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Hello everyone and welcome back to where is the music podcast.
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In this episode, I would like to open the the the doors to a a typical let's say day in composers creative process. If you follow the podcast, you know how interested I am.
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In the details of what the creative process is and what it entails.
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How does it work in music and how different composers in different styles and throughout history they have approached it in previous episodes I have expanded and maybe discussed with the role of for example.
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A theme, a theme, or a subject in music. How does a composer makes?
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Integrated complex piece of music starting from an initial idea and that's that was about how to turn a theme into actual music. Today I thought we could do the inverse process. What if we start?
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From a theme, a little sequence of notes and see in how many ways one can possibly start to develop music around it.
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This is this will be, let's say, a series of examples that I have previously organised, previously listed and but this can go on for hours and hours. The idea is for those of you who are listening, who are.
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Interested in not just understanding how musical creative process works, but also in applying to your musical activities may perhaps you see it.
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At the piano or whichever instrument you you play and play around with ideas. This might be a good, let's say, line of thinking for you. With this in mind, it is possible.
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That all the strategies that I am going to show today.
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Might have to do with a little bit of rational and technical approach, but this is just the surface. As a matter of fact, only after a few years of, let's say spending time and familiarising myself with compositional techniques, I.
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Started, let's say, looking at this process in a more let's say intuitive and just creative way. While in the beginning it was very much a matter of applying.
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Rules and say correcting mistakes etc. With that in mind, we are also going to discuss examples that and strategies that have to do with.
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Styles of music that have happened in the past, which I might be say familiar, or I might have developed some expertise and so I might be able to show some of this with.
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UM.
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Keeping in mind that non is better than another one in terms of artistic and aesthetic value, they're all similar, or at least each one of you will prefer one over the other.
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Theme that I have.
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Selected.
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I didn't invent it is actually just a string of six different nodes, and I've taken it from a piece of repertoire and the reason why I did that is because after we look into all or some of the possible strategies for developing it.
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We're going to listen to how the composer has developed himself. I'm not going to mention it so far, cuz I don't want to give away.
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Possible. You know the one don't not give away anything, so the set of notes that I will work on is this.
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It's pretty non musical. It seems like a just a a straight set of dry notes.
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There are some repeated notes, but also it sounds it sounds pretty let's say classical tonal. There are no big tensions between within the set.
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So I might be able to figure out that there is a key.
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Key it seems to be a major key and those these details might come useful later on because relating to key or a scale might help me.
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Developing some ideas so.
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Let's start from the beginning. We said it is a set of nodes, so it's like a set of numbers. So the the first thing that in front of a set we do is to compare one with another and.
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Stabilising that perhaps there are there are relationship between 1:00 and another that become can become musical properties. For example the 1st 2:00.
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It is a musical interval. It's a musical interval of third and I can use that.
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For some musical development.
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Between the 2nd and the 3rd.
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It is another interval of third.
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So.
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Without.
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Without necessarily using all the six nodes just by using the first three and by rate iterating the relationship between the first two and the 2nd 2 node, the second and third note there.
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Are some musical.
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Properties that can already be.
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In taking advantage of in this particular case, I can use this.
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As an accompaniment.
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OK.
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It's not great music yet, but you see where this is going. Now I'm going to take the last three notes. Remember, these are the last three notes, and I'm going to do something similar.
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Now I'm going to put it together and this is going to be the result.
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You see the the set of nodes that I play in the beginning had melodic properties. We could have sung them, but.
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In this first development idea in this first musical idea, we did not hit them. We did not hear this set of notes sung melodically. The melodic properties of this.
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6 nodes did not interest at this first stage, but just the intervallic relationship between single individual nodes that turn out to be turn out to have some potential for musical development. Now what I'm going to do is to use.
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These nodes with melodic properties, so I'm going to take some to change the duration of each node, so some are going to be shorter, some are.
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Going to be longer.
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And now you hear.
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How?
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There is an inner rhythm that is established. This is a ternary rhythm.
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1.
