Creating something every day for 365 days
I’ve been working on the development section of the Moderato and have actually been making real progress. You may recall that I set aside several sessions to generate crap in a separate “ideas” file. Remind me that this is a very effective strategy: I have been able to use about a third of the material I generated.
However, there are still some issues with what I have so far. First of all, it seems repetitive and not organic. This may be due to the fact that I’ve lifted material from the ideas file and stitched it together, and my ear can’t not hear the seams. I keep listening for ways to modify those transitions, and I’ve made some changes, but on the whole it still sounds clunky to me.
The other problem is that the further I venture, the less good the recapitulation I’ve already written sounds. It finally dawned on me why that is. There’s nothing wrong with the recap. The problem is that the majority of the material I generated for the ideas file is in the same general key as the opening of the piece. The whole point of the development section is to lead the listener far afield so that when we hit the recap, it sounds like coming home again. How can we come home if we never left?
So my next session is going to explore moving some of the current development into other keys. You will probably hear the weeping, the wailing and the gnashing of teeth, not to mention the tearing of the sackcloth, from your house.
Once a man returned from the dead and began to tell his friends what had befallen him.
“I rose from my body,” he said, “and I was grateful to be free finally of the suffering of life. I could see you all standing over my body, stricken with what seemed to be grief, but I felt nothing but gratitude.
“I did not move. I did not go towards a light. There did not seem to be a light. On the contrary, as I hovered in the room, everything seemed to fade away. I cannot say how long it took, whether it were a long time or short, but eventually the room was gone and I found myself in a vast darkness that was nonetheless bathed in light.
“I felt no fear. There were with me countless others, suspended in the great void. There may have been a sound of singing, or music of some kind. I cannot tell now. I do not remember silence.
“All were moving towards what appeared to be a boundary of some kind. As we moved, I began to see what transpired as the souls reached that line.
“Some began to rise, slowly at first, but then more and more rapidly, to a great city that shone above us, from which a great light streamed and into which those souls entered. Others upon reaching the boundary gave a tremor and before our eyes seemed to unwind like great sheets of fabric twisted after washing in the river, their bodies changing in an instant into great swaths of gossamer, which then dissipated into the void and vanished with a whisper.
“Still I did not fear, but slowly approached the line and awaited my fate: the beautiful city, or nothingness?”
The man’s friends broke in excitedly. “Clearly we see your fate! You were elected to the city, to the beautiful city, for if you had suffered dissolution you would not now be here.”
The man replied, “It is as you say. I am in the beautiful city, I and all the other elect, where we live for ever.”
His friends rejoiced. “Praise be to those who made us and taught us to worship correctly! We see now the right path to eternal bliss. If we follow the teachings of our prophets and the writings of our scribes, we too shall join you in heaven after we die!”
But the man cried out, “No, my brothers, do not rejoice for me, for I am in hell.”
I got back to work on the Moderato last night, and I thought this was interesting enough to write about. Your mileage may vary.
You may recall that last week I spent a couple of sessions just generating crap for the development session. I churned out variations of the two themes without regard to quality or how (or even whether) they could be used. I think I need to do some more of that, possibly tonight, but last night I thought I would evaluate what I’ve done so far.
I took my music Moleskine (where I sketch out harmonic ideas when necessary) and listed the sections of the Idea file that I thought were interesting/valid. For example, I’d write, “97-99, a gentler variation of the B theme; sounds like it might come near the end.” I ended up with about ten of these segments that had possibilities.
One in particular sounded like it might make a good lead-in to the recapitulation, so I opened up that file, moved what I had already written over by a couple of blank measure, and stuck the fragment in. Lo! it worked. And then another fragment, which I had marked as “nearly atonal, possibly a lead-in to the lead-in,” I stitched onto that one. And then, I stitched that to the lead-in to the recap that I had already written, and lo! it worked. So now I have a fake-out that jumps into a pretty wild variation before plunging back into the recapitulation.
