Comments (0) We’re back….
The band is excited to be working on our first full length album. I won’t say too much, but we spent a week at my cottage making some magic. Keep checking back here as we will all be posting much more frequently.
We took two days to drive from Montreal to Harbourville Nova Scotia in the Annapolis Valley. During the drive we subsided on our bagels and other groceries, listened to a lot of great music and comedy. We stayed with our friend Becky at her house right overlooking the Bay of Fundy and with the drive into Harbourville after seafood at Paddy’s Pub in Wolfeville, we felt like we’d arrived on the coast.
On Wednesday we spent the day driving around the valley, stopping in at various stores, cafes and look offs ( Frenchy’s, The Union Street Cafe in Berwick). We even checked out a couple of venues in the area that we’d like to play at next time we tour this way.
The whole experience at Sutton Oak Farms where the Coop is located, was amazing. Tim, Angela, Michelle, Kaylen, Toby, and Russel are a lovely family and welcomed us with warmth and enthusiasm. The venue in particular is amazing, it’s an old converted chicken coop with a new concrete floor and one very hot wood stove to heat the room. Although only a handful of people came to the concert, we got to meet everyone and we had a fun party after and drank a lot of proppeller beer. (We we’re excited to try their honey wheat, porter, and IPA.)
We recorded the Coop show and we’re planning on sending it to Danny Schwartz, who’s interviewing us for his radio show in Ottawa. He had asked for some live recordings to include in his show. We haven’t listened to the recordings yet, but we suspect that they captured the warmth and intimacy of the Coop.
Yesterday we arrived in Halifax in time for our soundcheck at Stayner’s Wharf. It was a beautiful day so we went and had lobster, mussels, and scallops at Murphy’s restaurant right on the water.
The Stayner’s Wharf show was good, well attended, but as we were warned it was kind of the loud pub gig on the tour. It’s challenging for any band to compete with a loud room of talkers, and it makes us realize how little we’ve really had to do those gigs in hobson’s choice. It was a boys night out for alot of the local musicians though so it was a pleasure to play for a our fellow players of music. Our friend Geordie Haley from Toronto came out, as he has recently moved to Halifax with his family. Gigs like our show at Stayner’s Wharf have a particular function on a tour in my mind, because they finance the rest of the activity so that we can go to a farm and play for ten people, or in a small cafe in Montreal for gas money.
Stayner’s was also a full night of music so it was really fun to play through a bunch of our tunes, three sets worth. The music is really starting to reach that point from touring where the band feels like one dynamic organism.
Felicity picked up an unfortunate bug right at the start of the tour that she has been battling, and it seems to have progressed to her chest, we’re hoping she’s on the upswing and can give her best and enjoy the rest of the tour.
We’re off to play another full night in Moncton NB tonight at Cafe Aberdeen. But there has been talk about oysters for lunch, we’ll look into this prospect further first.
Stay tuned for more…
hobson’s choice
We packed the van yesterday and embarked on this summers tour. First stop Montreal, we made good time driving, didn’t hit much traffic, but a bit of rain. The talented Adam Kinner (tenor saxophone) and Hans Bernhard (bass) opened the show at Montreal’s Shaika Cafe. They played a short set of very beautiful pieces, mostly improvised, and then ended with a swinging and uplifting version of “When you’re smiling”. The two of them played intuitively with ease, displaying an incredible musical rapport. Their set was a perfect way to start the tour.
We had some troubles with the sound-system at the club. It cut out during the intro of our first tune not once but twice. However, there was a mysterious sound guy in the audience who isolated the problem right away and we played the rest of the set without any more technical difficulties. Thanks again to that dude. He wouldn’t divulge his secret fix though? strange fellow….
Evidently, we decided to start with a different tune, as it seemed like the universe was giving us a sign to play something else. Michael was ecstatic that his vibraphone motor was working perfectly again. Slow tremolo = heaven. The lonely night it spent outside can now be forgotten. Harley was excited to debut his new homemade pedal board. He made it with his own two hands.
