I was always adding stuff to make it better (laughter). The first time I actually just went off and wrote my own piece was for this orchestration class. My professor said, “If you want to write your own piece, you can. You don’t have to arrange someone else’s.” So I did that and it was a revelation to me. I felt so much happier doing that than being an interpreter. I really felt like my creative strengths were much more in terms of making something than interpreting something. Players have to be imaginative interpreters, and I never felt like I had a lot of imagination for interpretation. That was a struggle for me as a pianist, so this was like I [had] opened up a whole new potential for myself. At that point (I was 22 or 23) I decided I would spend ten years doing it and see where I ended up. Ten years down the road, I had a college teaching job as a composer. So I was sort of set: that was what I was going to do.

I’ve sometimes felt that there are two types, composers and performers.

Well, there are composer-performers. There are people who are composers who perform their own music and the music of other people. I think they’re different than people who are just composers or people who are just performers. They’re kind of a hybrid.

Three kinds...

There’s a hybrid, yes.

When I think of piano players that are great interpreters of, say, Beethoven, often these are not people who are known as composers.

No. Very often, I do think, performers do some composing because it’s satisfying to them. Composers do some performing because it’s satisfying to them, or they keep up their playing to be able to stay connected physically with the creation of sound. I think those are very good things to do. But, I think, at a certain point, it’s pretty hard to keep both up equally well, and you notice for yourself what your real strength is.

Have you found that it’s hard to balance composing and performing?

I don’t perform. My secondary area is music theory. So I write. I write articles and give papers at conferences and stuff like that. So, I also do some of that work. I find that that is very interesting, studying the music of other people. And, of course, it helps my teaching...I teach music theory. To keep exploring how does one look at a piece of music and come to understand it more deeply, that’s what music theory is for me.

In almost every genre of music, new releases and performances of new works are sought after. With music of the classical tradition, new works are considered to be a fringe component of the entire genre. Would you say that this perception is perhaps due to the fact that there are so many countless styles that are called “New Music,” or is there some other reason for this?

I think the recording industry is the cause (laughter). The fact that a hundred years ago at the turn of the century, you couldn’t listen to historic music, except if you went to a concert hall. So, for the most part, people were interested in whatever the composer of the day was up to. As a result, they were up on the music of their time. I don’t find that people today are up on the music of their times. They become attached to the music of some other time and its reiteration. So, people love Mozart, and then they go to concerts and they want to hear Mozart. And they’re upset if what they’re hearing doesn’t sound like that in some way. Because of the recording industry, it’s amazing now. Especially the world music area. Some small culture on an island, someplace that has their own kind of music, somebody will go there and record that and, boom, it’s broadcast all over the world. You can buy the CD, you can download it. There’s such a wealth of sounds out there now, and types of music. Contemporary classical music is just this little tiny...though there are many of us...I think the census said that there were twenty thousand people in the United States alone that called themselves composers...there are lots of us around, and doing lots of different styles. They don’t say what kind of composer they are.

To follow your analogy with world music, it might be difficult to find the world music that you enjoy out of all of that. I feel the same way with Contemporary or even American Classical music. There are so many different styles. There are tonal composers, avant-garde composers, and everywhere in between.

True.

It might be difficult to go to a new music concert with one thing in mind and, with four, five, or six works performed, chances are they’re going to be of very different personalities.

Yes.

I wonder if that’s why this music is on the fringe, or, even considered experimental music.

People need to come to contemporary music concerts with a sense of adventure. You have to come with open ears. When I was a student, I went to concerts practically every night of the week, and I would be really happy if there was one piece on the program that just really attracted me...that I really felt pulled to. Because it’s a polyglot. There are so many languages out there. The thing now is everybody’s trying to find their own voice. So, rather than previous eras where there was kind of an agreement about style and use of harmony and use of instruments, now it’s just wide open and everybody’s trying to figure things out for themselves.

Certain ensembles tend to be drawn to certain types of music. So, certain ensembles will have a stylistic bent that you can kind of predict what kind of music they’re going to play. That is one way to pick and choose. If you find an ensemble that you like, like their taste, that’s one way to do it.