It might be too powerful, i.e., the recap itself might sound a bit weak after so much sturm und drang, but on the other hand the main theme sneaks up on you, and you realize a bit slowly that you’re hearing it again for the first time.
More work is required.
For some reason, iTunes picked an old file of mine to play this morning, the bare-bones MIDI rendition of “I’d Never,” from Mike Funt’s zany A Day in the Moonlight, back when he still believed I could write songs for it in a timely manner. Foolish, foolish man.
Anyway, it reminded me of that song’s scabrous lyrics, how much fun they were to write and how wonderfully awful they were. The play itself is a Marx Bros. version of Edmund Rostand’s The Romancers, better known in its musical comedy version as The Fantasticks. The song was somewhere in the second act, I think, and was the Groucho character’s patter song about all his former loves.
At the risk of appalling my more sensitive readers, I append here the lyrics to this cringe-inducing song with the hope that it will distract you from my pitiful failure to make progress with the cello sonata.
1
There’s a lot you could say for Gertrudë
She was clean and she came when you called.
But I’m afraid I could not have been rudah
When I found she was totally bald.
CHORUS:
I would never (he’d never)
I’d never (no never)
deride or disparage an ex:
I’m such a defender
[last verse: and not an offender]
of the delicate gender,
[last verse: in all of their splendor]
my feelings so tender
for all of the opposite sex.
For Carol was crazy and Lucy was gay,
And as for poor Karrie, well, what can I say?
For as much as I’d love to have wrung all their necks,
I’d never, no never, disparage an ex.
2
And then I was dumped by poor Mimi
Because I failed one of her tests:
It was bad that I ran away screaming
When I found that she sported three breasts.
, CHORUS,
For Maggie was toothless and Eleanor lisped,
And Susan would sunbathe till burnt to a crisp.
Alicia most closely resembled T. rex,
But I’d never, no never, disparage an ex.
3
I was ready to wed my dear Julia,
But she threw a wrench in my plan:
“Oh darling, I’m sorry to fool ya,
But you see that I’m really a man!”
, CHORUS,
For Chloe was cross-eyed and Doris a drunk
And Rita regrettably smelled like a skunk.
So I’ll say it again – if no one objects,
I’d never, no never, disparage an ex.
4
Dissociative disorder Delores
Offered multiple ways to have fun.
When she sings it is always a chorus,
Till one of her pulls out a gun.
[Except when she flourished a gun.]
, CHORUS,
For Gladys had gangrene inside of her thigh,
And Molly made innocent child-er-en cry.
Though many have given me herpes simplex,
I’d never, no never, disparage an ex.
5
Romanian gymnast Ivana
Had many intriguing techniques.
But then she would take a banana and
Put you off of fruit salad for weeks.
, CHORUS,
Amanda had scurvy, Felicia was fat,
And Winifred would end a sentence with “at.”
Because with them all I had excellent sex,
I’d never, no never, disparage an ex.
6
Then there’s the lovely Vanessa,
a scrumptious, delectable dream:
Every time I’d begin to caress her
She’d grab both her buttocks and scream.
, CHORUS,
For Betty Ann’s body was covered in hair,
And you’d only date Natalie once on a dare.
Though mostly they’re known for their creepy effects,
I’d never, no never, disparage an ex.
7
I thought I could love Amaryllis,
A waitress I stumbled upon,
But then she would give me the willies
when she followed me into the john.
, CHORUS,
[huge catalog]
Leilani, Lolita, Letitia, and Lou,
Ula and Uma and Ursula, too:
For though they were total emotional wrecks,
And never forgetting the excellent sex,
I’d never, no never, (What, never?, Well, hardly ever)
I’d never, no never, disparage an ex.
I promise that if nothing interesting happens in the next session, I’ll find something else to write about until I have a breakthrough.
Last night I was good to my word and worked solidly in the Idea file all night. I wrote about 70 measures of mostly unusable material. So that was good. I will do the same tonight.