Shaika is a very nice room, good for our sound and the people there are really cool. We’d definitely play there again.
After late night poutine at La Banquise we retired at Adam’s beautiful apartment for some rest. Harley’s poutine kept revisiting him sporadically through the night. Felicity had no trouble switching to sleep mode though. Michael, Harley, Rebecca and Adam had a late night chat about border crossings, sketchy unmarked navy blue vans, and the absurdity of those in power. Fun times! Thanks to Adam and Rachel for their generous hospitality.
We took our time leaving Montreal today and had a nice brunch with Harley’s parents who came in from Ottawa for the show. We wrote a reggae song on my ukulele about our conquest for good bagels, and then enjoyed said bagels on the way out of the city.
Thanks for reading, we’ll chime in again soon.
hobson’s choice
This is our newest recording. Have a listen and some of the posts might start to make more sense.
The story of the song; “Sechelt” is an interesting one. It goes as far back as to when we were at the Kidney farm recording our second release; “The Farm EP”. We were actually only there in part to record the five songs that would become “The Farm EP”. We were also arranging a whole new set of tunes for the band, one of which is a composition by Michael and Felicity called; “Of The Waves”. At the time we were, at least loosely toying with the theme of incorporating imagery about the ocean and rolling waves in our music. We had been listening to the music of Steve Reich and some of the arrangements and improvisations we were creating were influenced by his writing. Specifically, the way he layers textures so that you don’t even hear the different instruments anymore, just one organic sound. This was something we were trying to explore at that time. This theme was suggested in the dynamic swells in “Of The Waves”, and I believe continues to play a part in how the four of us approach our material.
Once “The Farm EP” was released, we did a bunch of touring in Ontario, playing that music for people and the first little bit of the tune that would become “Sechelt” had begun taking shape. It was this little passage of 3 parallel chords, Bb add 9/D, Cadd 9/E, Dadd9/F#. It reminded me of Joni Mitchell and was a nice little thing to sound check on guitar while I was getting used to the venue we’d be playing at that night. I continued to work on the tune over the course of the summer of ’09 and finally completed the music on a train to Montreal, cutting and pasting sections of a recording on my computer until the form was just right. I began to work on some words but I was having trouble getting something I was happy with.
When I got back from my trip from Montreal I received an email from Dave Clark (Woodchopper’s Association, Woodshed Orchestra). He was just saying thanks for the copy of the farm ep that we had given him and he maintained that he’d found it to be a worthwhile, and inspiring second effort from the group. Dave (being the hyper-creative individual he is), said that while listening to the ep he was daydreaming about Joni Mitchell and jotted down some lyrics, he said “feel free to use them”. So here I was with this song that needed lyrics, a song that had been inspired by Joni, and Dave had written some words inspired by Joni as well. So I decided to spend a few minutes to see if it could work. Well, it did. I had to adapt the words and take some liberties so it would work with the melody, but in a lot of ways it seemed like Dave and I had been co-writing a song and we didn’t even know it.
The other curious thing was all the imagery about the ocean and waves that are contained in Dave’s lyrics. It seems that those ideas that we were working on at the farm were not lost on a listener as attuned as Dave Clark. I read somewhere once that Joni used to tune her guitar to the sound of the ocean. The song is named after Joni’s current home in Sechelt, British Columbia, and is featured on the most recent hobson’s choice recording.
waves swell up and then they crash back down
one upon the next there gathers a sound
that i now hear as well
deep down under the oh so blue
i can hear your heartbeat
as I’m calling to you with my soul laid bare
through blue memories of the years they’ve passed and gone
now I’m calling on out to you
upon a rock i look and see you there in the middle of the surf
with your soul laid bare for me to see as well
through blue memories of the years they’ve passed and gone
and I’m calling on out to you
and I’m calling on out to you
and I’m calling on out to you
the form you figured with each vocal line
sculpted and burnished transcended time
and now i call to you
through blue memories of the years they’ve passed and gone
Harley.