There are some ensembles that are doing things like putting up on their website program notes in advance...putting up little audio samples so people can sample the music in advance, hear a little bit of what it’s about, and hopefully be intrigued to come. Or, make a decision that they don’t want to come. So I think part of it is educating, but...part of it too is...we’re in an era where we can get what we want pretty quickly. If we know we like “X,” we can download “X.” And then, you just listen to “X” (laughter), because “X” is what I like and “X” is what I can get access to right away and I’m an “X” person. As opposed to, “What’s out there?”...having that kind of curiosity. I say I go to a concert and I don’t like a piece, well, there’s always something in there that I listen to. It’s rare that I can’t shift my ears a little bit and find something interesting in whatever I’m listening to, whether it is the particular timbre of a thing, the tone color that somebody is using, or the rhythmic aspects of it. Sometimes I listen to contemporary pieces and I get just furious. I get angry. But I keep listening, and then something happens. Something shifts.

[I read that] when you hear things repeatedly, your brain cells actually change. I think that’s probably happened to me with contemporary music. I think I’ve listened to it so much now that when I hear something, I know which path to go down neurally. For people who haven’t had those neural pathways laid, I can see where it would be very frustrating. But I think the thing to remember is that as you listen, your brain will do that for you if you just don’t get up and storm out, or have the patience to sit with something. It does require patience, I think, and that’s not a bad thing to learn either. I think we’re a very impatient people these days. If my computer doesn’t boot and get me that thing right away, I’m just frustrated. You can’t bring that to a concert hall and be happy (laughter).

Composers are always interested in finding ways to have their works performed. What advice would you offer?

Two things. One, and these are just practical things, one is to join composer’s organizations where they send you what’s called a score call. You’ll get an e-mail announcement saying such and such an ensemble’s looking for pieces that involve tuba, violin, and tape. If you have anything like that, send it. You have to be constantly in the business of running to the post office as a composer, or e-mailing stuff out, or having stuff available on a website for download. The other thing is to find performers who are interested in the music that you write. So, if you have performers [who] are interested in your music, that gives you a steady pipeline of performances. But it only goes so far, right? Only as far as those performers are going to go, so it’s helpful to be able to send your music out to a wider network.

Would you recommend unsolicited contacts with ensembles?

If you feel like they’re into your type of music, yes. If you listen to their concerts and the music they tend to be drawn to is the kind of music that you write, then absolutely. If it’s not, then don’t waste your breath, I would say. [Just] blanket[ly] sending things out, I think, is just a waste of time, because it really doesn’t work that way.

You just signed with Silent Editions.

It’s just getting going. I thought it was an interesting concept for publication because sending out [a] paper score is just a thing of the past. Well, not completely, but, I think, like everybody else, performers are interested in instant access. So, to send an e-mail to a composer and have the composer get around to getting to the post office, unless you have a publisher to send it out to that person, it’s a very slow process. Giving performers immediate access is a great thing, or people who are interested in studying your music, that sort of thing. I haven’t found yet that Silent Editions has been a great source of performances, but as I said they’re just getting going and I’m supportive of the enterprise.

Would you suggest that composers who put scores on the internet also include audio files?

Yes. I think that’s a good idea too.

The Towson New Music Ensemble will be performing your piano Piano trio, Diverging Flints, this fall. Will this be the premier?

Yes.

In your writings you caution against attempting to summarize a musical phenomenon with a series of definitions. That being said, can you tell me about this piece?

(Laughter) Sure. When I was working on the violin and electronics piece five or six years ago, I came across a series of chords that I really liked in the musical material I was working with, but they weren’t going to work for violin. So, I sat those aside. Bill Kleinsasser, the director of the New Music Ensemble at Towson, asked if I would be interested in doing a piece for them. I had never written a piano trio. It’s an ensemble that I find very compelling. I love the sound of the string instruments. The piano, of course, provides the possibility for big harmonies. Big chordal sections [and] the balance of the string sounds. Composers have written piano trios for many many years and I thought it was something that I would like to give a try.

