Friend or Foe....?

Rumors suggest that the Baylor League of Super-Composers convened this past wednesday at their dark lair of madness to discuss world domination. Whispers of a zippermouthed, hang-gliding, mickey mouse shaped creature of horror strike fear into the hearts of the masses. Will we find an ally in that tiny footed, arm wresting champion, "The Masked Incinerator"? Will the "Slothlike Bear-mutant" turn from his people-eating ways to defend us?

"Help us, super-composers, you're our only hope."


in other news....

the composer-performer relationship

check out this helpful article: http://www.newmusicbox.org/printerfriendly.nmbx?id=5148

Exhausted?

Composers,

Here are some thoughts from this week's discussion!

-How do you exercise your creativity in everyday situations?
-What is the relationship between failure and creativity?
-How do we give everything to our craft without burning out in other areas of life?
-Is exhaustion real? Is it just an excuse?
-What is the difference between discipline and forcing your creativity?

-How do our activities outside of composing serve as "research" for our art?

-How can you stimulate your creativity by changing what you are doing?

Welcome and Welcome Back!

Composers,

BEHOLD: the first decomp post for fall 2007!

Below you will find the topic that ignited our lively discussion on wednesday. What do you think? Feel free to respond to anything that was said or leave a completely random comment. Let's keep the discussion open!

"When you underestimate your audience, you're cutting yourself off from your best work." -Madeleine L'Engle, author

In what ways (if any at all) do you consider your audience while composing?

Back at Poppa Rollo's

Last week's DECOMP (08/30/09) was at the Clay Pot due to Poppa Rollo's electrical fire. It was our first DECOMP of the new school year (we had about 13 people). The Clay Pot was great but way too loud for serious discussion. We did do a creative exercise: each person was given an unusual object and had to instantly improvise a story about the object (how they came about owning it or what significance it had in one of their past "experiences"). It was great for creative mind stretching. We started off by not giving the person the object until they were to begin so no one could start thinking about what they would say until it was their turn – and they wouldn’t miss listening to someone else’s improvisation. That was very difficult – so we then began to hand out the object if you were the next to go. (Jeff, his turn near the end, brilliantly tied together many of the stories in his improv).

This week (09/06/06) we met back at Poppa Rollo's like old times. We had about 9 people join the discussion. It began with the following:

If we say that music evokes (or recalls) feelings (emotions) that people have already experienced - you feel a certain thing because you have something to compare it to - of course everyone in an audience feels something different because each person defines specific emotions based on unique personal experiences . . . example - Joe hears a piece of music and feels sad based on the sadness he experienced when his dog died.

That said - THE TOPIC OF DISCUSSION - Can music make someone experience an emotion they have never experienced before? If we say people can only feel emotion in music based on their own past experiences, can music be written that is the beginning of a new emotion for that person, the experience that they later recall when the hear something?

~just a few~ PRODUCTS OF THE TOPIC

- In order to do this, we would need an entire new set of instruments, a whole new way of communicating sound so people would not bring preconceived ideas to the concert.
- It is possible the bigger idea of this discussion would be can we make people acknowledge emotions they have never been willing to. (people rarely acknowledge their emotions)
- Maybe the music doesn't say something "new" or create a "new emotion" but rather finally describes it in a way we have always wanted to but have never been able to. In that way, we say "thank you, that is what I have been trying to express myself - that is what I have been trying so hard to grasp (describe, express, understand, acknowledge, recognize, be open about, etc.). And from there you can really connect to the music.
- even if someone hates a piece, they have been communicated to, they are talking about the piece, it has impacted them, it made them "hate"
- ideas vs. emotions (left brained vs. right brained); ideas evoke emotions, do composers write their emotions or their ideas to evoke emotions, can composers even communicate their own emotions or is it just their ideas that evoke unique emotions in others?
- infinite amount of possibilities in music, each individual musical possibility evoking a different unique response from each listener - so infinite amount of emotional possibilities because everyone hears it all differently, experiences it all differently

TWO DECOMPs IN ONE BLOG

A number of DECOMPs have gone by without a blog update. May the blogging resume!