A friend of mine has a funny saying that guitar is a cheater instrument, because as long as you can play movable chords and melodies in an easy key, you don’t really need to know what the notes are in a more difficult key, you just move the fingering over and voila!
This is true to some extent and I think the fact that parallel sounds are easy to achieve on guitar is a valuable guitar-ism. Some great guitar music is based on this idea. However, if you want to achieve mastery over the music that you play, it’s important that you have a thorough technical knowledge of your instrument as well. After-all, you want to play something however guitaristic or not, because you chose to, not because you were limited to it.
A teacher once told me that he liked to think of practicing in all keys as “evening the keys”. The concept is basically that you want to be as equally comfortable in the “harder” keys (ie; Gb) as you are in the “easy” keys( ie; C.)
Lately I’ve extended the analogy by trying to imagine that I’m sanding down a table top and there are bumps that represent the things that I’m good at in a particular key, and there’s also crevasses that are things that I’m not so good at. So I’m sanding down this table top to make it smooth and even so that there’s no key that I’m particularly weaker or stronger at. The thing about a good table top is; it’s gonna get a lot of use. So I try to make a regular habit of sanding it down again to make it nice and smooth.
I think about this analogy in relation to both the study of the materials of music, and the study of all the notes on the fret-board. It is important for me, not only to master the muscle memory of patterns and shapes on the guitar, but also to know in a heartbeat what notes I’m playing and how they relate to the context of my music.
Here are some simple exersizes you can use to better your knowledge of the fret-board;
1. Choose note names at random and play every single instance of that note on the guitar. Some pitches have 4 different places on the fret-board multiplied by 2-4 octaves of the pitch as well.
2. Play scales up and down one string, slowly with a metronome while saying the pitches out loud. This is particularily hard when you descend in keys with lots of accidentals.
Open strings are our friends.
Another idiosyncratic aspect of the guitar, like any stringed instrument, is the unique timbre of the open strings. The combination of open and fretted notes is one of the more interesting textures you can achieve on the instrument.
When combining open strings with fretted notes to generate voicings, unlike movable chord voicings that involve only fretted notes, it is usually not possible to transpose them to different keys. But even if you’re only going to be able to play a voicing in one key, it’s worthwhile exploring, as it can give that key some distinct personality.
Counter to the idea of evening the keys, open strings can help set the keys apart on the guitar.
If the guitar was a video game, these voicings would be your special moves.
Here are some examples of interesting open stringed voicings; (from lowest to highest string, X meaning a string muted.)
Bb 6/9 #11- in fifth position Bb- X- open D- C-F- open E.
Eb Maj9 #11- in fifth pos. X-Eb- open D- open G- F- A.
E Maj7 b5- in third pos. open E-X-G#-Bb-D#-open E.
C# Min add9- in fourth pos. G#-C#-X- C#- D#-open E.
A Maj9- in fifth pos. X- open A-G#-C#-open B- open E.
A Minmaj9- in fifth pos. X-open A- G#-C- open B- B.
FMin11- (without root) fourth pos. X-X-Ab-open G- F-Bb.
F Min 6/9 add 14- first pos. F-C-open D- open G- F- X.
CMaj9 eighth pos. C-E-open D-open G- open B- C. (this one is funny ‘cause it’s your basic open G chord fingering moved up to the eight fret.)
CMaj13 #11- third pos. G-C-F#-open G-open B-A.
One easy way to transpose open voicings on the guitar is to use a capo. I like to use a capo because it creates an effect when playing open stringed voicings, that your playing a higher tuned instrument. Even simple “campfire chords” sound surprising and unusual when capoed higher up the neck.
Open tunings man!
A colorful singer I know in Toronto was once biking towards me while I was walking down Bloor street. Upon noticing my guitar case in hand he exclaimed; “Open tunings man!”
