Wednesday, January 9, 2008

The Value of Planning

Every year I participate in a great competition that requires a composition for brass ensemble of varying size (this year, a septet) of around 15 minutes. It's a great chance to write something with a deadline, since it's due February 1st, and I do something different every year. I've been working on this year's entry lately, and I realized something everyone already knows: planning is GOOD. Editing is GOOD. Showering is GOOD.

The problem is that it takes a lot longer to write something than to sing something or think about something, so sections end up being too short. I get bored writing even short segments because it takes so much longer than the segments themselves, so my writing ends up all over the place because my ideas change much more quickly than the music. I'm finding, then, that it's a good idea to think about how things will develop in the shower, try to remember them, and write them in. Things sound much better in my head than they do once I've written them, but also, once I've written them, I can't really think of them any other way, so this is hard to do.

One thing that I used to not understand until very recently was how composers could write music that doesn't sound great throughout, with some boring moments. I think I understand now that it's for pacing reasons, because otherwise the piece isn't balanced. There needs to be time with nothing important happening so that important things are more important. Filler material, if you will, that serves to continue the piece until what needs to happen can happen. It's also a great time to introduce new motifs, or to quote old ones. There's an art to writing "boring" music as well.

Everyone already knows this, but that's what I figured out today. (: I'll hold off on details of the piece until I hear back from the competition to maintain the anonymity of my piece.

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