Monthly Archives: November 2022

Working on a string quartet

I don’t remember exactly when, but I think it was sometime in my second year in the music program as an undergraduate, that one of my teachers said something about how a string quartet was a hard group to write for. I had initially thought that I’d write my music drama with a string quartet accompanying the five singers. But my mentor Christian Asplund recommended thinking of the possibility of a different constellation, and I settled on two clarinets, violin, and cello. Here is the page where you can hear Stone-waltz. And here is the page where you can find Electricity-dance, two of my favorite pieces from the drama The Exchange.

A few years ago I approached Don Peterson, who was then the director of the Wind Symphony at BYU. I was interested in writing a piece for his ensemble. He asked me if I listened to a lot of band music? And the truth is, I hadn’t really done that. He gave me several of his ensemble’s recordings and I started listening to them all the time for a while. It helped me get a feel for how the ensemble works, what different roles the different instruments can play, etc. It took me a while to complete the work, but I still have the first movement and it hasn’t been played yet. Holler if you know of a band that wants to try it! I call it Acceptable, and the title might bring to your mind grading at Hogwarts. But it’s actually derived from scriptures in the New Testament.

There are several that talk about acceptable sacrifices to the Lord, such as this one: 1 Peter 2: 5. “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” (italics added).

Well, I have tried playing string quartets one time when I lived in Rundvik. I had gathered a few friends from the folk music ensemble (Umeå spelmanslag) and we got together for a few months and played some quartets. I know playing chamber music can really improve your overall playing, and besides, it’s just a lot of fun. Your part is really important, but it’s so playful because it’s constantly interacting with the other parts. And nobody else plays exactly your part, so it’s a good challenge.

A little while ago I had the idea I should try my hand at writing a string quartet. And instead of having to check out CDs or buy them, I can now just stream them. So I made a playlist with a bunch of Felix Mendelssohn and Bártok quartets that I could play while driving, cooking, watching kids climb, or whatever I needed to do with only using half a mind. And recently I had a first rehearsal with some other string players to try out quartet playing. It was exhilarating! The music is so beautiful, and it’s fun to try and give the composition justice in our interpretation of it.

One day a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to work on a solo piece, but I had left my notes at home. So instead I just started a score for string quartet. And today I pick it up again. All that listening will probably affect the way the quartet sounds! I like more augmented triads, and I like to think that I’m not still in the harmonic language of Mendelssohn, beautiful as it is. But the playful interaction between parts, that I hope to retain. The figures going from one instrument to another. The importance of landing on a chord that sounds like the harmonic language I have chosen. It needs to feel like one piece that fits together with itself, if you understand my meaning.

Keep writing

At some point in grade school or junior high, I was invited to start writing poetry for some language arts assignment. I loved the medium, and when I was in high school, I started keeping a notebook with me to write down my thoughts in that form.

A few times I thought that the poetry was musical enough that it worked to set it to music. But mostly, it was just a way for me to put down my thoughts and feelings in a short form.

I had the idea when I was nineteen or twenty to try some improvisations with another musician, and I think I made a flyer that I posted at my former high school, to see if there were any students that wanted to collaborate. That was how I met Erik Hamrefors. He played the cello and the viola, and we got together a few times and made a lot of recordings of me singing and he playing. You can find some of my favorite pieces that we recorded here.

When I relocated to Germany, I met Anke Ames, who played the accordion, and we did a few improvisations as well. We used some other poetry which we hadn’t written, and I found it was harder to relate. It’s not like the poetry was bad – it’s just that it wasn’t ours.

A few weeks ago, I had an experience where I needed some words to guide my next composition. Late at night, poetry started flooding my thoughts, and I wrote it down in my notebook.

I was pretty pleased with how the music turned out, and since then I have been thinking that it would be good if I had some more words to help guide my next compositions.

Digging from within seems to work the best, so I jotted down some of my most anguished thoughts in my notebook last night. It’s maybe best not to publish them right now, but I feel like it’s helpful to me, like it’s helping me process my most desperate feelings.

There is this one poem I wrote back in high school which I still have a copy of at home. Basically, it is a description of the frantic search for the key to inspiration. “Where is the key?” I sometimes still feel this way!

Writing on this blog has helped me stay focused. Despite all the other things going on in my life, I try to create something every day, and it helps me be happier. It’s unlikely that everything I create will be great, but I figure that as I keep refining my craft, I will still be pleased with many of my creations.

