arrange • compose • conduct
I had an interesting arrangement challenge recently – it was for a flash mob-style performance at a wedding, and had some very specific requirements, not least a very limited amount of rehearsal time. Since the commissioning party is an excellent singer but not a professional musician, I thought carefully about […]
There are almost always many different ways to notate the same thing. As simple a change as 4/4 vs 2/2, to more complex metric changes (3/4 in 1 vs 6/8 in 2, e.g.), enharmonic notation, even notating a rubato vs. just using fermatas. When you have to decide how it’s […]
I am completing what I sincerely hope is my last virtual choir video editing project. (It’s one more recording from Shades of Blue, to be premiered soon!) What’s been pleasing is how much more quickly this one has come together. I was able to come up with a vision for […]
When I write music, I often scratch out the rhythms long before I write notes. That’s especially true with vocal music – I’ll layout the meter on a notecard and draw in rhythms that reflect my phrasing of the text. Then and only then will I experiment melodically within my […]
At least twice last weekend, I heard Anders Edenroth describe his compositional process as “like a sudoku puzzle.” (He was talking about the puzzle of coordinating bottles and singing in “Water” and later about the loop-pedal writing in their version of “Good Times” and “Catch Up, Ketchup.” And he’s right […]
I’ve written before about how the insufficiency of Roman Numeral analysis leads to problems when voicing chords. But it seems to me that chord inversions change the character of chords so significantly that we should regard inversions as equally important to the the Roman Numeral. The little 6 is just […]
I recently started building a Patreon community around new original compositions and vocal arrangements. I am loving the motivation it gives me to experiment and create new music with supporters behind me. Just yesterday, I shared the first fruit of my Patreon project, a set of Six Nonsense Canons – […]
I have a lot of ideas that don’t amount to anything. We all do. When I’m trying to create, I often try a lot of ideas that don’t lead to very much. It’s only when I stumble (it often feels like stumbling) across a unifying concept that the creative work […]
Alice Parker describes two silences: first, the inchoate silence, the preparatory silence before music begins; and second, the silence of completion, after the music ends. One of the most intriguing dances of creation is the dance with inchoate silence. I am composing a set of canons right now; and I […]
Besides “Who is it for?”, one of the most important questions to ask with any new creative endeavor is, “How could I fail?” If your new creative endeavor has no possible way of failing, then it isn’t very creative. On the other hand, if the stakes are so high that […]