lor
14 posts
Oct 10, 2011
11:05 AM
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I listen closely to a performance, each part by part, and in the spaces the musicians leave, those open spaces in the background of silence, even tho' occupied by rhythm, or somehow found between the major phrases, my mental instrument insists upon an internal response. But damn, the response is neither an echo nor a variation, but something that answers the space queried by the performance, or better, was composed by them, yet not expressed, inviting participation.
I want to be that composer, as the performer. Where shall I seek...
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tookatooka
2524 posts
Oct 10, 2011
11:45 AM
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Got any examples of how you are filling that space now lor. It's hard to grasp what you really mean otherwise. Can you post a soundfile here to show what you mean?
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oldwailer
1745 posts
Oct 10, 2011
11:48 AM
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Yeah, Tooka nailed it--the question is so existential it leaves me on the horns of a dildo-er, dilemma, I think. . . ;-)
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Always be yourself--unless you suck. . .
-Joss Whedon
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KingoBad
955 posts
Oct 10, 2011
12:48 PM
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I think you need to restate your problem.
Speaking like this will only get you shuffled to the back pages of topics, or worse, answered in the same fashion.
May I suggest you check your internal response and leave the space alone. It is there for a reason - and it is good.
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Danny
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nacoran
4722 posts
Oct 10, 2011
2:53 PM
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I'll take a shot, although I may be a bit vague myself. I've noticed, particularly when I'm writing melodies, that I'll stumble on a couple different variations of the melody. One will invariably sound better than the other, but sometimes I have to show some restraint. If you play the better part every time through it gets over used. If you play it too soon in the piece you don't have anything else to build to.
So, say, for instance, I'm playing a 12 bar progression 3 times through for a song, I may want to play the lesser melodic variation the first couple times through and save it for the last time. Taken by themselves the first two times through the progression would sound better with the 'better' melody, but if I repeat it all three times it doesn't work as well.
Music is about following familiar progressions to their resolution. One of the reasons people like listening to the same chord progressions is they like to anticipate what is going to happen. They feel like they need to fill that space with what they expect to have happen. If you fill it every time through though, or fill it the same way in every song, you go from being comfortably predictable to boring.
As for being the composer, that very much depends on the role you are playing. If you are part of a band you have to give each instrument a chance to shine. Performance is partially about ego, so unless you are paying the band to do things your way you need to share some of the glory.
If you are covering songs you can change them if you want, but you can create confusion for the audience. I used to regularly attend one particular open mic, and there was a regular performer there, a young woman with a ukulele. She did a lot of cover songs, and did them very well, but she always (and deliberately) changed the normal rhythms. In my head I was always humming along and getting thrown off. If I heard any given song a few more times I would have gotten used to it, but it was actually kind of frustrating to listen to. If you are performing for an audience that may only hear you once you are stuck trying to make yourself sound enough different than the classics so that they remember you, but similar enough so they can enjoy it.
I hear spots where I want to fill with something. We have a song that, for some reason, sounds like it needs a female chorus doing a sort of 'wooo'. We all hear it. The way the song is laid out that would be the convention. We don't have a female chorus though. Sometimes in practice we fill it ourselves just for a laugh. We hear that imperative, but at shows we skip it (at least until we can get a female chorus).
If you want to compose, just like anything else, learn the rules and then you can figure out when and where to break them.
Sorry if that's generalizations. That's the best I can do unless you are a little more specific (plus I have to get set for an open mic.)
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Nate
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KingoBad
956 posts
Oct 11, 2011
10:01 AM
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Advice from Thelonious Monk:
I stole this from Dave Thompson's facebook page. It has some relevant advice.
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Danny
Last Edited by on Oct 11, 2011 10:02 AM
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Greyowlphotoart
853 posts
Oct 11, 2011
1:38 PM
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Thanks for that. Both entertaining and thought provoking.
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nacoran
4728 posts
Oct 11, 2011
2:29 PM
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I'm going to try reposting that Kingo. I can't see it unless I cut and paste it to the message bar.
http://hphotos-sjc1.fbcdn.net/hphotos-snc7/320578_10150844869420346_740180345_20612317_1845048888_n.jpg
edit: nope, still can't see it, but at least I'll leave the addy out in the open for anyone else who is having problems seeing it.
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Nate
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Last Edited by on Oct 11, 2011 2:30 PM
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lor
15 posts
Oct 13, 2011
12:00 AM
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Interesting responses. I'll try to be more direct, which can set barriers, which is why I'm not always so direct. The parts that seem most to answer my subject are these:
from nacoran:
"Music is about following familiar progressions to their resolution. One of the reasons people like listening to the same chord progressions is they like to anticipate what is going to happen. They feel like they need to fill that space with what they expect to have happen.
"I hear spots where I want to fill with something. We have a song that, for some reason, sounds like it needs a female chorus doing a sort of 'wooo'. We all hear it. The way the song is laid out that would be the convention. ... Sometimes in practice we fill it ourselves just for a laugh. We hear that imperative, but at shows we skip it."
"We all hear it." "We hear that imperative, but at shows we skip it."
from KingoBad (presenting Thelonious Monk):
"The inside of the tune (the bridge) is the part that makes the outside sound good.
"Don't play everything or every time; let some things go by. Some music just imagined. What you don't play can be more important than what you do play. Always leave them wanting more."
back to me, with apologies:
I understand that if your artistry engages and stimulates the audience's imagination, which compels their active participation, the piece will more likely fire their emotions, and thus better succeed.
To engage the imagination seems to require that some attractive direction be put forth, but the destination be left to the imagination of the listener.
So, does the canny composer work out the whole trip, then lay down only the engaging parts?
Or, is it all based on familiar convention and standard progressions?
Or, is this the boundary where the unique individual advances the art?