The last two gatherings we very well. 01-25-06 was generally a time to get back into things for the semester. Thanks to Mandy and Joanna, we did a great creative mind digging that was very insightful. After making two columns on a piece of paper, we took some time to fill in the columns with what inspires us in one and what motivates us in another. It was very interesting to hear what people had to say.

Additionally, we talked about what DECOMP should be. It was agreed that DECOMP was great because of the inspiration and motivation that people feel when leaving. It is important to just chill and talk with fellow composers just as many students do in lounges (in the art building, McCrary music building, the SUB, etc.). The possibility of taking road trips came up as well (to grave yards, the park in Crawford that is an old abandoned amusement/theme park, the Dallas Museum of Art, or any other creative/inspiring place).

A great quote that Joanna paraphrased for us --
Why do I compare my baby steps to Beethoven's master pieces?

02-01-06 began with the question of whether it was possible/easy to act to get into the mood to compose. This quickly led to:

What do you see in your head when you write?
-some shape but not specific line
-things that scare me
-something that relates to something personal
-color
-feeling

How can you see your life from another's perspective (not from just your perspective)?
[ex. - when you hear someone saying something bad about someone, do you think "what do people say about me?" Can you see yourself from a different angle than "out of your two eyes," can you look at your life as others look at your life?]

What are ways we can work out (exercise) our imagination?

What emotion are you most inclined to compose with?
-anger
-nostalgia

Mandy gave a great analogy, asking us to imagine someone with too many clothes on, continuously adding jackets over sweatshirts over shirts, etc. There is a point when it would sound so much better to just let an instrument have a solo rather than pile layers of sound around it.

Another quote paraphrased -- It is not about thinking something up but noticing what you are thinking.

Seventh Discussion @ Poppa Rollo's 10-12-05 @ 10:00pm

Topic of discussion - compositional ideas
(new piece ideas, new genres, new venue . . . )

Products of discussion:

Things to incorporate in pieces -

lighting
- real-time reaction with performers
- lasers
- keyboard controls lights as it would control sound

different types of staging and stages
- theaters in-the-round
- opposite of theaters in-the-round (performers on the outside with the audience in the middle)
- moving stages (stages that rotate with sound or pan to move performers and sound across a space)
- FYI - MCC has a complete theater in-the-round created by two rooms connected when a movable wall is opened

laptops as instruments
- all instrumentation in a piece is a form of a computer (the performer mixes and creates electronic sound just as any other instrumentalist would create sound with his or her traditional instrument)

whips
- philosophically a very interesting instrument considering it creates a sonic boom by its looped end accelerates to a speed past that of sound

smoke
- mess with sound waves (~like doppler effect)

audience
- in what ways can the audience be involved (actively participate) in the composition?

humor
- success of humor in music is dependant upon it being a short and light touch (it is when people try to reiterate a joke after it is already said that it is taken as juvenile or "lowly")

If we owned our own space, these are things we would want to keep in mind -

- black lights
- track speakers (like track lights, we could position them anywhere along the tracks)
- record video of performances or practices in space and put clips on the internet to promote

Sixth Discussion @ Poppa Rollo's 10-05-05 @ 10:00pm

Topic of discussion -

Music Notation

- graphic notation
- experimental notation
- how can we notate other than on paper?
- knowing more ways to notate music helps communicate how to reproduce the sonority a composer hears or has in mind (browse around the MT35 section of the Crouch Fine Arts Library to find books on musical notation including 20th century graphic notation)

Idea that notation is just a BLUEPRINT
This makes a great parallel between architects and composers
- two people using the same blueprint can construct identical buildings
[one can live in a building that is nothing but that represented on the blueprint - having no decorations, no furniture, no drywall, etc.; it would of course be a boring, dull, uninteresting place to live]
- it is how the two people decorate their space (that which the architect conceived) which gives it stimulation, life, and interest

In the English language, we call written notation (instructions) and performances (the audible) both "music." The German language desiphers the two more clearly so that written notation is called die noten (notes) and that heard is called die musik (music). Of course this begins to blend into last week's discussion on musicality and inspiration verses technique and craft.

