Not So Silent Night.

At the beginning of the year we sat down with our lecturer David Lancaster and made a list of compositional aims for the academic year ahead. Although the list would be extremely vague about specific ideas, the broader aspects of the aims were more definitive. What are you going to write? & what instruments are you going to write for? We were told in advance about compositional opportunities that lay ahead, and also of any concerts that may be a good opportunity to have our works performed. So, we each gave a small list of potential pieces to David and went on with the lecture.

 My list (from memory) was...

• 2 pieces for Choir
• A piece using Counterpoint/Phasing
• A piece for String Quartet*
• A piece for Piano & Solo Baritone voice*

        *The last two pieces marked with an asterisk are two of the compositional opportunities we were informed of.

As we continued with the lecture my mind was completely fixed on getting started on that list. It was as if a huge furnace in my head, that controlled my desire to compose, had been re-ignited, and the list was all I could think of. As soon as the lecture ended, I rushed to the library to take out as many scores, CD's and books as I could to begin planning for the pieces that were swirling around my head. I spent the entire evening making lists of potential ideas for different instrumentations, themes of lyrical content and even spaces for potential site-specific works. After a few days, the burning idea's calmed and I began to focus once again on individual projects.

                                              

Many weeks have past since then, and many lectures have come and gone within them, but last Monday, (5th of Dec) was my last lecture of the year, and honestly, I was disappointed. Not only disappointed that the Christmas break had come so quickly, but mainly because I find lecture to be a very calming and welcoming place, and it settles my mind when it comes to ideas and sketches for compositions, therefore I will definitely miss that aspect of lecture over the festive season. 

During lectures we always make time to present work (be it complete or in its earliest stages) in front of the group and receive feedback from not only the lecturer but also the students as well. The MA composition class is very small, with only 4 students in the lecture, so peer feedback is an extremely valuable process especially when formulating new ideas. Recently, I've been working on a lot of rhythmical experiments, mostly trying to get to grips with the Steve Reich style counterpoint. One of my favourite examples is the 3rd movement from Electric Counterpoint (1987) which is either for Solo Guitar and Tape or Guitar Ensemble (12 Guitars & 2 Bass guitars), as it is an amazing display of layering and building small ideas into something much bigger.

Whilst looking at the score for this piece, to try and gain some insight into the processes Reich went through to create such a complex yet simple piece, I understood that I soon had to begin work on a piece for string quartet. Then a couple of weeks ago I had what felt like an epiphany to combine the two and create a counterpoint for string quartet. Now, in retrospect it was more like a "why didn't I think of that sooner" type feeling, but at the time it felt profound. Therefore, I began to use simple methods that I had developed during the period of experimentation/research into counterpoint, and gradually my ideas were beginning to form. After about 6 hours of straight composing, I had something very basic but at the very least, the start of something I really liked. So, on Monday I showed what I had to David and the group and asked for their opinions and feedback on any aspects that stood out for them. The response was very positive with some good suggestions from my fellow composers, as well as some great advice from David, who suggested ways in which I could try and gain more clarity on the overall shape of the piece. In order to visualize the piece on a larger scale, David recommended that I should draw a timeline of how I imagined the overall structure to be, not focusing upon musical details (notes, melody etc) but upon broader aspects of the piece. 

So I went away and drew about 20+ timelines with varying combinations of characteristics such as, speed, dynamics, rhythmic feel, instrumental techniques and groupings of instruments together. The list of variables became too big to include them all in a single diagram but in the end I had decided on a couple of key aspects:

• The Piece will be in 3 Movements
• The movements will move in a Fast, Slow, Fast progression.
• The 1st and 3rd movements will be denser.
• The 2nd movement will be sparse and will revolve around the Cello.

For the time being I will stick to those criteria alone, as not to impede the possibility to investigate various options during the compositional process. The aspects that I have decided on feel natural and are not intended to restrict myself, they are merely a helpful guide to help me better shape and mold the composition into something that I can feel really proud of.

Hopefully I'll have something of more substance before Christmas to share with you, even if that is just a recording from Sibelius. 

Thanks again for reading.

Liam Walsh.

Update For The Week

Had a lot going on this week, with moving home and somehow ending up with more stuff than I know what to do with being crammed into one place, it's been a bit crazy. Done a lot of listening but not much composing which I feel very guilty about.