Maybe you had to be there…..
Lately I’ve experimented with alternate tunings that only deviate from standard tuning slightly, like tuning the A string down to a G or the G string down to an F#. This makes different open stringed voicings possible while still retaining your knowledge of the other 4 or 5 strings, that you’ve left in their standard tuning. In general, alternate tunings are a great tool for writing guitar music because you tend to make many exciting discoveries quickly when exploring the unfamiliar tuning.
The most obvious example is the celebrated “drop D tuning”, that is just as popular in classical and folk music, as it is in heavy metal and rock.
Try these tunings for fun; (from lowest to highest string)
drop D- D-A-D-G-B-E
double drop D- D-A-D-G-B-D
drop F# E-A-D-F#-B-E
drop G- E-G-D-G-B-E
dadgad- D-A-D-G-A-D drop C- C-G-D-G-B-E
Check out these guitarists for great uses of alternate tunings; Joni Mitchell, Don Ross, Andy Mckee, and Nick Drake.
Enjoy!
Harley
Stop by our band website hobsonschoicemusic.com
Ever wonder what you can actually do with the vibraphone other then hit it with some mallets and give people vertigo with incessant tremolo. Here are some extended techniques you can use on the vibraphone for adding more colours to your music, a bit of vibraphonic history, and some basic mechanics of the instrument.
Maybe even before I cover the nerdy extended techniques I’ll just briefly introduce the instrument, in case people reading this are not familiar with the vibraphone.
So, the vibraphone, or more accurately titled, vibraharp (it’s original patented name), is a mallet percussion instrument that was first invented in 1921, by a company named Leedy. This version differed from the current incarnation in that the bars were made of a steel instead of aluminum and also had no dampening bar, so all of the notes just rang together. In 1927, Deagan’s (another percussion company) Chief tuner, developed a modified version of this original concept, adding the dampening bar and making the keys out of aluminum to reduce the harshness of the sound. More time was devoted to precise tuning and elimination of unwanted overtones. This began selling in 1928 and is the precursor to the modern vibraphone.
The vibraphone is similar to a xylophone or a marimba but differs dramatically as well. Some things in common are the basic way sound is produced; this being by striking a bar with a mallet and having that sound amplified by a resonating tube situated below each bar.
The bars of the vibraphone are made of aluminum as are the resonating tubes. Xylophone bars are either made of wood or kelon (a synthetic). Marimba bars are made of wood.
A vibraphone has a pedal attached to a dampening bar below the bars, which makes it more like a piano. The bars on a vibraphone will ring until they come in contact with the dampener (not eternally but for a pretty long time). In order to sustain pitches on a xylophone or marimba the player must use a rolling technique, although the lower pitches on a marimba will naturally have more sustain.
The resonating tubes on a vibraphone have a special feature that distinguishes it from the marimba and xylophone. On top of each resonating tube is an aluminum disc. These are all attached together by a thin aluminum rod which spans the instrument and is built into the actual resonating tube assembly. There is one set for the top row of bars, and one for the bottom row of bars. At the high end of the instrument these rods have a rounded disc-like edge which is designed to have a rubber conveyor belt wrapped around it. There is an additional circular disc below which the conveyor belt wraps around creating a triangular shaped cycle. This bottom disc is attached to a variable speed motor which when engaged results in its rotation. The result is a rotation of all of the discs below each bar. This rotation causes the resonating tubes to open and close at varying speeds, controlled by the player, which results in the creation of a tremolo effect. This is something distinctive to the vibraphone and is the reason for its name. The inventors made the choice to refer to this effect as vibrato which was incorrect, and hence the name vibra-harp or vibra-phone. Technically it should be called the tremo-phone, but that doesn’t quite have the same ring.
That’s a brief history and a bit about the mechanics. I’ll briefly mention some basic techniques and then to the focus of the discussion, extended techniques.
