arrange • compose • conduct
Posts discussing creativity, both in and outside of music
Design is a vital and often overlooked part of writing music. I’ve long been obsessed with design – thanks to my long relationship with graphic design by way of concert programs, CDs, posters, etc. I spend at least a little bit of every week with visual design. Which is why […]
My (alto) student remarked this evening, “Tenor parts are weird.” The correct response is, “You’re right. And alto parts are weird too, right? But they’re weird in the way you know.” If you’re an alto, alto parts are normal-weird. But tenor parts are just weird. If you’re a tenor, it’s […]
The question shouldn’t be “What’s next?” It should be “Which is next?” When you finish a project, you are invariably asked “What’s next?” Often, that is an unwelcome question – you’ve just poured all your energy into getting a project out the door. Why in the world would you be […]
Writing a piece “without thinking” is a good sign you’ve done a lot of thinking for a long time. Every piece I wrote used to take my entire brain, and hours of work crafting the perfect solution to the musical challenge at hand. Today I wrote an entire arrangement for […]
With each new project I create as a composer or arranger, I have a few personal goals for growth (beyond crafting a good piece, with clear notation, that suits the ensemble I’m writing for, etc.). Do Less. For the arrangement I’m currently finishing, I’ve had three arrangements worth of ideas. […]
How creative are you before you create? Before you write a note of your new piece… …make a word cloud of adjectives to describe the piece. To describe each phrase, each section. …draw a map of the shape, the way John McPhee would to craft an essay. …speak, dance, time […]
Today was one of those days where the mundane crowded out the creative. In the midst of many important jobs that didn’t require my musical creativity, I found 4 minutes to be in front of my notation software. I pulled up my current project, hit the playback, and listened. I […]
There are so many stories of creators who got over the hump of creating while working full time by “waking early.” (I proudly chose this practice for many years, writing from 4:30-6am.) Just get up a little earlier, they say, and do your work before the world wakes up and […]
“I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear.” Joan Didion I learn what I think by writing it down, and it’s exactly the same when I’m writing music. With every bar […]
One secret to good writing is this key command: Ctrl-A, del. (Cmd-A, del on a Mac.) Being willing to blow up your work and start over opens up possibilities. It can be painful – especially if you’ve put effort into it. But I have never – never – not been […]