It all starts with structure
Author: Blogger in Residence, Rory Johnston
I’m currently in the process of finishing my first ever piece of choral music that will be accompanied by orchestra. It’s been a substantial undertaking, and something that I couldn’t have done without planning and thinking about the piece’s overall structure ahead of time.
When writing choral music, it’s very easy to sit down and find a text that you would like to work with and then just start writing in almost a stream of ideas. When a piece is written in this fashion it is often referred to as ‘through composed’ as it will tend to be more fluid and continuous, along with generally having more regularly changing musical material from stanza to stanza. This approach works fine for music that is based off of text of a short length, but the longer your textual material, and the longer the music is required to be, leaves this approach some-what wanting.
The larger the scale of the piece, the more you must plan. That may seem obvious, but it’s still something I forget to do on regular occasions. I’ll often get too enthused about one idea and just get started, then come back at a later moment in the process and realise I’ve either made a massive problem for myself or the music could have been much better had I thought about where it was going beforehand.
When I’m planning my structures there are a few things I like to do to help future Rory with the process. After sitting down with the text and deciding vaguely what the music is going to be in order to support the text I then set about deciding, with regards to the music:
a) Is there a climax, and where is it ? - (this isn’t always a necessity)
b) How does the piece start?
c) How does it end?
After I’ve thought about those three vital moments of the music, I then think about the text in relation to those musical moments and what portions of the text will be used in those sections. After that I use the text to think about the over all shape of the music, its peaks and troughs, its moments of stillness and its moments of activity.
Once I’ve decided what characters to bring out in the text musically, I will then think about the dramatic structure. This mostly relates to whether a texture is one that develops or does not. To get from one moment of music to another your music will inevitably have to transition at points, and knowing which sections will do this ahead of time will make your thoughts and actions when writing much clearer. If you know that a section is one that will not develop or transition, you know that, for example, sitting within the same harmonic/tonal sphere is not a problem as this moment is potentially for reflection, or maybe to build up a sense of energy before a release.
Knowing what the function of your music is on a small scale will help you create a coherent structure on a larger scale. When you have to retain attention and interest in music for a prolonged period of time, which all extended pieces of music do, theses are hurdles you must overcome, and planning will only make that job easier. And just to say that a plan doesn’t need to be stuck to, sometimes the best music comes out of breaking the rules and expectations your set for yourself – but you can only break the rules ones you’ve made them.
What I’ve been listening to this week:
Domine Jesu Christe – Juan de Anchieta
Symphonic Dances – Sergei Rachmaninov
The Music Makers – Edward Elgar
Written by Rory Johnston