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231-231-2312, it's pretty classical, but nevertheless it is giving me some.
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Melodic trajectory and some sense of motion forward.
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Sounds very classical, but nevertheless what happened if?
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I take all the properties, melodic properties and rhythmical properties that this little chunk of music has is showing and I maintain them, maintain them, but I modify the actual nodes. So for example if instead of repeating the same.
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Exact notes.
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I maintain those interval the contour of the melody and the duration of each of each node, but change the actual pitch.
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You can hear the contour stays the same. There is a similar there. There is a symmetry between the first instance.
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And the other ones?
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And now we can start already embellishing it.
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OK, interestingly, this melody seems to be going only upward. What if we want to going downward? We can probably invert it, so instead of this.
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We should go.
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OK. And now the result, the whole melody inverted will be.
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I played the game.
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Actually, to be precise, should be this.
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OK. Just a little variation.
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And now, magically, the whole trajectory is downward, so.
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And we can probably mix up, let's go upwards and then downwards.
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Etcetera. You see where this is going now after you repeat it for a while, it starts becoming a bit dull, but it is nevertheless an exercise of melodic creativity as as you.
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As you notice, if.
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We embellish this and start a little bit to free up our melodic instinct, perhaps something more, more interesting will come up.
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Etcetera. You see, this started becoming fun. Really fun. OK, now I'm going to do some more variation. The contour of the melody will stay the same.
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I'm going to modify once again the.
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The duration the value of of the nodes, but also I'm going to modify slightly the the intervals between them so that the contour will stay the same but the key will change. So now.
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Instead of this.
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It will sound like.
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OK, let's see.
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You see how it has changed completely the the flavour?
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The initial melodic contour has stayed pretty much intact. Notice in the previous two examples in the last two examples how the.
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Time signature dimension is quite important in this last example.
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The time signature is binary, so we have 1/2.
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ETC. So it's a binary time signator while in the previous one we had a ternary.
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So the perhaps the strategy as so far as I am applying it into practise can be identified as.
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As such, I am extracting the melodic properties of a set of nodes and adjusting it, adjusting them to.
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A a particular musical context musical context. We probably mean a harmony, rhythm, tempo, and a compliment, a texture, a tone, a dynamics, and a set of dynamic and so forth.
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Articulation, etc. It's that's too much to think about, but if we just extract the melodic properties of a set of nodes like the ones that we started with today and we apply it to.
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Time signature we kind of are forced to make the to transform the melody, the initial melody, into something else. So.
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This is the last example on this topic so.
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I'm going to do it in three.
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And I'm going to do it in two.
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And now I'm going to do it in three back to three, but I'm going to place much, much slower and see.
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And.
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Going to do it in in four.
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See how.
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How? By by changing the?
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The context, the musical situation, the the theme somehow just transformed by itself. It takes a little bit of familiarity and a bit of experimenting on on a musical theme, but this is probably the right time to just open a small parenthesis to say that.
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The musical material that the composer starts from is not very different from the raw material of visual artist. For example sculpture, there is a rock, it's just a rock.
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It is up to your experimental.
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Vision and your playfulness to see something in the rock that you can do with the raw material that you have, and probably similarly you can say.
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With regard to a painter, a painter might have a shape in mind, row shape, or a colour, or a a line, a curve, or maybe, just maybe just an object. Once for some reason that object is selected in the same vendor we have.
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Selected set of nodes that is quite meaningless at the very beginning, but then the work of development and transformation is what gives that.
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That object, that theme a particular flavour and then hopefully some meaning A and close parentheses. Perhaps I will come back to it later. So I'm going to give you a few more examples of strategies development strategies.
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I'm going to take the 1st 3 notes of my theme.
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And I'm going to think of my favourite.
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Nocturnes by Chopin and see what I can do with it.
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OK, please don't compare this to any actual chopping. Nocturne. The strategy here is pretty simple. I am opening each individual node and allowing to resonate through reach left hand.
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Arpeggio.
