First theme

I've started with the main (A) theme - I came up with a simple, two-part motif:



I wanted a group of different pitches, with no obvious relation to any particular key center. (Also, these six notes could eventually be expanded into a complete twelve-tone row)

I'm now trying to write some different variations of this theme - since it will be played no less than 13 times... Here are a few examples:



When I'm done with the A parts, I will then work on the different B sections, the C sections, etc. At this point, I'm not thinking so much about which variation goes where; that will be decided later on.

About the instrumentation

Since I don't know, at this point, exactly which instruments will be available to play the piece, I've decided to write it in such a way that it's easily adaptable for different combinations.

It will have parts for 3-4 drummers, 3-4 bassists, 3-4 chord instruments (piano, guitar, etc), and 3-4 melody instruments (horns, vocals, whatever).

This forces me to think differently when writing, and hopefully come up with some ideas I wouldn't have used otherwise.

Also, with a flexible construction, the piece will have a better chance of being played somewhere else as well, in ensembles with different instrument combinations.

New work in progress

This past year I’ve been busy with other projects, but now I’m finally resuming this blog as I’ve started to write a new long-form piece.

At one of the schools where I teach, there are about 15 jazz students. I've had an idea of putting them all together in a large ensemble, and write something for them to play. Part of the challenge is that the group wouldn’t resemble a big band, with horns and a rhythm section; instead, there would be maybe 3 or 4 drummers, a couple of bassists, several guitar players etc - meaning that the music would have to be somewhat unconventional.

I decided to connect this with another idea - a concept of form - that’s been on my mind for a while. It goes back to when I was around 11 or 12 years old. At that time, all my friends were very much into Nintendo games. Personally, I wasn’t quite as interested, but I took part in it anyway. One of the games we used to play was the legendary Super Mario Bros, which turned out to be an important experience for me, as it gave me my very first impression of long form structures.

In the game, you go through 8 different ”worlds”, where each world consists of 4 different ”levels” - all in all, 32 different environments. Some of them are quite similar, while others are not. This intrigued me from the very beginning, going from one level to another: what will the next one look like? After having played the game for a while, I began to detect patterns and connections, how the different worlds and levels were related to each other. To me, the way it felt when playing, was a perfect balance between surprise and recognition.


(Click the picture for enlargement)

Besides these basic outlines, there are also plenty of other thematic connections - for instance, all the different ”enemies” and other characters that appear in certain places throughout the game.

So now, some twenty years later, I wanted to see if I could apply this form to a musical composition. If I let each level of the game represent 30 to 60 seconds of music, I would have a piece of about 20 minutes in total.

I started by identifying the different kinds of environments. There were six: Outdoors, Underground, Platform, Castle, Underwater, and Bridge. I named them A through F and counted how many times each part would appear. From that, I then assigned a specific musical idea for each letter. I should point out that the idea here is NOT to make some kind of musical portrait of the video game itself. I'm only using its form structure; the listener is not even supposed to know about it.

A (13 times) - some sort of main theme, that can be presented in different ways

B (2 times) - odd-meter, rhythmic vamp on a single chord or pitch

C (5 times) - bass pedal point (in time), with rubato melodies on top

D (8 times) - swing solo section, with riff-like backgrounds

E (2 times) - unison lines with ”random” pitches (rhythms written out)

F (2 times) - free solo section, possibly drums

Hopefully, all these different parts will be distinctive enough to be recognized each time they appear, but also lend themselves nicely to variation and development. The idea is that the A and D sections will have a ”moving” quality, while B and C appear more static.

The complete form, loosely divided into 8 ”choruses”, would look like this:

ABCD - AEFD - AACD - ABCD - AACD - AACD - AEFD - AAAD

Quite a lot of A sections...but I will try to make it work. Also, the ”night” and ”winter” elements (see chart above) will be translated into some sort of musical detail.

Seven months later...

This blog started with great enthusiasm about 7 months ago. I was about to write a piece of music for big band to enter in a contest, and I wanted to document the composition process in a different way - for my own personal development as well as for others who might be interested.

What happened then (and what ALWAYS happens) was that I ran short of time. In the end, I had to devote all my time and energy to just finishing the piece before deadline - which meant that I had to put the blog aside.

The story eventually had a happy ending: I finished the piece in time, qualified to the final, and ended up in 2nd place.

Since I still like the idea, I will keep this blog to write about future composition projects. Hopefully, I will then have more time to do it properly...

The C theme

Following the rhythmic scheme that I've already decided, I then wrote a "C" theme. Since I knew that it would first appear following the rhythmically and melodically diverse "A" section, I wanted the C theme to be a little more focused. I chose a short melody, almost like a riff, that would repeat for every bar (with a little variation at the end). The pitches implied an Eb diminished chord, followed by a Bbm7(b5).

To get a more steady rhythmic feel for this part, I let the bass play eighth notes throughout - starting on the roots, then eventually moving around a little more in a quasi-walking style.



After six bars, the melody would then lead back into (a shortened version of) the A theme, with a little bit of the C theme thrown in.

New material

Here is the new accompaniment figure for the "A" section. Rhythmically, it's just about the same as before, but instead of working with a specific group of pitches, I've just picked notes and chords that I thought would sound good. The less time I have, the more intuitive I have to be...nothing wrong with that, I guess?

It's a two-bar cycle that repeats as many times as necessary:



On top of that I then added a melody, just like I had done before. Again, I let myself use any available pitches. However, I knew I wanted something with a little bebop feel. Rhythmically, I wanted the melody to complement what the accompaniment was already doing.



For the moment, my idea is to save all of this for the second "A" section, since I don't want to give away too much at the beginning. Instead the first "A" section, which starts the whole piece, will be some kind of reduced version of this material. Perhaps only some of the parts, or something.

Sorry Mr Sandke

One of the changes I made was to drop Randy Sandke's "metatonality" concept (see January posts). Not that it was anything wrong with it, I still think it could be interesting - but it didn't really give me the sound I wanted, and I felt that I'm in too much of a hurry to get to know the concept well enough. So I guess that's something I'll be saving for later works.

But I'm still keeping the form, as well as the rhythmic layer. I've just worked out some new melodic and harmonic material, which I think is more in the style I was looking for.

More coming soon!