I spent about an hour or so, playing with my guitar and a loop pedal experimenting with percussive sounds through the acoustic body and playing pitched ostinatos over the top. Idea's were coming thick and fast but I didn't really have a great amount of time to really sit and work at it. Over the next week or so, I'm going to attempt to record something and post it on Soundcloud so hopefully I'll have something concrete to work on.

I also saw an article in The Guardian about a series of concerts celebrating 50 years of minimalism, which got me thinking about my good friend Steve Reich, so I listened to his 'Works 1965-1995' compilation back to back as my way of 'celebrating' such a milestone. The full article can be found here.

Last Monday we (myself and the other MA composition students) had a really great lecture with Edward Caine, a brilliant York based composer who deals with 'Extended Instrumental Technique', although as we discussed in the lecture, the word 'Extended' is not an appropriate word to describe those particular techniques. That's one aspect that I found interesting. The techniques themselves are not technically extended, but they are labeled as such because they don't fall into our inherited performance practice (what we have been taught conventionally/traditionally). Essentially...

Extended = Different

In short, the lecture really opened my eyes to many possibilities within composing, especially for certain instruments (including the voice) that I had previously not even considered using because I thought them too technical or somewhat beyond me. I'm going to try some experiments using some of the techniques discussed in the near future so I'll refer back to lecture when I do. Many thanks to Ed for that day, he was full of flu and was a real gent to stick with it, thanks a lot Ed.

Onwards and upwards, hopefully with more composition soon.

LW

Thoughts Of The Day

Recently I've spent quite a lot of time on trains, and I always seem to find these a great place to listen to music. Obviously there is little more to do on a train, but still, there are times on a train where I have had wonderful experiences of listening to music. I tend to travel on the Transpennine Express mostly, and on those trains in between the First Class section and the driver there is a small area, which I dub 'The Hole'. It's essentially a larger cabin where the toilet is and there are fold down seats for passengers. Usually it's very quiet which can be very handy if I want to sing idea's to myself without looking like a raving lunatic.

Today's journey I spent listening to the album 'Iepo Oneipo' by John Tavener. Which is a collection of his works recorded by The Chamber Choir of Southern Iceland. In particular the piece 'The Lamb' has always stood out for me as one of my favourites. The way in which the first section takes two very simple lines of melody but intertwines between beautiful harmonies and harsh dissonances, and then moves into an amazingly simple second section where the four parts separate in such a delicate fashion that the transition is completely seamless.

It's moments like that when I catch my breath and think to myself "That's what I want to create when people listen to my work", a feeling of ethereality that feels like it came from somewhere else.

I'm certainly feeling inspired.

LW

The First Of Many...

Hello there, and thank you for taking the time to visit my brand new blog! This blog is my attempt to keep a public record of the processes that I go through on a daily basis, that are all part and parcel of being a student composer. Hopefully this will allow me to look back on various aspects of my work in a more objective way and also enable you (the public/internet community) to look at my work from a different angle.

I should explain WHY I'm writing this blog in the first place, in order to set some ground rules and also give anyone reading this further insight into my studies. As a part of my MA in Music Composition, I take part in a module entitled 'Practice & Dissemination' in which we (the student) look at ways we can broadcast our work to a wider audience.

- Disseminate

verb (used with object), -nat·ed, -nat·ing. to scatter or spread widely, as though sowing seed; promulgate extensively; broadcast; disperse: to disseminate information about preventive medicine.

Ignoring the example about preventive medicine which unfortunately is not covered by any of my modules, you can see that to 'disseminate' basically means for me to show or broadcast my work to a larger audience. And herein lies one of the way in which to do that. BUT, when thinking about the many ways in which I could broadcast my work, such as Facebook, Youtube, Soundcloud etc, I began thinking about ways to exhibit not just the final, finished article, but the process and the journey along the way until I get to the very last note. The decision was made for me, "I'd start a blog". Here it is.

My intention is not to take this too seriously, I'm not going to be uploading recordings of 7 hours of guitar improvisation for the sake of it, but my aim is to use it in conjunction with my compositional process to see if there is anything to be gained from the experience of documenting as I go along, and also seeing if it prompts any knock on affects into other areas. E.G, hits on the blog would hopefully mean more hits on Soundcloud and vice versa, or perhaps performance or compositional opportunities directly because of any one of those 'broadcasting' mediums.

Anyway, I won't talk any longer, I'm just of to make a cup of tea and get to work on one of my pieces. Updates coming very very soon.

Thank you again for reading,

Liam Walsh.