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In a similar manner that that somehow imitates the some of the Chopin Nocturnes and the melodic qualities of the initial set of nodes have kind of been put on side we.
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We can hardly hear the same melody.
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Or.
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If we do, it's very, let's say subtle, very thin and weak relationship, but nevertheless we are more drawn to the music because of the fullness of the harmony and the.
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And the left hand arpeggio.
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So.
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By the way.
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I what chord am I choosing for the page? I'm choosing chords that relate closely to each of the nodes of the set of the theme. Particularly, we have a minor chord.
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And a major chord.
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Then another major chord.
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So one of the ways in which composers.
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Develop musical material is to identify a chord on for each of the nodes that appear in a theme, and this is what I've been doing. Similarly, I can change completely the style of the music and the less maintain this.
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Relationship OneNote.
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Court.
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And I'm going to continue with different variants.
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This might not sound particularly, say musical. This might sound at some point an exercise of technical exercise, but nevertheless it is.
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It is within this this realm of experimentation or playfulness that sometimes a particular solution hits us and.
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We find oh, that's that's beautiful. That's interesting. What was it in this particular context, I'm going to.
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I'm going to take a little technical, let's say tangent here. And for those of you who play, I suspect most of you listeners were on other play and I know some of my students listen to this podcast, so.
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We probably have encountered this this in class before. I think we've never touched on this in on the podcast, but every note such as this this one is D node every node belongs to.
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Three different major chords, in particular, the note of D belongs to the.
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Chord of D.
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To the chord of G.
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To the core.
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Be flat.
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OK, what to do with this information? Well.
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I have 3 nodes, I have D.
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F# and a.
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I'm going to harmonise each.
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Each of these three nodes with the three major chords in which these nodes can be harmonised with total of nine chords and a bit. I'm going to do it without necessarily trying to make music, and I'm going to just see how this sounds and then perhaps trying to.
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Turn into a Music Hall, a more musical idea.
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Ah, interesting. I shall remind you there then.
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Main nodes which I am referring this exercise are the three nodes. The 1st 3 nodes of our set.
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So I'm going to do it again.
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An octave higher and see whether some music can come out of.
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It.
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Not bad, not bad. I'm going to do something like this.
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It sounds like a straussian opening this technique, by the way.
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Was I think, first clearly used by at least, and Wagner and later on taken up by many other composers. I think a lot of.
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Music for film composers have taken this, let's say, major chords. Approach and done done a lot with it. Nevertheless, this sounded better nevertheless sounded a little bit dull.
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Uh.
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I'm going to start embellishing this melodic.
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Quite dull line.
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Critic.
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Yes, that starts becoming a bit of magic. How come this music just emerged out of this?
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Right. Well, it did. I'm going to do. I'm going to show you one last example before we uncover the composer where this is taken from.
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This next example will just use the 1st 3 nodes only.
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Of our theme, and there's nothing really original, but this is to say that the themes or the raw material that we use, that doesn't necessarily have to be taken as a whole, we can just take a little snippet, in particular the first three. So the first half of it.
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In this case, it's going to be a long note and too short. I'm going to imitate it.
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And again.
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And as a result.
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This can go on much longer as you can see, but nevertheless we can then take a.
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Group of two.
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And use that as a repetition.
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So the result is.
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And we can continue.
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You can tell I mean it's not easy to find the exact notes by.
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That will make this game work, but once you find them, it's pretty. It's pretty fascinating.
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Or let's do the inversion.
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Right, I'm taking this example because in the in the piece of music that we're going to listen to, we're going to find a lot of these games, particularly. I point out that this Canon.
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That goes that goes like this.
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By the way, notice how?
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How our mystery composer has turned.
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As modified a little bit, the set of notes to make it sound minor should be and he made it.
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In this particular passage, he has also modified the 4th and the 5th and the 6th note instead of going.
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He goes.
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There is a little variation in there, but you can still recognise the origin. You can the source of it is the same and what happens here is the he writes a Canon and the imitation.
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Right. So you can hear the same melody.
