A bloviated blog (S1/E3)

I have always considered creation to be primarily the imposition of order upon chaos. Sometimes ideas occur to me fully clothed, and I have no doubt about the forces involved, the overarching structure, and sometimes even minute details like articulations (staccato, tenuto and the like) or the specific bowing patterns that stringed instruments (which I do not personally play) will employ.

When that happens I figure that I must have done a good part of the compositional heavy lifting already subconsciously, or on some other plane of existence. Usually, however, my conscious everyday personality is intricately involved in both the macrocosm of formal structures and the microcosm of acutely painstaking details. It behooves me to roll up my sleeves and wrest with the chaos. The early stages are the most… chaotic and involve the most crestfallen doubts. One fears that the path might at any point become errant.

That is why any firm, unequivocal decision represents a major victory in the struggle to create. Once one element is firmly set, others will fall into place around it naturally. It’s much easier to detect that something isn’t going to work if it is found to undermine an element that has become structurally essential. An arbitrary dissonance in a consonant context seems out of place, but the reverse is just as true! Every work makes its own rules, or you risk repeating yourself.

One way I have avoided that is to follow Barber’s example and write in as many different genres with as many different instrumental and vocal combinations as subsist. In our cases, this meant tapping into the field of ensembles that are already established. Stravinsky took it further and made up his own curious combinations (I listened to his Mass yesterday), but then we can’t all be a Stravinsky!

I am exulting in the many victories that obtained for me yesterday (and a few from this morning), which convey a sense of being… well on my way. Composing is never easy, but I happily report that I have gotten to the part where it’s not quite so terrifying! The main thing is that I have decided that the ideas lately bubbling have done so toward a specific brew: an instrumental trio for three guitars.

I have written works for one, two and four guitars before; this will be my first essay to reckon with three at a time. Yes, it’s always good to know for sure what your lowest note is!