Diverging Flints is a quote from an Emily Dickenson poem. [It’s] the idea of two stones rubbing together. If those stones didn’t rub together, the sparks would never have occurred. Once the stones rub together and the sparks occur, the stones are actually different even though they may never touch again. One of the things I discovered about these harmonies was I would offset the groups of chords by one, and new harmonies occurred each time. So each time these flints would strike, there’d be a new series of sparks that would occur from offsetting the harmonies by one, by two, by three, and so on. I just became very fascinated with that. Some of the sections are more dissonant, some are more pure, more consonant...fifths, octaves...because of this offset. And the whole idea of something striking and sparks spraying out from it...there are flourishes like that. There are passages where the ensemble is very tightly metric. There’s meter that’s keeping them together, and parts when it’s not metric and it’s more free. Sounds happen more freely, but then they snap back into place again. I’m imagining that one of the more challenging things about playing it is playing free, then tightly metering it again. So, it’s always about the interaction of the performers when you’re writing a small ensemble like that, and in this particular case, them striking up against one another and the sparks that can fly when that happens. [That’s] the image that was in my mind when I was working on it and these chords, these harmonies, that I found that I liked embody that in sound.

This is a very dynamic piece. I think of it as a more dynamic piece than a lot of my music. Some of my music has been involved with slow, evocative things. This one isn’t like that. This one is highly energized, though there are some slow contrasting sections.

What’s next for Linda Dusman?

I have two pieces being premiered in October and another one in March. I’m going to be writing an orchestra piece for the UMBC orchestra that will [premier] next season. I’m starting an on-line publishing archive for music by women composers. Those are the big projects, and then, there’s always something. I have an idea for a piano piece. There’s a pianist in Italy who is interested in that piece when I get around to doing that. A [solo] piano piece may come out of the piano trio that I wrote. I did a piece for the Rivers School New Music Festival in Massachusetts and they asked me if I might be interested in doing another piece for their next new music festival. I’m working a couple years out now knowing what’s on the horizon for the next project. Usually while that one’s cooking, something else comes up. I’m busy.

Eric Zuber: After the Concert

Pianist Eric Zuber recently performed Beethoven’s Piano Concerto #5 (with piano accompaniment) and Liszt’s B minor Sonata in Baltimore. I caught up with him afterwards to ask a few questions.

How do you prepare for a performance?

There are many facets to preparation for a concert. First of course, you have to commit the music to memory and fully understand it. (Hopefully you are given enough time to do this. When

you have to play something in public without having been given adequate time, it's often doubly nerve-racking.) Then you have to try and play it for as many people as possible before the concert date. If you try a public performance of a work that you've only learned and

played for yourself, it's liable to be a huge disaster. Everything changes when there are other ears besides your own. On the performance day I try to avoid eating things with salt (which causes your heart to pump faster) or sugar (which can cause a rush of energy followed by drowsiness). Other than that I try to be as normal as possible, otherwise your brain starts to feel like it needs to get activated for a big event, and that can lead to unease. Some people don't like to touch the instrument on the day they play, or just enough to keep warm. I tend to practice a lot on the performance day, hopefully inundating my short-term memory with the music to avoid lapses.

How do you practice?

I practice around 5-6 hours a day these days, which seems to be about the maximum I'm capable of without hurting myself. I try to be very careful about listening to what my body is telling me so as to avoid injury. Practicing piano when you are playing difficult, tiring works such as the Liszt Sonata is extremely taxing on the ligaments of your arm. If you turn your arm upside down so that your palm is facing you, and place your left thumb over your right wrist (as if taking your pulse) and wave your fingers in the right hand up and down, you can see how much activity this causes in your arm muscles. This constant extension and contraction combined with the enormous amount of force that it takes to produce a loud sound can easily cause injury if you aren't careful about it. Piano playing at a high level is extremely athletic... more so than most people are aware of. Of course, if I could stand it I would practice 24 hours a day. The more refined your ears hear nuances in the music, the more you have to practice in order to refine your own playing. If I'm not satisfied with my playing, and I know I'm not giving it my all in preparation, I come off the stage feeling disappointed.

Can you offer any other tips to a performer working on pieces such as these?

For the Liszt Sonata, practice the fugue! But I'm sure if they are playing the piece, they probably already know that...

Authenticity

I recently read Sing Me Back Home by Dana Jennings. The book details the role of county music (authentic country music – think Hank Sr. and Johnny Cash) in post-war rural U.S. up to the mid 1970’s. By painting a picture of the poor in that time period from first-hand experience, Jennings points out the parallels in the music and lyrics and illustrates why that music was relevant to so many at the time and is still important to this day with those that have come from that era and circumstance.