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In the bottom part.
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As in the.
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Top.
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But the technique of Canon, meaning they start in two different moments.
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Make it very much a playful mechanics particularly interesting is that there is at some point there is this striking dissonance.
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Right, which is not a mistake is.
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And then this, since the mechanism has started, the same dissonance will be replicated 2 bars later.
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Which?
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Which also in a manner of in a similar manner, repeats later on. Another example from the same pass from the same piece will be from.
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Again, imitation and cannon.
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So the base is doing that and the Tanner is doing.
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You can tell how the how both parts relate in the same exact manner.
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They have the same origin and that makes it thematically very consistent. Now it is time to reveal it. This thing comes from string quartet by Mozart. This is the.
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575 If I'm correct, yes, and I think.
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I think written in 17.
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89 yes, 1789.
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When moderate was very mature, despite his young age, before we listen to it and I hope that you will enjoy hearing how a genius like him is able to take this little 6 notes apart and.
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Make it explode with creative solutions. I want to point out hide the very first thing that he does.
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Is respond to the thing with the with the series of melodic invention to after all these six notes is quite quite a short theme, so he enlarges it before developing it.
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That's a 12345678 bars melody. A lot of the developmental ideas are based on the very first two bars. The six notes that we have dealt with throughout this episode nevertheless.
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I hope you enjoy the amount of ideas through which he philtres this this simple 6 notes.
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Theme. OK, so now we're going to listen to the hugging quartet.
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In a recording from 2006 in the Mozart String Quartet, #21 in D Major, the so-called Prussian in one of the one of the Prussian quartets. This is the 4th movement, Allegretto.
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Marvellous, right there is so much happening, particularly I think if you have not listened, if you have, if you have not heard this before, it might be.
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In a sense, very pleasant to hear all of this. Let's say magic fireworks constantly happening. All of this.
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Phrases and all variations and embellishments all throughout and the harmony and the rhythm there.
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Is.
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Too much to.
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To pay attention to and in a sense, I was saying I was thinking it is hard to maintain clarity on what is the original source, the initial thing.
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In fact, I think at the level of, let's say, great art, there shouldn't really be too much attention put into identifying the the melodies, identify the original thematic sources.
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After all, what would be the point of spotting the raw materials when you have the opportunity to lose yourself in the?
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And.
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Beautiful aesthetics of a great work of art. Nevertheless, as musicians as composers we we kind of have to be able to differentiate our, let's say.
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Differentiate our interaction with the work of art.
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As listeners in search for an aesthetic experience and as a technician in search for craft, and let's say technical tools to learn, appreciate, and perhaps imitate particularly difficult, I think it is.
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This is particularly difficult to do when the works of art are distanced from.
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Or.
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Epoch, our age. This is more than 200 years ago, so the style and the language pose a further obstacle to our understanding. Despite the fact that the sound of it will be, it is pleasant.
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And the string chord that that we have heard the recording the the hugging quote, it does a fantastic job in to make it very let's say.
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And.
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Adjusted to our modern year, which is the job of the good interpreters. Nevertheless there is a big language world between us and music that was written more than 200 years ago, and so we need to.
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Educate our years to be able to philtre this language through, and perhaps the closer we get, the better appreciation and understanding of its aesthetics. So in the closer we get.
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To understand this language, the deeper will be our appreciation.
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So thank you very much for staying with me in today's episode. I hope I've given you some, let's say, inspiration for your own creative musical ideas. I should remind you that if you're interested in.
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Some, let's say piano musical course. I have two online, one is.
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On the music of Chopin and another one is on the fundamentals of harmony, which is a practical counterpoint. They are available on Udemy and the link is in the description of this episode. So if you are interested in me.
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Discuss in any particular musical topic that you that you are interested in, please let me know.
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You can do so in on your favourite platform, Spotify or YouTube, or you can do it through Patreon and also become a member that will help me supporting this channel and will help me do what I'm doing so.
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Thank you again for tuning in and I will see you the next time.