Article: Creativity and Expression

[Guni]

Discussion thread regarding the article "Creativity and Expression - Part 2" by Tom Hess - http://www.ibreathemusic.com/article/159

Guni

[LaughingSkull]

This seem not only to be long dead, but a discussion never even born. Nevertheless it would be pity that this well written article should not be discussed.
I started with a creative process for a composition, before I read this article (no, that is not true. I have read it once before, more than a year ago, but I couldn't remember that). I wanted to communicate a feelings of a person, who fell (emotionally) at the bottom, stood up, and and finding himself in huge amphitheater, with stairs going up in all directions. which stairs to choose? Going up those where he fell down or choose another. I sectioned it up on the parts:

1. Falling
2. The pit
3. Which stairs
4. Arise

I chosed beforehand that whole composition should be in E.
Plan:
Part 1: E lydian to go to E dorian #4; 8+4= 12 bars
Part 2: E dorian#4 (+F# phrygian dominant)= ~32 bars
part 3: E (not decided yet)
part 4: E lydian ~ 24-32 bars
slow temp ~85 bpm
rhytmically all parts have been more or less decided.

Now that I have read the article, I realized that I need climax somewhere in the part 3.

Good approach. Recommended.

[Flextones]

Generally we look forward to those times when inspiration just comes to us and we hear a fresh tune, or harmonic movement in our heads. This I believe is our best work and is divinely inspired. When we work at the craft simply as craft we loose the inspirational edge. Of course we can play the tone row game or roll some dice or write from some formula, but that kind of stuff leaves me wondering why the composer put that drivel out there as art. Money and deadlines makes sense, but art music that sounds as if it has no emotion really bemuses me. This forever will remain an enigma.

[JazzMick]

such as?

[Flextones]

I like some of the contemporary serious music that I hear, but John Cages 4'33" of Silence does not amuse me in the Zen tradition.

I have read and learned from several of Arnold Schoenberg's books on harmony and I like his ideas regarding his invention of the twelve tone method of composing music, however Erotische Orgie from Moses and Aron sounds like 5'18" of a nightmare in sound. I am not amused with what his music sounds like. In fact it's hard to believer that a man who is that knowlegeable about music could write something that sounds like that.

I have seen and read a lot about Pierre Boulez and all of it has been favorable, However when I finally got a chance to hear "Repons Introduction" on his CD the sound "stunk". I really don't get it.

These are just a few examples of "rot gut" contemporary music.

I like Le Sacre du printemps by Stravinsky. It has a good beat. It is very rhythmic and holds itself together. I can see where it would be music to dance by in Ballett. That is good stuff. There are others that I like as well. I think Stravinsky just wrote what he was hearing in his head, without resorting to formulas or devices. That is what makes good art.

[Obivion]

Agreed, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring is an awesome piece.

To be free of the chains of convention, that has been the striving in modern "classical" music and art and in cases such as Le sacre du printemps, the results are mindblowing.

It is the best artists such as Dali and Picasso who first mastered the art of convention (realism) before venturing forward into the unconventional.

As Marty Friedman said, learn the rules so you can break them.

[Bill Brown]

Being a student of Tom Hess, I've read all his articles and have tried this exercise not too long ago. I actually found it quite difficult. All of the tracks I've done so far have just come from an initial idea in my head, which I've recorded and then let evolve into whatever they evolved into. Lately I've been trying to pre-compose stuff, utilising the music theory I'm learning, but because my knowledge in music theory is fairly limited at the moment, I get stuck quite quickly. Even now, when I listen to songs I've done in the past, I still can't really describe what I'm actually doing and why.

I think this will improve as I learn to apply theory without thinking about it too much and this exercise will become much easier to complete. However right now, I can't choose chords, modes 'n' stuff which will help describe what I want to put across through music, I've just gotta start playing. I'll get there.