Composing

Hey Composers, today's Stage 32 blog is written by musician, composer, and actor Marco Antonio Berrios. Recently, Marco shared a bit of a story with us here in the Composing Lounge where he talked about a life-changing event in which he met an extraordinary man in the NYC subway who taught him how to see, hear, and perceive the world differently in ways that improved his creativity and connection to his music. In today's blog, he goes into detail on this special moment from his life and how it's helped him as a creator. Read the blog at the link below and be sure to leave any questions, thoughts, or words of encouragement for Marco in the blog comments!

https://www.stage32.com/blog/tapping-into-your-animal-instincts-when-cre...

Show us your workspace. Share a photo of where you create your music.

https://youtu.be/8kbg3g0zJnw

I just posted a job looking for a composer for family-friendly film series. Here is the link. Thank you for applying! https://www.stage32.com/find-jobs/30965

It’s always nice when we get a some praise but we get criticism, too. Sometimes the praise can be over the top and the criticism might be brutal. It’s good to keep all of it in the right box. https://www.stage32.com/photos/3285064988850399811

Have a happy and safe Memorial Day everyone.

https://youtu.be/2mzq7cx803o

Not sure if this has been posted before but…this is a nice interview with Thomas Newman. His family is responsible for so much music that has touched everyone whether they know it or not. Love the way he writes and the way he orchestrates it and the instruments he chooses. He definitely has a unique voice with some of those harmonic figures you hear in his work. His music always fits like a glove and can also stand on its own. Enjoy..

https://youtu.be/TnRoHPaTFqA

This piece is so simple. He was clever to use 5 in the bass. Just that sound; that rub in the center between 7 and 1…takes the listener to that place. It makes them feel; makes them aware/engaged. That one interval and where it falls changes the whole piece from just so so to perfect. Without it it’d have been a hard sell.

https://youtu.be/YYDkGI0i0bU

Throughout my music career, I've been blessed with some incredible lessons. One of these was the African drummer I befriended in the subway. Kwamijo (I hope I spelled his name right) had a way of drawing people in from far away with magic flow from his hands.

I asked if I could join him. He gave me a tambourine, then a cowbell. I was ok, but nothing great. So, I asked him some me questions about flow and rhythm.

After asking me a few questions he responded with "What animal moves like that?". He asked me to picture a lion walking through the jungle and started playing a beat.

I saw the rhythm, not just hear it. I saw the perfect imperfections in the Lions walk - some would call it swagger. I understood that slightly off beat note, was "correct" in the sense of natural rhythm because the lion drops his front shoulder as he walks.

He then explained that the richest music (in soul) was the one that is closest to nature. He asked me to watch water and fire dance. He asked me to watch bumble bees and nature in general if I wanted to reach people on an instinctual level. I understood this was a lesson to be remembered.

From that point on, I asked myself "What animal Moves like that?" when writing any music.

I share this with you so that the next time you sit down to compose, maybe consider going for a hike or to the beach first. This could also help break writers block.

Let's all win !!

Reharmonization is something we sometimes use to get a little more out of existing material. Take a simple melody and share a reharm this weekend. You don’t have to write a lot. Just do a few bars to give us something to think about and analyze. Here’s a simple one. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. If you want to, someone just do the next 4 bars of this. Continue the idea in Bb and get us back to G. Then maybe another victim will do the last 4 bars and bingo….we’re talking shop!

The question is how do you codify your music. Back in the 'old days' to write music, composers either used their preferred instrument (piano, harpsichord, guitar, violin, etc.) or they did so in their head 'sounding' the notes. And no matter how they 'envisioned' the notes, there was still the process of describing the note length and the various ways to articulate the sound. Nowadays with samples/samplers, vsts, etc. it has become 'easier' for those who write music to envision the manifestations of the sound - even if the sound will eventually 'transfer' to a live musician.

In depictions of the early 20th century songwriters or earlier classical composers in film, we often see them writing music directly on paper without first 'sounding' them on an instrument. Many of the composing teachers I have studied under could write whole pieces of music without outwardly hearing anything at all.

So how do you compose. As I do not have perfect (or perhaps not even relative) pitch :) , but having had all the years of formal ear training or the dozens of transcriptions I have done, I can not sound a whole piece in my head even given the initial note. So I make a stab at it using my second and third fingers tapping to determine the note durations. I then play it back on a sampled piano (or the instrument it will eventually sound on) and make any corrections). More often than not, I get 1/2 to 3/4 of the notes correct. If I have any 'errors' it is often putting 1/8 or 1/16th notes in the wrong spot and I need to move them over slightly left or right to get the rhythm correct.

So how do you get what's in your head onto your sheet or piano roll? Are you blessed with perfect pitch and rhythm and can get it out correctly on the first time without hearing a thing? If not, what techniques do you use to make sure what was in your head ends up as you envisioned it - either as correct notations or bars with appropriate midi commands in your piano rolls?

This week is done. Time to relax and enjoy life a bit. Here's Dave's opening theme to Condor. In '75 you could groove. :) Dave has such a body of work. The Graduate, The Goodbye Girl, Heaven Can Wait, The Champ, On Golden Pond, Tootsie, Mulholland Falls, etc. Tons of them plus his jazz career and record label. If you haven't seen it yet, watch his documentary "Not Enough Time." You can find it on PBS. Anywho...poor a glass and sit down.

https://youtu.be/r3uvjBO39WE

Back in the 1990s in my previous career as a technology assessor for Exxon, I attended a tradeshow called "Comdex" in Las Vegas. The evenings often consisted of parties hosted by vendors. One such party which I attended by Microsoft hosted a group I had never heard before. They were then referred to as a swing band. They were called "Big Bad Voodoo Daddy". Their horn section reminded me of other swing band sections of the 30s and 40s and even horn sections of the rock era such as Chicago, Tower Of Power, Earth Wind and Fire, etc. What got me thinking today was that for all of these bands, each of the songs/tracks had to have the horn sections arranged. In some instances it was something simple as one unison line or there was improvisation, but more of than not, someone needed to arrange the melody and harmony for the various horns. This is no trivial task - I have created my own and arranged others music for various size jazz ensembles up to and including big bands. And doing so for a live performance is not quite the same as arranging tracks on a DAW IMHO. Some of the work is artistic creation and the rest is a cumbersome task of writing out notes for each instrument. Those who have written for classical ensembles (film scoring or otherwise) understand the enormity of the task. A lot of it is similar, but it seems to me that the harmonization work for a well written horn arrangement is even more difficult than say writing a concerto (though my classical friends could dispute that :) )

Whether or not you like swing, take a look and listen for this vintage BBVD track and think about what had to be done to arrange the horn section along with the rhythm section and singers. In my experience, about the only musician that more often than not does NOT need an arrangement is the drummer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qI93SMwwnE