After meeting with all the musicians and playing with some ideas in my mind, I have started putting pencil to paper and creating some sketches. I've been inspired by videos by Eric Whitacre and some notes I have from time I've spent in conversation with Pete Meechan. As it stands, it looks like planning is going to be incredibly important. I have read/heard countless times (even from the likes of Sammy Nestico) that young composers try to do too much - if all your ideas are great, so be it - put some on the shelf and save them for the next piece(s) you write. The problem lies in this being a collaborative effort - a lot of musicians have contributed to what will become the foundation of the piece and I will have to cherry pick and curate what I think fits in with the seed of the work, as per my discussion with them. To give you an idea, here is the complete list of ideas according to the notes I took with VMC and SCi students:
-Can we bring people into a transformative space?
-Can we show conflicting ideas and have those conflicts resolve?
-We need to rely on each other - we need to be on the same page - have the same dedication to one another.
-We need to show our true selves - to simply express ourselves.
-After a year is over, we lose connection with those senior students (grade 12s) - people with whom we've been vulnerable.
-How do we combine storylines and sorrow?
-How do we learn to trust one another? How do we create a musical 'trust fall?'
-Can the piece be a retrospective of our 'Band Journey?'
-Can we have a unison line that splinters off, representing growth? There is a line in Children's March that works as such. A simple line that gets passed around and splinters, but returns to its simplest form.
-The work should be a mix of excitement, sincerity and sorrow.
-Can it be like Caravan where there are different styles that swap back and forth?
-Can we feature each section?
-Everyone should be able to have a go at the melody at one point.
-It should start low, harmonically and build up from there.
-The emotional high point should represent the height of conflict.
-Different instrumentation should be utilized to represent the material to spiritual transformation.
-You need sorrow to experience joy - you will need that if you want the emotional high point to 'work.'
-There should be a reference to Take 5.
-Each section should have their own line, building an elaborate section of counterpoint like in We Don't Talk About Bruno.
-A tuba & piccolo duet should be featured.
-I should listen to Arabesque (Hazo) and Mambo (Brenstein) as reference points.
-Who will play the 'villain' of the piece?
-There could be a section where the low instruments are playing in their high register and the high instruments are playing low (Maria Schneider talked about this when she was working as a copyist for Gil Evans - she orchestrated as per the text book and Evans wanted everyone in the ensemble "struggling." One can listen for themselves HERE).
Obviously, if I try to put all of these elements into a single work, the piece is going to be twenty minutes long, but I'm bound by a four minute framework. However, I do think there are a couple of ideas in here that are certainly worth exploring and developing. I thank the students for their time and thoughts.
Comments