A Novel Approach to Writing Music
A Novel Approach to Writing Music
Recently, I came across old scribblings of mine in which I was halfway through sketching an overly ambitious orchestral piece. On the back of the notes was the framework for a novel I wanted to write. Now, I am not a writer by any stretch of the imagination but as a male in my mid-20’s, I guess it’s mandatory to think I can write a book.
Really it just got me thinking about the processes I’ve used when I'm building compositions, specifically, structuring my project in a framework similar to how one might structure a novel or a long literary piece. This is a utility that I realised can facilitate both composition and writing, and provides further dimensionality to the development process. In some senses the mediums share a common ground, both requiring a sense of imagination to fill in the blanks.
It is only in the last year that I have began to focus more of my attention to my writing and communication and I’ve found that it has useful connotations with composing. This so happens to run in parallel with the techniques used in developing literary writing, which can be nicely transferred to a musical context.
I will draw some brief comparisons behind the methodology in both processes and hopefully provide a fresh perspective of how the overall arc that is integral in the musical narrative throughout will eventually fit in to the work. It's is a technique that I keep in the back of my mind when I’m beginning a project and had someone highlighted this to me earlier in my career, I think it would have had a noticeable and positive impact on my work.
There is a lot of comparisons that can be taken from this analogy, so I find it can be helpful to associate the most important aspects of your composition to that of writing a book. So for example, your main theme will be associated with a character, setting with harmonic key, overall structure could be related to the chapters. This is before we get to elements like texture, counterpoint or harmonic progression!.
By anthropomorphically associating elements of musical writing with characters, or musical techniques with characterisable elements you will make the suturing of material easier to finally pull together with a more densely packed narrative. But for the sake of brevity I’ll take some of the more fundamental elements I’ve found to be the most useful when it comes to trying this particular approach.
PLAN
Firstly, make a creative space. Establishing your area of work and refining your set up, ensuring that when the time comes to begin writing you are comfortable and inspired. Ideally by at this point there will be a rough idea of the end goal. Meaning it’s also a good time to start planning your project, and brain dumping any important details into a document. I am personally a big fan of mind mapping (as mentioned in my previous blog).
FURTHER PLANNING
Begin to grow the ideas from the first step, assuming by this point that you have an idea or brief that you are planning to work with. Think about what your musical scope will cover, harmonically, structurally, technically etc. This will provide a clearer idea of where you are planning to take your piece in turn giving you a better idea of the timeline of your project. Give yourself rough deadlines and begin scheduling your writing habit. In the process asking yourself:
What's the overall goal?
Is my idea simple enough?
How will I discipline my scheduling?
BUILD FOUNDATIONS
Once you have your rough guides and a solid idea, begin developing this idea. Plan how the piece will ultimately fit together and flesh out accompaniments and variations. Keeping in mind the overarching character arc or the underlying thematic development. A bit like a chapter plan, this manifesting certain themes. And asks, how will this theme fit in the overall structure, and how will it interact with other elements of the structure by building timbre, key, texture, mood etc.?
REFINE
Expanding further, hone your focus on each of the elements developed in the previous section and one by one flesh out each respective section (I always find taking this section with a more cautionary approach preferable as you continue with your composition). Looking at the piece either partially or chronologically put together. Now is the time to mould what you have while looking for any resistances that stand in your way. Work on solving these before moving on.
COLLECT AND DRESS
Begin gluing the piece together. Pulling from all elements of your project, remembering to listen to the piece without bias and with objection. Revise the structure and the overall message and themes, connecting the dots, refining character arcs and story. Adorn the work as you are refining with brief embellishments to give it a more conversational mood.
FINISH
Although it seems like an obvious and thoroughly integral requirement of a project, having the knowledge and ability to stop while you are ahead and decide a project is completed, is missed by a lot of people. I spoke about this in a previous blog () and how difficult it can be to see your piece from an objective point of view. Without personal bias, critique your work and aim to be satisfied with your work. Know when you have a finished product ready to be put out there.
Wether writing music or literature, both are crafts that require a large amount of time, patience and an encyclopaedic knowledge of the content you are writing. It is important to understand the intricacies that will ultimately make your work unique and characteristic.
Your project will end up being an amalgamation of your collective knowledge and senses. Interestingly, unlike composers, there is a wealth of facilities that focus on the development and critical review enabling writers to have a much more open platform to expand their ideas through various exercise and workshopping. Composers, on the other hand can be seen at times as some kind of determined genius, eventually leading to iconic masterpieces. But generally a solo approach that tends to be the culmination of an individuals compositional vision.
So when beginning on a project like this, I would want to start small. Take the most important fundamental elements of what you are looking to achieve and gradually add to your overall plan. I generally start with making a word cloud or a scrap book of themes, a large visual map of my plan. A key element to the practice is to look at the work on a more macro scale and how the piece is fundamentally structured, using a top down approach to generate content and manifest serious ideas.
Perhaps it’s the ambiguous nature that surrounds the development of music theory and how composition is incubated which dictates the overall integral structure of the composition rather than the semantics involved. Nonetheless, the main point to take from this is that everyone’s writing styles and approaches are different. This approach will work for some and not for others obviously but it goes a way to illustrate other ways to develop ideas. Visualising projects in more constructible settings can help smooth over the writing process.
Although this is a mere guideline, it’s hugely important that as a composer and a creative person that you take influence and mould it rather than directly mimic. Ultimately music is another language, albeit one that manifests emotions and imagination rather than practicality, catering for a higher emotional dimension within the music. I’ve found that taking a novel approach to writing has helped exploit this dimensionality.