Fifth Discussion @ Poppa Rollo's 09-28-05 @ 10:00pm

Topic of discussion -

CRAFT vs. INSPIRATION (for the composer)
----------TECHNIQUE vs. MUSICALITY (for the performer)-----------

Fourth Discussion @ Poppa Rollo's 09-21-05 @ 10:00pm

Topic of discussion - CREATIVITY

Great articles discussed located under "Links"

Third Discussion @ Poppa Rollo's 09-14-05 @ 10:00pm

Composers that attended:

Ben
Chris
David
Derek
Joanna
Mandie
Margaret
Stephanie
Steven

Discussion began with the question:

How long (time) should a piece of music be?

and quickly led to

Who are we writing for?
- audience?
- ourselves?
- music as an entity?
- G(g)od?

Would you forfeit credit for a piece you wrote to make it less about you?
(Would you be willing to put someone else's name on your music?)

Anonymous concert idea (mystery concert)
The composition department would put on a concert with a program omitting all composers' names. Credit would be given for each piece at the end of the concert . . . or not.

Other ideas product of discussion
- group compose = each write four measures of a piece built upon the previously composed measures of our colleagues
- write a piece of music, put all into a box anonymously, each critique all the music in the box in a group setting to get feedback objectively . . . then reveal who's piece it was
- (one secret idea was discussed that has to do with anonymous creations that cannot be posted)

DISCUSSION TOPIC FOR NEXT WEEK
- - - C R E A T I V I T Y - - -

Second Discussion @ Poppa Rollo's 09-07-05 @ 10:00pm

Composers that attended:

Ben
Derek
"Doc" (McAllister)
Joanna
Jon
Maggie
Mandy
Stephanie
Steven

Products of discussion:

How do you compose?
- record improvisations on principal instrument then play back
the recording in order to fill in harmonies with the piano
- use computer program "Sonar" to manipulate pitches
- write down music realized in dreams
- write, write, write . . . from music that first appears to be bad
comes great compositions
- improvise on instruments other than principal instrument
(cheap recorders, percussion instruments, even objects not
traditionally recognized as musical instruments)
- inspired by painting (the act of painting as opposed to
studying others' paintings)

Characteristics of 24-hour concert
- has to be serious music of class (mature)
- it has to say what our department is about
- it needs to make people want to come to our Nov. 14th concert
out of curiosity and want for more (cliff-hanger . . .
"you think this is intriguing, come to our Nov. 14th concert.")

Ideas for 24-hour concert
- Strings in the Trees
- antiphonal players (ex. trumpeters on tops of numerous buildings
passing sound around)
- "pantomime" with music (people stand still until money is put in a
hat, at which point they begin to play)
- piano in the street in front of Waco Hall when chapel lets out
- play what you see (improvise off of the actions of those walking by)

IF YOU HAVE ADDITIONAL IDEAS ---
--- ADD IT AS A COMMENT TO THIS BLOG

First Discussion @ Poppa Rollo's 08-31-05 @ 10:00pm

Composers that attended:

Ben
Chris
Derek
Mandy
Margaret
Stephanie
Steven

Products of discussion:

24-hour Concert
The idea is to have music performed around the Baylor campus for 24-hours nonstop. Every location, instrument type, and style will be exhausted to the best of our abilities. Pre-composed music and improvisations will be heard in stairwells, out of trees, from the tops of buildings, as well as from surprise locations. It is hopeful for this to also promote our November 14th Composers Concert.

Improvisation Night
One night a week composers will meet in a hall such as Roxy Grove to improvise. Watches and cell phones are left at the door to insure an escape from the distractions of time and interruptions.

Miscellaneous
One of the most important products of the meeting was the discussion within itself. This can only be experienced by comming to the meeting.