I regard it as problematic that I keep hearing Brahms’ Cello Sonata No. 2 in my head rather than mine.
I forced myself to work on the sonata last night, trying to get some feel for the development. I should have made myself sketch without any attempt of polishing, but I fell for the oldest trick in the book: “Hey, this sounds kind of good. I’ll plug it in and see how it works.”
The answer? Not so good. I have little tiny spurts of development that make no coherent thread. Again, some interesting possibilities, but it’s just chunks.
Tonight, forced march of improvising development. No polish. No clear addition to the piece itself. Onward!
I woke up this morning with several possibilities for the cello sonata running through my head, both for going forward in the development section and for segueing into the recapitulation.
So far, neither has proven entirely satisfactory, but the morning’s work has moved me past what I accomplished last weekend. I’ve gotten notes on the page, breaking up what has become the hermetic “perfection” of what I have written so far. Does that make sense? If what I’ve written is good, and I don’t work on it for a week or so, then what’s there begins to sound as if it’s complete. How can I add to it?
Therefore, even though what I’ve written this morning is far from what I think I need to hear, it at least has given my brain something to reject and to improve.
Why don’t I post two bits, the original beginning of the development, and what I wrote this morning? The first is what I ended up with last weekend; the second is what I’ve stopped working on this morning, and I state up front that it is not good. As I work on it and get back into the music, it will serve as an interesting lesson in how I blunder my way into what sounds awfully organic and masterful.
Original | Saturday, Oct. 22 blundering
Today’s work is indescribably clumsy. Some interesting suggestions, but this will not be what audiences in our nation’s capital hear. This is what comes of trying to transcribe dream music.
Not a lot of time to work tonight, but I thought I would at least pull out the first 36 measures and copy them into a new file, which I’ve named i. moderato_B_recapitulation.
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s the quick and dirty explanation. (For those who do, you can skip to the break.)
A sonata is generally a three-movement work for solo instrument and accompaniment. The first movement of a sonata is usually in what is called sonata allegro form, and this is what it looks like:
(You can clink on the image to go to a ThinkQuest project that explains sonata allegro form in terms of the symphony, which is a four-movement sonata for an orchestra.)
My principal theme (also called the first theme or the A theme) is the big, swashbuckling opening theme. Loud, violent, in A minor, mm. 1-16.
There is a bridge passage, the settling down to F major, mm. 16-20. My second subject (or B theme) is the beautiful little tune from mm. 21-36. It is a perfect contrast to the principal theme, both in character and in tonality. Usually the second theme is in the dominant key from the principal theme, and the reverse tonality. In other words, if the piece were in C minor (like Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony), that means the principal theme is in C minor, and the second theme is in G major. Here, my second theme, as I mentioned earlier, is in F major when perhaps it “should” be in E major.
However, there aren’t really any “shoulds” in sonata form, something I wish someone had told me before I started listening to symphonies and concertos and sonatas trying to pick out this exact, pedantic structure. Not many works adhere to it precisely.
Mine certainly doesn’t. For example, there is no “closing section” between the second theme and the development. There’s not even a cadence. It just bleeds directly into E major (finally) and we start playing with the two themes right away.
All of this is to say that I copied the first 36 measures, my exposition, into a new file. The recapitulation of a piece is usually a more-or-less exact repeat of the opening, except that the second theme is held to the original key. In my case, I transposed it up to A major.
And here’s the strange thing. It is a totally different thing. Even if I play just the second theme without the new bridge passage to get us from A minor to A major, you can tell it’s not the same. It’s not as full and warm, for one thing. It’s higher and tinklier and not as expansive. I may have to think about this. The main determinant will be how I think the movement needs to end. I may choose another key, or I may choose to rejigger the whole theme so that it sounds completely new and wonderful before tying into some kind of end.
At the moment, I’m leaning towards a quiet, gently moving end.