They’re spontaneous. I know ahead of time what key / mode is coming up, and as I set the key signature down ideas kind of cascade in my mind so I do a process I call starting with a note and following it. I’m often just watching the music kind of spontaneously appear on the page.
I never sit at the piano when composing these - it’s strictly pen and paper (well, now I use my tablet and an Apple Pencil, but it’s the same process).
After I write it down though I do audition it at the piano. Sometimes I make a few changes, sometimes I don’t, but when I do they’re minor, typically just changing the harmony or a note or two in some spot. If it takes more than that for me to be satisfied it’s easier to just start over and write a new one than it is to try to fix something that has too many issues, but that doesn’t happen very often.
These are almost universally in ABA song form, so I will often play with the music when the A section comes back as I’m setting it in ABC, changing harmony, adding counterpoint, changing a note or two, and that all happens at the computer as I’m typesetting the music.
Question: Do you play these tunes several times and make changes if necessary before you record them or are they spontaneous? Thank you.
They’re spontaneous. I know ahead of time what key / mode is coming up, and as I set the key signature down ideas kind of cascade in my mind so I do a process I call starting with a note and following it. I’m often just watching the music kind of spontaneously appear on the page.
I never sit at the piano when composing these - it’s strictly pen and paper (well, now I use my tablet and an Apple Pencil, but it’s the same process).
After I write it down though I do audition it at the piano. Sometimes I make a few changes, sometimes I don’t, but when I do they’re minor, typically just changing the harmony or a note or two in some spot. If it takes more than that for me to be satisfied it’s easier to just start over and write a new one than it is to try to fix something that has too many issues, but that doesn’t happen very often.
These are almost universally in ABA song form, so I will often play with the music when the A section comes back as I’m setting it in ABC, changing harmony, adding counterpoint, changing a note or two, and that all happens at the computer as I’m typesetting the music.
Thanks, that's fascinating and not at all the way I imagined you would start.