Making changes

I’m looking over the piece I had left Wednesday, and there’s this one phrase that’s just a little unsatisfactory. I’ve repeated a figure once where it shouldn’t have been, I decide, and I take out a couple of notes, and try to make it sound like I want by changing a few more. It also has the advantage of giving the brass player more time to breathe, and in this kind of demanding piece, I think the player will appreciate it.

But it’s tiring. Finally, I settle on a phrase that instead of ending on a high note, goes down a sixth, the landing note is the leading note, and I think it’s a lot more elegant. I love how it leads to the next phrase, which starts on the tonic of B minor, so the melody drops a major seventh from the last note in one phrase to the first in the next.

Finishing another piece

I’ve reached kind of a benchmark for the solo piece I’m working on. Today I write in the poetry so that it’s visible to the performer right after the cover page, and right before the notes of music start. It’s my intention that the performer should read it out loud before performing the piece.

I know I’ve gotten the ending phrase at least mostly the way I like it. I think more about the dynamics in the piece and write in all my hairpins, sforzandos, pianos, pianissimos, fortes, fortissimos, etc. that needed to be added and I’m tweaking a note or two. I add in another little phrase to extend and hopefully improve that key modulation I was working on yesterday, and let it rest a little.

I’m going to take tomorrow off and hit it fresh again after the holiday to see if there are other things I want to tweak before calling it done.

The connection between improvisation and composition

One of my most influential teachers in college was Christian Asplund. He taught me many things, being my teacher for fourth semester theory, beginning composition, and then he was my mentor for my capstone project (the composition part of it, I actually had another one for the theatre production part of the project, Rodger Sorensen). He also taught Group for Experimental Music (GEM), in which I participated in its first year, and later on, I was able to be a singer in an opera he had written and directed.

He encouraged thinking outside of what we had experienced before, and the pieces we performed with GEM were sometimes full of improvisation, and other times they had part improvisation. Usually at least part of the piece was up for interpretation, and whereas this is typical for all music, there was definitely more than the usual amount of interpretation in those pieces. He writes pieces called “Comprovisations” which means they were kind of compositions with large elements of improv in them.

This kind of thinking really helped me think about my writing in a new way. I had already been writing music for several years when I met Dr Asplund, but all that improvising together helped me discover that all music longs for form. It doesn’t have to be the same form every time, and it doesn’t have to be consistent, but even in improv, you want to recognize that you are going from one part to the next, and the most satisfying improvisations will feature a “going back to the beginning” or something similar.

When I’m writing today on the piece for a solo instrument, I’m feeling much like I’m back in the room with my colleagues in GEM, and I’m writing phrase after phrase, tweaking the first idea a little each time to make it move forward, and into a key change by switching one accidental at a time, repeating it and adding another so that it feels inevitable when we return to the original key. It is such a satisfying moment when I can write the opening phrases in the original key again, and while I don’t know exactly where it will end, as I’m expecting another minute of the song, I’m happy to have gotten to where I am today.

Putting a bit of yourself in the music

Listening to Schostakovich’s Symphony 7 makes you think he’s writing about the war, and the threat of the KGB, but abstractly enough that it’s hard to pin him on it. It is one of the most emotionally charged pieces I have listened to, in particular that has no lyrics.

When I wrote the trombone quartet I will take care of you, I had put a lot of thought into the music drama that I based the songs on that turned into movements. They had characters, they had feelings, and there were problems they were trying to solve.

As I’m working on a piece today, I’m writing in what I feel like the desperate crying of grief after losing a loved one. I can only hope that those who hear it will recognize it, as I believe this can be cathartic. Most people get hit by grief or loss at some point in their lives, and music can be very soothing.

Audio files of my symphony

So for those who want to hear what a synthesized version of my symphony will sound like, here are some sound files. Let me know if your orchestra wants to play it!

As I’m still not sure whether the contact me form actually works, you can contact me over LinkedIn, Instagram, or Facebook.

Symphony #1 First movement
Second movement – Romance
Third movement – Un-even dance
Fourth movement

Are you jealous of what someone else has accomplished?

As I’m writing my book today, I confess that there have been a few times when I felt jealous of other composers having their original operas performed. But when it comes to Mozart or Puccini I just feel kind of intimidated by the sheer volume of their output.