The point is clear that this music meant something to Jennings and those he knew because listeners identified with it and it was authentic. Lyrics about cheating, being busted, doing time, or just getting by when things aren’t going your way were familiar. The delivery, instrumentation, and arrangements often reflected the subject better than the lyrics. People who were still using an outhouse in the 1960’s could relate to this music.

This measure of a music’s worth seems to get lost at times in the art/business/manufacture of music. While music is definitely a reflection of the artist that created it, the measure of how it relates to others is a very important component. Think about it: if an artist is a member of a society, the art created will reflect existence in that society (sometimes in recognition and approval, sometimes indifferent, and sometimes protest). The artist will embrace the possibilities and the result is often a reflection of the times.

There are many instances where it seems that a music was formed in such a state of detachment in striving for a unique voice that the music is, while original, difficult for anyone else to relate to in that time. Who does that serve? How can music like that be considered authentic? To be clear, I’m not referring to an audience’s reaction to The Hammerklavier Sonata in 1818 or Eruption to those in 1978. While these both were shocking in their depth and exploration, they were rooted in a heritage that made these pieces culturally relevant. That made them relatable. That made them great works of art. That made them successful. What I’m referring to is the instances where manufactured elements drive the creative process. That leads me to the greatest hero of all composers: Arnold Schoenberg.

Schoenberg struggled with how to compose music after tonality had been dismantled by the Romantic trends occurring in classical music. At first, he was handling things quite well. Transfigured Night and even the less accessible String Quartet No.2 are compelling pieces I enjoy listening to, but he longed for tonality. Trends were moving past the conventional ordering of tones that had been guiding composers and consumers of music for some time, and it appears that he was unable or unwilling to use this structure for new compositions. His output illustrates that the freedom provided by atonality was not a favorable alternative. His solution was to invent his own method of ordering pitches where all tones had the same importance…12-tone music. The result was that the composer was enslaved by his own invention and there are likely volumes of great music that were never written due to this self-imposed struggle.

While some may argue that this reflects his time in a search for order and stability before the Great War, I wonder how those around him related to the music. Did they share a similar quest and identify with the elements of 12-tone music? Accounts I have come across show an overwhelming rejection of this approach by audiences. Why is that? Is it because his works in this style were just bad? If so, why has the practice fallen so far out of favor only 100 years later? It is rather unfortunate that Schoenberg influenced so many others to work in this method given the results and the relevance. I am only thankful that Wozzeck was primarily an atonal work.

So why is Schoenberg the hero? He demonstrates by his example that creating music in a test tube is doomed. While there may be a few unique and memorable pieces, the majority will fail by falling outside the collective experience. On the other hand, he does illustrate by his example that trying something new and seeing the results is not altogether a bad thing: If you are unhappy with the results, there is still the lesson learned. He did eventually abandon the 12-tone method in his later works. This might have happened after realizing that most 12-tone music sounds like the bumper music in the original Star Trek TV series (had he lived to see that).

Most great musicians, songwriters, and composers spend hours in solace working out ideas, finding an original voice and style of expression, and preparing and honing their craft without distractions. The truly great ones also keep an ear to the rail to see what else is happening to be better able to share what they see with the rest of us. At the very least, we cannot help but reflect the times and place in which we live.

BOOK REVIEW: The Indie Band Survival Guide

Book Review:

The Indie Band Survival Guide

Randy Chertkow and Jason Feehan

St. Martin’s Press New York

The internet has greatly increased opportunities for the independent artist to promote and distribute music. As a result, being signed to a major label or having a distribution deal is not as critical as it once was to be able to reach a wide audience. In fact, the Indie Band Survival Guide argues what is becoming more apparent as record labels lose their prominence and traditional function: surrendering the rights to your music and artistic control to the recording industry is not as desirable as it once was to musicians in the past.

Though a lot of the tips and techniques presented may be common knowledge for independent artists who have been active in the past ten years, the detail and organization of the ideas will serve as a good checklist for people in this category in addition to a few ideas that may have been overlooked. The book would also serve beginners well by outlining marketing basics, how to use the web effectively, employing your organization, and navigating the at-times mystical recording process from start to finish.