Some vibraphonists play with 4 mallets, some with 2, and some dude plays with 6 (I don’t know why, and it does not seem very smooth or pragmatic). I don’t want to go into too much detail except to provide examples of players who use the these approaches. If anyone is even remotely interested in this post I’ll write another specifically about these techniques.
4 Mallet: Gary Burton, David Friedman, Dave Samuels, Chris Dingman
2 Mallet: Lionel Hampton, Milt Jackson, Bobby Hutcherson, Stefon Harris
6 mallet: Some weird guy in a tux by a pool
Another basic technique for smooth phrasing on the vibraphone is called mallet dampening. To achieve this the player pushes down the pedal, and after striking a bar uses another mallet to dampen the sound instead of the pedal. This allows a player to strike a chord, and have certain notes move while others continue to ring, which in turn makes the vibraphone more pianistic.
The last basic technique is almost too obvious to mention but I will anyway. It is the proper use of the pedal for phrasing. A lot of vibraphonists maybe gloss over this one a bit, but it is absolutely essential for clarity of ideas.
How about some extended techniques?
Here are some extended techniques on the vibraphone beyond just hitting the bars. Below is a piece that i wrote for solo vibraphone utilizing some of these techniques.
Pitch Bending a.k.a bendy vibes
Pitches can be bent on a vibraphone very much like those on a guitar. This requires the use of a hard rubber mallet and a knowledge of the nodes on the vibraphone. Strike the bar in the middle with a yarn mallet, and then using the hard rubber mallet start from the top node (directly above the place on the bar where the string passes through) and pull down towards the center of the bar. As you move towards the center the pitch will fall by about a semitone and then rise back to the original. The mallet is adding mass to the bar which allows it to drop in pitch. I don’t think it would be possible to have a note rise above its original pitch but maybe there’s a way.
This can sound good in a variety of contexts and is not just some fancy trick. Try to double a line with a guitarist, or using it for more expression, making the vibes sound more conversational and voice-like.
Bowing a.k.a terminator vibes
A player can also bow the vibes. You need a bow and some resin so it sticks to the bar. Hold the bow in a vertical position and bow the edge of the bar starting from the thickest section. This will create a singing, eerie, industrial sound which can add beautiful colours and variety to your playing. This technique can be used in combination with mallets, so you can bow notes while playing melodies or chords.
Harmonics a.k.a what do you think you are a guitar vibes
You can get harmonics on the vibes much like the guitar. This is possible because a bar in terms of physics functions similarly to a string. If divided in certain ways certain overtones can be emphasized. To do this on a vibraphone you need 2 mallets. Place one vertically in the centre of the bar with limited pressure. The other will then strike the bar over one of the nodes (directly above the points on the bar where the string passes through). When mallet 2 hits the bar over the node, lift mallet 1 up and listen to the 1st overtone, the fundamental up 2 octaves. Although these are described as harmonics, technically they are overtones.
A player can also get up to the second overtone through bowing.
Rolling with one Hand a.k.a how do you play that fast vibes
If you play with 4 mallets rolling with one hand is pretty easily achieved. All you need to do is surround the bar near the edge with your two mallets, one on top and one below. Then, just move your hand up and down rapidly creating a dense sound. You can do this while playing chords or a melody with your other hand.
Singing into the Vibes a.k.a why bother vibes?
Because it’s just cool. Try it out. You basically use your mouth as the resonating cavity for the bar.
Rolling with two Mallets while limiting the sound of attack a.k.a smooth rolophone
By rolling with two mallets on the vibes but using the top part of the mallets you can reduce the sound of attack on the bars bringing out more of the fundamental and less of the ping ping ping and mallet sound.
Displacing Double Bounces a.k.a buddy rich vibes
This is similar to playing a double bounce roll on the drums but displaces. It will let you execute extremely fast fills on one bar. Use this sticking in sixteenth notes: RLLR RLLR RLLR RLLR etc.. or vice versa. Try with different accents (some examples are in bold). This creates incredible forward momentum.