I’m still reading James Clear’s Atomic habits, and the quote I stick with today is this: “What’s the difference between the best athletes and everyone else? What do the really successful people do that most don’t?” Mr Clear is interviewing an elite coach, who mentions factors you might expect: genetics, luck, talent. “But then he said something I wasn’t expecting: ‘At some point it comes down to who can handle the boredom of training every day, doing the same lifts over and over and over.'” (p. 233)

Expect it to get boring sometimes, and plan for it to be ok anyway. Just keep going.

I again failed to bring my notebook to the gym where I’m working today, so I decide to just start a new score for a string quartet that doesn’t require my notes from the other day. I’ll think more about what I want to do with the piece, but I’ve written in an opening phrase for the two violins, and I have some ideas of rhythms, melodies, harmonies expressed in just those few measures. As I talked about the other day, really successful music pretty much always features lots of repetition, lots of themes with variations, and some development of ideas. Creating an idea isn’t that hard, it’s the rest that is the craft.

Hoping next week I’ll be able to get some more time into the two pieces I now have open for editing, but at least I plan on showing up, even if it’s just for a little bit. If I can find the time and energy, I’d like to write some more poetry to feed my music.

A bad day is better than no day

I’m reading James Clear’s Atomic Habits. He talks about the importance of showing up, even when you don’t feel like it. You do it because it is a part of your identity, that you are a person that doesn’t miss (his example is workouts, but I’m applying it to writing music).

It’s been a day full of working on house chores, and I am looking at my list of things to do. I have a task called “Write music.” It does not quantify how much, because I know that these days come sometimes, when I feel like I don’t have much time, and maybe not a ton of ideas to write in the amount of time I can scrounge up anyway.

But I write in three phrases, and I consider it a non-zero day, a day which despite not yielding lots of new notes, has still been a day when I showed up to my computer. I opened my software notation program, and I wrote in some new notes. I put in a key change.

Next time I know I’ll need to add in more variations on the theme. It should be fun. But as I explained a few days ago, the piece came with a huge wave of grief attached to it, and it is kind of heavy working on it. I’ll go play some Bruch or Telemann or Hummel or maybe just Christmas tunes to brighten my spirit.

At what difficulty level to write a piece

I touched on this yesterday. First, you have to know what is difficult for a musician on the particular instrument you are writing for. You have to at least have an idea of the outer ranges of their ability, so you know what you’re getting into when you hand them your music to play.

For example, when Igor Stravinsky had The Rite of Spring premiered in 1912, the opening notes in the bassoon were usually not written for that instrument. From what I have heard, the idea was that it shouldn’t be so very pretty, or at least he couldn’t have expected that when he gave it to the orchestra. Bassoon players since that premiere have refined their skill, and often practice that solo for auditions, because if you can play that solo well, it means you have mastered the high range of the bassoon.

When I wrote Requiem last year, there is this part where the trumpet has really long notes. For a string player, a long note is not particularly difficult to play, but it is more challenging on the trumpet. Thankfully, Jason Bergman is a very skilled trumpet player, and he pulled it off very nicely.

I guess the trick with becoming really good at most things is to be able to make it look nearly effortless. So a piece can look and sound deceptively easy to play despite its difficulties, when you have a professional play it.

When I was working on the symphony, I was writing a sequence of notes for the contrabass that I hadn’t been writing before. It’s not that they were especially difficult, but I felt like I should show them to my contrabassist friend before settling on the bowings for them. Also, I know that bowings often get changed by the orchestra that is playing it. She reminded me of one thing that is difficult on the bass – multiple string crossings in rapid succession. Being a large instrument, and each note needing some time to start to resonate, really rapid notes can become muddled.

For a singer, I know a couple of things that make it difficult. Unusual interval skips can be challenging. Singing at the top of the register for an extended amount of time is also difficult, but in a different way. The unusual skips just means practice more to learn it. The extended high range tires out the voice, which shortens how long you can sing. I think these limitations are similar for most wind and brass players. From what I understand, a flute player might have a hard time getting it perfectly in tune as well, when you start hitting the max three or four notes in their register. Oh, and very long phrases have got to be divided. There is a limit to how long you can sing or play one note.

For a harp, having only seven pedals, which change the tuning for the entire harp, it is difficult to play lots of accidentals that are changing from one note to the next. You have to give them time to change the tuning. I haven’t tried to push it too much with my harp parts yet, just because it’s easier to write something that is “safe” than to extend what orchestras usually play.

And obviously, for all you piano players, it’s difficult for most pianists to play more than an octave per hand. Yes, many can stretch a ninth, but that is difficult and nothing to count on, especially for those with small hands.

When have you noticed that a piece you wrote was more challenging than you expected?