In addition to the how-to aspect of the book, some interesting background is given as to the state of the music industry and the best way to work in it. Does payola still exist in the music industry after the 1962 conviction of Alan Freed? How does that affect an independent artists approach today? How does the decreasing prominence of the large recording company actually benefit the independent artist?

Because so much of what an artist can do to promote music is done on the web, a large part of the book is devoted to describing the tools and features that are uniquely relevant to musicians while offering additional resources for those that are unfamiliar with the web in general.

Being an independent artist means wearing many different hats. A short list includes sales, marketing, networking, record producer and distributer, promoter, and web designer. And then there’s the music. The Indie Band Survival Guide offers tips to handle these aspects as well as getting the right help from others. Overall, the book is a great resource for musicians who want to get their music out there.

CD REVIEW: Sprinting Gazelle

Reem Kelani

Sprinting Gazelle

Palestinian Songs from the Motherland

and the Diaspora

Fuse Records CFCD048

The ten tracks of this disc are presented as the result of the research conducted by Reem Kelani of the music and poetry of the Palestinian people from the past and still practiced today. In addition, many of the tracks are arranged by Kelani and some of the music is composed by her. Though the music represented is usually performed on indigenous instruments, some arrangements merge the styles and instrumentation of the Middle East with Western instrumentation such as piano and double bass.

The opening track demonstrates the complexity of the vocal style from this region, and Kelani recreates these with ease. Vocal trills and leaps as well as sustained notes that stand alone against a drone accompaniment are the highlight of the opening.

The orchestration is increased for The Cameleer Tormented My Heart. Though the instrumentation and arrangement are refined, the track retains an attractive raw quality that has a compelling groove. Many tracks feature the authentic instruments such as the yarghul (similar to a clarinet but with two pipes), nay (end-blown flute), and daf (open drum with metallic ringlets). It is interesting to hear them in ensembles that sometimes include piano, saxophone, and string quartet.

Several tracks demonstrate the mix of Western musics. Galilean Lullaby finds the folk elements along with instrumentation and moods found in jazz and acoustic rock ensembles. Above this, the vocal presents the lyric with microtonal slides and goes between melismatic decorations, melody, and recitation. During Il Hamdillah, Kelani sings sections in portamento leaps that would be the envy of a Moog synthesizer.

The album is an enjoyable presentation that boasts the complex arrangements this music is capable of in a way that remains focused and entertaining throughout.

Ideas and Approaches for Songwriters

Introduction

I had a conversation with a friend regarding music. He was becoming frustrated with his attempts at songwriting and asked for my help. There are many ideas circulated by many songwriters on the subject – from the tried and true to the questionable, but I knew that exercises were not what he was looking for. I offered my own beliefs on the matter and attempted to do so in a way that would not set rules to be followed, but allow for free expression. The results were impressive. The following is a reproduction of my thoughts from that meeting.

Beginning the process

Music or Lyrics

This is an old question that has plagued songwriters honing their art, mainly because there is no right answer. Even writers who have had success with one method will have breakthroughs working from the other direction. I find that the title is often most helpful in focusing ideas. But, having said that, I can think of several of my own pieces where the title came after the entire composition was complete.

Finding Inspiration – First Instinct

Songs should be as unique as the composers that create them. Because of this, it may not be helpful to say, “Write about this or that and try using these chords.” There are, however, some things I find constructive.

In writing music, it is often the case that the first idea or solution you come up with is the best thing for your piece. In some cases, you may have to work out some rough spots so that it fits exactly what it is you want to say, but don’t disregard it if it doesn’t feel right at first. Moments that don’t fit what you are working on can also be great for a song you write at a later time.

The first instinct approach can break times of slow progress or “writer’s block.” If, after hours of work, your songwriting session is not productive, try giving it a break for a while. Then come back to your guitar, piano, or legal pad, and begin to tinker with the first thing that comes out. Usually there is a bit of an idea that turns into what you were trying to say all along. I have found this technique to be very useful, but have also found that there are days when no songwriting should take place, and other days when it is necessary to write three.

Lyrics and Melody

The best songs come from ideas and feelings that are important to you. In addition to being a platform for communicating these thoughts, songs can serve to express what would be difficult with words alone. Everyday occurrences, from conflict to harmony, can be the basis for an idea if the thought resonates in you and you desire to express what you think. Follow your passions…and your gut. From this point of view, anything is possible. But keep this in mind: “It’s all been done,” so make your ideas as unique as yourself.