One Handed Wash a.k.a dreamy vibes
This is achieved by taking two mallets (or one) in one hand while the pedal is depressed and sliding them back and forth across a selection of bars. A player can do this with one hand and play a moving melody with the other. Check out David Friedman’s piece, Midnight Star, to see this in action.
I guess that covers some of the basics and not so basics of the vibes/vibraphone/vibraharp. Check this out before you come to the next hobson’s choice show Feb 12 at the Tranzac. Thanks for reading. The other members will post about their instruments sometime in the near future. I also plan to add some photos and possibly a demonstration video. Keep checking back.
Sincerely,
Michael
Instruments
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bowing vibraphone, david friedman, deagan, gary burton, glockenspiel, history of the vibraphone, hobson's choice, how does the vibraphone work, leedy, lionel hampton, mallet percussion, marimba, mechanics of the vibraphone, michael davidson, milt jackson, pitch bending vibraphone, vibes, vibraharp, vibraphone, vibraphone extended technique, vibraphone history, vibraphone technique, xylophone
This blog is named after a tune of ours, “as long as there are birds”, a song which came to me almost entirely in a dream. In the twilighty space between sleeping and waking these three verses took shape:
In one hundred years
there will be nothing left of you and me
we will be the earth beneath somebody’s feet
we’ll be the air everybody breathes
maybe we’ll be free
As surely as your body gets its substance from the land
I’ll let go of your hand forever and be glad
so long as there is food for our children and the children of our children
In one hundred years
there will be nothing left of my mind to hold the memory of your beauty
the knowledge of the sound of your voice
maybe there will be soul
As surely as your music is a reflection of birdsong
there will be nothing wrong with our being gone
just so long as there are birds
In one hundred years
light will still find its way to the forest floor
here and there still mottled where we’ve walked before
maybe we’ll be home
As surely as our loving ebbs and flows like the blue sea
there will be no tragedy in our passing
so long as there is water for everyone to drink
***
Last week I listened to CBC radio’s Eleanor Wachtel interview Vernor Herzog, a man who insists he does not dream. And he proceeds to exhort young people to follow their dreams – “it really does not matter if you fail or not”, he entreats, it’s just essential that you have a vision, that you give yourself permission to try to live it. Dreams for sleeping, dreams for waking, dreams for living. I felt I was in a dream state as I listened to Herzog spin his stories and his myths and the tales of his own life and films- he has such a way of speaking! In fact I was driving at the time (standard transmission…dangerous!), and jotting down notes between shifting gears…”conquistador of the useless”….”exuberance of fantasy”…..”our everyday life is just an illusion behind which lies the reality of dreams”…his expressed desire to travel into space (“I would be good in space”)…his love of the jungle as a place of “fever dreams, of illusions, of the exuberance of growth and also the exuberance of murder; every plant has only one goal – to murder the one next to it in order to get to the light – it’s an overwhelming sense of asphyxiation and strangulation and murder”… I expect these gems will make their way into song.
***
Last night I dreamed that my mother and I had made a suicide pact. We lay in each other’s arms on the floor, as someone injected my arm with poison and her’s with a tranquilizer which she said would allow her the resignation to smother herself with a pillow. As we lay waiting for death, I was going back and forth between reciting psalms and trying to empty my mind of all thoughts – I couldn’t decide which was the more sanctified way to meet death – I was expecting there would be some one or thing judging my thoughts on the other side. Besides this confusion, I felt peace, and especially warmth in my mother’s arms. Death did not come, however, and my cousin and aunts and uncles starting filtering into the room, which I gradually became aware was in the apartment my grandmother lived in when I was a child. As it became clear to my mother and I that our plan was failing, we got up and starting visiting with family members at what had become a dinner party. After a short while I woke up; it was about 6:30 a.m. and the garish white cross on the Anglican church outside my window blazed dully. I felt most strange – sort of ashamed and appalled, and yet not really that distressed – it had been such an untroubled and wholehearted suicide pact.