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nacoran
4748 posts
Oct 13, 2011
12:26 AM
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How Socratic! :)
I think it depends on the audience you are trying to reach. I think most pop music lays down the standard progressions and fills in all the details. This satisfies a huge portion of the audience, but a lot of musicians get frustrated with it.
I've noticed different people like different sorts of mysteries. Some people like all the clues laid out in front of them and highlighted so they can see them while other people like the clues to be really obscure.
I think we all have our own level of surprise we are comfortable with. Interacting with that is how well you understand the structure. Before you understand the structure it's nearly invisible, but as you learn to see the structure it becomes more and more obvious. Back in college there was a class in the English Literature curriculum at our school, ENG 210, that went into all sorts of different literary theories, Deconstruction, Modernism, Post-Modernism, etc. The first day of class the teacher would warn all the students that if they took the class they would never be able to read a book the same way.
I think music is the same way. Once you see the structure you can't look at it the same.
Is this the boundary where the individual advances the art? It's a boundary. I'm not sure if it's the only boundary, but I can't think of another boundary that I'd put above it.
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Nate
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ElkRiverHarmonicas
743 posts
Oct 13, 2011
2:52 PM
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Sounds like the question came via a computer translator.
Study chords. Realize that the entire band plays a collection of notes that the ear perceives as a chord. Learn this theory and you'll go far to fill in the spaces.
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David
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"It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato." - Lewis Grizzard
"Also, drinking homemade beer." - David Payne
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ElkRiverHarmonicas
744 posts
Oct 13, 2011
2:52 PM
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Sounds like the question came via a computer translator.
Study chords. Realize that the entire band plays a collection of notes that the ear perceives as a chord. Learn this theory and you'll go far to fill in the spaces.
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David
Elk River Harmonicas
Elk River Harmonicas on Facebook
"It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato." - Lewis Grizzard
"Also, drinking homemade beer." - David Payne
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bluemoose
624 posts
Oct 13, 2011
3:05 PM
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[Note to moderators: Dave's drinking homemade beer and double posting again! I am jealous.]
MBH Webbrain - a GUI guide to Adam's Youtube vids
FerretCat Webbrain - Jason Ricci's vids (by hair colour!)
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Zadozica
149 posts
Oct 13, 2011
3:17 PM
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lor, I know who you are!
You are Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory are'nt you?
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Zadozica
150 posts
Oct 13, 2011
3:18 PM
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"my mental instrument insists upon an internal response"
You get a woody?
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nacoran
4761 posts
Oct 13, 2011
4:36 PM
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bluemoos- I'm not a drinker myself, but I won't begrudge David his double posting-double vision as long as he sends me one of those home grown tomatoes he keeps mentioning in his signature. They sound yummy.
I like this thread, although the way the question was asked made me wonder if it was part of a Turing Test. :)
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Nate
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ElkRiverHarmonicas
746 posts
Oct 13, 2011
7:21 PM
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Nate, send me a self addressed stamped box or something and I'll send some tomatoes.
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David
Elk River Harmonicas
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"It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato." - Lewis Grizzard
"Also, drinking homemade beer." - David Payne
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Diggsblues
1036 posts
Oct 14, 2011
6:39 AM
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Well can dig it. Is it the outside inside yin and yang
Is it the energy within the cell or outside it.
Are you in the present watching the future come at
you like a Mac Truck at hundred miles an hour to become the present for the
twinkling of eye slipping into the past.
Thus Spake the Dalai Diggs
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Emile "Diggs" D'Amico a Legend In His Own Mind
How you doin'
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hvyj
1868 posts
Oct 14, 2011
8:34 AM
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lor: Are you asking about COMPOSING, or IMPROVISING?
if you are improvising, you don't want to fill every space. when you DON'T play, it can make a powerful statement, especially if it is in a space where the audience might anticipate that you would be playing. Then. when you come back it, it's even more powerful and welcomed.
Simple example: laying out completely on he V change on a tune with a I-IV-V progression. Everyone expects a sort of crescendo in that spot. But if you leave it blank or let some other instrument carry it, you will sound pretty welcome and will have a greater emotional/aesthetic impact when you come back in on the I.
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lor
16 posts
Oct 19, 2011
8:38 AM
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hvyj: good question.
I started by considering composing, which seems to me a lot like improvising but without the pressure of performance. But I realize I came to the question because of what I was actually doing while improvising, as you gave an example, leaving 'pregnant' spaces at the end of repeated progressions and then coming back at the next beginning, but harder, maybe on a different octave from where I could regress to the familiar, comfortable conclusion. Sort of prolong the build to the climax, as it were. Problem is it's pretty dang instinctual. I don't remember quite what the heck I did, but the audience likes it, and I wanted to find some rule(s) by which I could sort of figure stuff out. Improvising is one thing, but if I wanted to compose something, I should know the mechanism. I guess more experience will be my best source of knowledge.
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hvyj
1884 posts
Oct 19, 2011
1:55 PM
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Personally, I never play anything exactly the same way twice unless I've been hired to play a specific part a certain way. Otherwise, I play what i feel. The musicians i play with regularly all have the same approach. So, yeah, to a certain extent it's "instinctual."
The "rules" are music theory. That's where the ideas or the "vocabulary" comes from. That, and understanding the idioms of different musical styles. I mean, for example, you are going to phrase differently playing reggae than you would playing country even if the chords are the same. So, music theory and an understanding of different musical styles or idioms are where my ideas come from and provide me with reference points.
Personally, I more easily come up with ideas about what to play under pressure of performance with other musicians. I feed off what the other musicians are playing and come up with ideas about things to play that i would never think of if I was sitting around just playing by myself. So, for me, interaction with other musicians is a significant source of inspiration. But, YMMV.
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