Not to say that each piece should be a revolutionary reinvention of language and music as we know it. In serving the message and the intent, it is almost always better if it is not. In song, music serves the lyrics the majority of the time. Overcomplicating a piece with unnecessary levels of complexity in the music can render the entire effort useless.

The lyrical component is an art in itself. There is an approach that is very popular today where the details are spelled out so clearly on the most basic level that there is no room for the imagination of the listener. When lyrics provide a level of depth and imagination, the results can be the difference between an “OK” song and a timeless one.

One of the things I enjoy most about a song is when there is room for interpretation of a message on different levels. A song is about one particular idea, but the thoughts expressed could easily apply to something seemingly unrelated. This doesn’t have to be extremely complicated, but the application of this art in the lyrical content can prevent the song from being too shallow.

Melody can be added to the chicken-egg complex of songwriting. So now is it music, lyrics, or melody? Because the melody is so closely related to the lyrics, I put this in a different category than “music” as a whole. Since it can come before or after the lyrics, and any riff or chord progression for that matter, the gut reaction process can be applied. Most lyrics are sung, so sing anything. Nonsense words, sounds, rhythms. This approach will sometimes not only reveal a melody to begin with, but also help key into a particular word or phrase that you find interesting.

Your interest is key. The level to which you are excited about your melody or an aspect of your song will directly translate to the amount of interest for the listener. For example, a monotone string of eight notes may serve a section of a song well at first, but it will soon become background especially if it is used for several verses with the text boxed in to fit the rhythm.

Because of this, it can be helpful to begin to fuse the lyric and melody early in the process. Word choice has an impact on the melody, and rightly so. Lyrics will sometimes have to be adapted to fit the melody, but this isn’t always a bad thing. The results can be quite interesting and memorable. The melody, though, can serve as a powerful guide in focusing the lyric.

Form And Poetry

Most songs, especially pop, follow the well-known verse-chorus-etc. format. Working within a structure such as that can help focus ideas, but they should not be followed unquestionably as an absolute. Sometimes doing so can wreck an otherwise good piece. There is a trend that has been developing for many years to blur the lines between the sections of a piece, some with good results. It’s not a matter of one being better than the other, but it’s important that the form (if any) serves the expression. With regard to the “hook,” I don’t think it is a requirement that it occur in the chorus. Unique and memorable moments don’t need to be dogmatically relegated to the same place in every song. For that matter, it doesn’t even have to be in the vocal or melody.

Rhyming verses and structure within the poetry of a song is a good approach, but not always the best answer. Unless it is your intent, rhyming clichés should be avoided. Sometimes a word that ends a phrase that breaks the rhyme scheme can have a dramatic effect. The expectation of the rhyme in lyrics can make a piece more compelling, but sometimes when a rhyme is anticipated from around the corner, it might be more interesting to go in another direction.

Continuing and Focusing Ideas

Once you are at the point that you have some thoughts down, a topic, maybe a verse, the start of a chorus; try to resist the urge to just pile up ideas to create a song. You should always keep the musical bits that you come up with, and don’t dam up any lyrical download that you may have, but keep in mind what it is you are trying to say. This is especially useful to remember if you have become stuck or unsure what to do next. Digging into a word, phrase, or melody you already have can be quite revealing in where the song should go next. Stream of consciousness on a part can be helpful as well. That being said, when working out ideas, especially lyrics, I find that it is best to write first and edit later. Some ideas can be so fleeting that they get lost if transformed when working to make them fit.

Demo and Critique

Even if your song has a detailed accompaniment, solo sections, and harmonies, try recording it in its most basic form once you have completed writing. Voice and instrumental accompaniment recorded on any format, boom box to digital studio, will reveal your composition’s strengths and potential weaknesses. If you are happy with the results, then try adding other players or overdubbing parts as needed.

Everyone has opinions of the songs they hear, and it won’t be surprising if they are different from yours. Still, you should seek feedback from others. Especially from those willing to be objective. This doesn’t mean that you have to follow any suggestions for change, but this is, after all, the intention of song – to be heard by someone other than the author. See what happens. Most important, though, is that it is your idea being expressed and you get the final say in what you think is right and how good the piece is.