Composing begins with . . . ?

On Wed, 8 Apr 1998, Bill Schottstaedt wrote:
> > Composing begins with form.
>
> Not that it's relevant to this forum, but this
> has never been the case for me. In my case,
> it starts with an itch that gets magnified
> by some curious sound. I've never known
> a composer who started from a form, though
> this may be standard procedure outside Lotus-Land.

The creative process, in my experience, is highly unpredictable. Some
works begin with a fascination with a particular chord or progression.
Others with melody that comes to you and won't go away. Others still
with a concept which in turn dictates form, then you construct themes,
and so on in good, anal-retentive top-down fashion. (Not very often,
though.) Sometimes several unconnected fragments float around in your
mind, then one day you suddenly realize they go together. You just
never can tell how it's going to happen. Well, I can't, anyway.

--pH http://library.wustl.edu/~manynote
O
/\ "You just ran nine racks but you won't give me a spot?"
-\-\-- o "I can't; I haven't seen you shoot yet."

NOTE: dehyphenate node to remove spamblock. <*>

Paul wrote:
> Schoenberg gave up on tonality a century ago, and

Of course Schoenberg didn't think so. He championed the term pantonal
music. Everyone else calls him atonal. Not so said he.

> totally unlike anything Schoenberg could have ever heard, but tonal.

Schoenberg did imagine music microtonally. And with his gift of
musicianship he could imagine much more than is usual. He wrote of 53ET
to Busoni and he completely recognized the overtone series as the basis
for 12ET. Partch did Schoenberg one better by explaining the minor
through an undertone series.

Incidentally, Schoenberg said that form was all important claiming that if
the form was established then one could prick the music anywhere and it
would be so organic it would bleed.

> Does it have to sound unlike anything else in all ways possible? What
> if it sounds like something else in most ways, but there's one
> particular way in which it is distinctive? Or two? Half and half?
> Where is the line? If you can plant one flag and claim a continent, you
> run out of room to explore pretty quickly.

I agree with the above. Truly, too, we each have different natures that
greatly influence how far afield we may journey. Like all intervals, it's
just the amount of degree.

The whole premise of an academic composition degree wherein one gloms only
the singular style of writing of the main teacher is flawed. Only when
the teacher recognizes this and takes extensive steps to introduce the
full panapoly of possibilities does the potential of the student expand
exponentially. Otherwise, all too often, the music is dwarfed.

Music is entertainment, but, most interestingly, we are not all
entertained equally by the same things.

Johnny Reinhard
Director
AFMM
reinhard@idt.net