***
There is something so obviously archetypal about the link between night and death. Night, darkness, the sub-conscious, a mythological journey to the underworld, and symbolically to death, a recurring rhythm of night-day-night, death-life-death, a dance, a dialectic. As mundane and cliche as this symbolism might be, it is not becoming less powerful or meaningful in my mind. It seems the older I become, the more fearful the night is to me. More and more often I wake up in the middle of the night with intense feelings of anxiety and fear- I worry that I am growing old, that I am squandering precious years, that my parents are aging and will die, that I am in immediate physical danger; unresolved emotional issues become amplified to overwhelming proportions and are almost too much to bear; countless other fears well up in a dream-like state – and like dreams they vanish in the morning as though mists on a lake – I can’t recall them all now, only the most pronounced among them. Where do these fears go during the day? Where do they come from? Why does the light bring waking and the dispersal of dreams, fears, and anxiety about death and decay? Why am I not able to recall the relief that comes without fail each morning, when I am in the throes of night-terror? Why, if illusory, are the reasons for my fear so persuasive and all-consuming in the middle of the night?
***
Compared with my bad dreams of late, there is something almost happy about the tone of “as long as there are birds”. Certainly it expresses more rational fears about looming environmental disaster – it is more concerned with the everlasting, or ever-renewing life of the earth than of the soul – it does not fear for the latter so much as for the former. While not making pronouncements about the destiny of the soul, it reconciles the death of the individual with a resurrected future – that is, a planet healthy enough to sustain itself, all its living things and processes. A dream of the earth, as Thomas Berry has written. In this dream, death is not separate from life- in this dialectic we are forced to see both at once, in relationship with each other. It is almost as if the liberation of the soul consists in the decay of the body and its transformation into food for new life. Is this the communion to which Berry refers, when he writes: “the universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects”? There is still a warning, however, of a more final death – the possibility of a future in which birds go away, and the earth ceases to yield water and plant life. In this nightmarish vision, we are not absolved of our responsibility by our passing from life to death. Our bodies, our souls, rest peacefully only when our actions have secured a healthy future for those who come after us.
***
As surely as our loving ebbs and flows like the blue sea
there will be no tragedy in our passing
so long as there is water for everyone to drink
***
Felicity
Wow, what a title. Sounds so official and serious. The reality is I’m a total science geek and enjoy reading about such things and using them as metaphors for my creative process. What do I actually mean? Another good question… Not so sure myself.. Let’s see where this takes us.
In an organic sense, I like to think of a composition as a piece of musical architecture. This metaphor will eventually break down but I want to see how far I can take it. A good composition or song has a strong idea at its core that is inherently simple. Without this simplicity nothing can be built upon it. I don’t mean it has to be simple by the literal definition i.e one chord or a trite melody or a predictable rhythm. Oftentimes, taking simplicity too literally can yield a less then satisfactory end result. What I mean by simple, is that it is clearly and eloquently presented, and can act as a vehicle for creative and improvisational growth. It may be that the most clear way to present a compellingly simple idea is through one chord, but another idea may be best expressed in its clearest form by something which appears more complex.
I think a danger is to have a specific idea of what simplicity is and relate it to a style. One element of this concept is the notion that a pop song is inherently simple, or the idea that a pop song is based upon a certain type of simplicity which cannot be achieved in other ‘styles.’ Someone could consciously try and write a song in a specific style with a preconceived notion of what simplicity should be, and end up with an idea laced with ambiguity and confusion, far from being simple in the positive sense. I think the notion of style can be a drain on the energy that should be put into clarity of thought and flow of ideas.
Without this clarity, a song is just a structure with no foundation, and as hard as the interpreters try and bring it to life, it will inevitably implode. Simplicity is clarity, and has nothing to do with style. It is embedded in a process of growth and evolution, and without it there is no impetus for musical transcendence.
When I’m engaged in the process of writing a song, I’m very conscious of that initial idea and first understanding it on a high level before shaping it into a foundation. I have to look at it from many different perspectives, reflect on its contours and embrace its essence. The idea can take many shapes and branch off into multiple songs. One clearly stated idea can yield a number of compositions as it provides an opening for growth and change. Through the shaping process certain vehicles are less effective for presenting the core material, and they fall to the background or link up with another idea at the core of some other piece. This process requires an openness and commitment to fully explore a concept and consider it from different perspectives.
Along the way you may find multiple ways to represent these ideas, some appearing with what seems like effortlessness, and others hidden within deeper layers of meaning. I mention this because this process is at the core of my creativity. A posture of openness and the viewpoint that as a composer you are merely finding flexible shapes to represent clear and beautiful ideas and feelings, and not to get attached to these shapes, is very important to me.
The moment I get too attached to one idea, the process is interrupted or ended. That is not to say that you should not focus on a specific interpretation of the material as this is also essential, but that we need to realize this focus is still part of a larger shape, a larger body of work, of energy, of clarity and expression. Along the way beautifully crafted structures emerge, yet unlike those built of stone these structures continue to be flexible and evolve over time without decay.
I’m committed to this process of growth or evolution, and sometimes I like to think of it as a recursive process with mutations. You start with a simply shaped, clearly articulated idea which within it has an elegant code for something, who knows what exactly. Then your mind begins to layer things upon it, almost as though they are copies of this original idea. Yet as these copies come in contact with other thoughts and streams of consciousness they change ever so slightly. Over time, and through reflection these slight changes add up, and the copies continue. [When I discuss time, it is relative. Intervals of this process can happen in what feels like days, hours or even a lifetime but ends up actually being a lone moment, or vice-versa. Things happen along the way in different intervals of time, but that is insignificant] What started as a tiny but clear fragment, has become this beautifully, yet spontaneously and organically crafted piece of consciousness, or root system that has become a song.
This process compounds, and along the way songs/compositions make their way into the world should you choose to share them. Yet, these songs are nothing more then a bi-product of this recursive process; the real joy is in the process. Each little piece of this journey, (say a song) has some of the process embedded within. When someone plays the song the imprint of this process might show its face, bringing a quality of spontaneity and life to the air that has nothing to do with style.
A great song has a process built into to it, providing the architecture for communication on some level, and just pure and simple passion and excitement.
At least that’s what I think,
Michael
p.s. check out the writer Douglas Hofstadter and the book I am a Strange Loop. Also check out The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. I love these books.
This is my first blog ever! I keep deleting what I’m going to say because I feel like it is dumb or too serious. I’m going to stop deleting and start writing…..now! So what I’d like to say first is that I love playing in this band and I love being with these fabulous people. We are growing together musically and dare I say… spiritually. It is incredibly exhilarating and fulfilling to be going down a road with three others who are helping to steer and power Michael’s parents van in the same direction! Wow…I can’t thank them enough for their love, support and the use of their new van! I think we’d have a really hard time touring on my scooter, although, it’d make a really good album cover. Picture this…. Rebecca in the passenger seat with Felicity on the handlebars and Harley and Michael sitting on top of the Vibraphone which is being towed behind the scooter. I haven’t worked out where the guitar and trumpet would go yet. We’d all be wearing unitards, goggles and paper bird beaks.
Continuing on the note of supportive parents, we have been receiving so much love and support from all sides of our families, friends, partners etc. and I don’t want to diminish anyone’s contribution by forgetting to mention anyone, but we love and thank all of you so much for everything that you have done and are doing for us.
On a less serious note… when the four of us get together it is a hilariously good time. We all have wacky senses of humor. If we aren’t playing music, eating, drinking espresso or beer, we are laughing and that is so inspiring to me. Bunny in the freezer! Just put some vinegar on it!
Love Rebecca
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