When to parameter

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I strongly believe in using parameters, or imposed restrictions, as a creative tool.

When used as a tool to create solos, a parameter can be like putting your thumb over a running hose.  You get a stronger stream that shoots further, because it's so focused.  You might not want nor need it for general use, but it might be the perfect thing for a particular purpose.

Maybe you're trying to come up with a new solo move or new patterns, so you put a parameter in that says "play double the amount of notes you normally play" or "incorporate a lot of spins".  It forces you to do things differently, and often can spark some really creative ideas you might not normally have come up with.

When used as a tool to create songs, a parameter can be a way to generate new ideas, but also a way to limit them if you're not careful.  For example, maybe you have too many ideas and making yourself focus on "only naname" or "use lots of hand percussion" helps set you on a path that gains momentum.  However, in my case, I learned that limiting myself too early on made things more difficult than they needed to be.

I was thinking of writing a piece but I didn't want it to be too much like this or too much like that, so I was hampering my creativity.  Better to just let it come out the way it wants to, and then steer it in a direction away from where you don't want to go, rather than never start because you're worried it might "go there".

Parameters have given me and many other people some incredible ideas and insights, and I can't recommend them highly enough!  If anyone wants some ideas on how to use them or what kinds there are, get in touch and I'll be happy to tell you!

Constraints and creativity (article)

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I don't normally link to other articles in my blog, but this one ties into something I've talked about before when it comes to creativity, parameters, limitations, not taking things simply and thinking out the box.

https://www.fastcompany.com/3067925/the-science-of-work/how-constraints-force-your-brain-to-be-more-creative

Please take a look; it's not that long of a read.

There are a few things that I wanted to highlight from that article:

"Without constraints, the research suggests, we tend instead to simply retrieve exemplary use cases from memory; we typically sit on a chair, so that’s how we think of chairs."

We see this in taiko all the time.  Drums are drums.  Stands are stands.  Bachi are bachi.  But is that all they can be?  What else can you strike the drums with?  What else can you do with bachi?  We don't tend to think that way because we're so comfortable with doing what's expected.

"We dedicate our mental energy to acting more resourcefully. If you ask someone to design or build a product, you might get a handful of good ideas. But if you ask someone to design or build it while sticking within a tight budget, chances are you’ll get much better results."

If you want to be creative, having too much to work with can actually be a hindrance.  If you have four drums to play on, where do you start?  But if you only have one, you're more likely to explore than one drum than if you had four to split your attention over.  If you know you can have twenty people to play a new song, you might not utilize them as creatively as if you only get to use four.

Anyways, just food for thought.  If you're trying to be creative, trying to come up with new ideas and feeling frustrated or overwhelmed, narrow your options down and focus on limited resources and see what happens!

My new guidelines for composing.

photo credit: http://www.hypebot.com/

I really want to write more songs.  I have a ton of ideas that I want to explore and see which have potential.

However, I know what my tendencies are in terms of composing.  I know what I do, both good and bad, and why I'm not making more pieces.  So I recently came up with the idea of making a set of conditions for my compositions.

I don't want to call them rules, because I don't want to be limiting myself.  They're more things to keep in mind and help keep me on course.

Right now, I only have a couple, but will add more as they come to me.  No idea how many I'll come up with, but I don't want too many:

1. You can do anything.
2. Don't try to do everything.

Who knows, maybe this is the entire list.  We'll see.  I hope this idea of mine helps others who are trying to compose, even if my actual list doesn't!

Someone's got to be the first.

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Every San Jose obon we have an early-morning discussion session between some members of SJT and the collegiate groups playing over the weekend.  One of the questions asked in my group was how to write a song that was different to the group's current style, in terms of mood/energy.

My answer was that someone has to "be the first" to do it.  Someone has to be the first to push the limits, stretch the boundaries, test the waters, etc.

If no one writes a song that goes a little outside what's "normal", then what happens to the repertoire of songs in 5, 10 years?  More and more and more of the same, to a point possibly where songs are hard for the audience to distinguish between.

If no one solos with different patterns than everyone else in the group, or with different motions than everyone in the group, then again, how will people in the audience distinguish between them all?

Stepping a little outside what's expected, what's "accepted" can cause friction or discomfort, sure.  But it can also cause growth, can also trigger new ideas.  You can learn what's off-limits in theory vs. in actuality.  Without trying, the boundaries are all hypothetical.

Going too far at first is not always a good idea, however.  You could actually turn people off to the idea because it's too extreme, reaching too far, etc.  It's like asking for a cookie before dinner vs. asking for an entire cake.  One is reasonable, the other is not.

You might find the group votes your idea down.  It's possible.  But it's up to you whether or not that ends your attempts, or you mark it up as experience.  Personally, I have done countless things that were remarked on, some that were actually explicitly forbidden later (amusing but don't do that again) and some were highlights of my solo history.  I've written things where people had to do something out of the norm, and some of those things became key points the song while others make me shake my head when I think back to.  Without trying those things, I wouldn't have the experience, creativity, or willingness to do some of the things I do now.  And I feel like there's still SO much more I haven't even thought about yet!

You don't have to be groundbreaking or revolutionary (I mean, it's not bad if you are), but you can be intentionally curious and exploratory if you want to be.  After all, someone's got to be the first...

Those little voices.

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As human beings, there are these little voices that chatter in our heads that do nothing but cause self-doubt.  It's especially common in composers, because composition is such a personal thing and often takes many months of work and re-work to achieve one new piece.

Thinking of a new song idea is often one of the most exciting things a person can experience.  The inspiration, the potential, the visuals, the expression, all of it can come together and be a very powerful, empowering feeling.  Until those voices come in...  Then it's about how the idea isn't original enough, not interesting enough, requires too many drums, is too difficult to play...  Next thing you know, the idea is tossed in the trash.

But you have to fight those voices, because you won't be able to shut them up completely.  Get your ideas down, somehow, somewhere.  Scribble the notes, the patterns, the movements, the moods, the poses, get it documented in some way.  That way, if the voices do win the battle, you're not completely defeated.

Another way to look at it is being able to come back to your idea later on, with a different perspective.  Maybe you get that sense of the initial thrill you had, maybe you think of new directions to take it, maybe you have no idea what the hell you were trying to get at, but it's making you come up with new ideas!

For me, I have notation software that I use to put down patterns that come to me, use Western notation when I can, or even use primitive hash marks if I need to.  I have a folder with just under 100 "things" to listen to, from simple 1 to 4-bar phrases to several minutes' worth of patterns.  Every couple of months I'll browse the library and see what stands out.  It keeps the wheels spinning and I'm adding new stuff a couple of times a month.  Those little voices in my head have certainly had their fair share of victories, but what I've got in my archives are never going away.

My last point is that composing is not easy.  If you can't get past those little voices, you'll never get past actual people complaining and critiquing your work, which is bound to happen.  The more you compose (not just how many songs you write, but how much time you spend composing), the easier things will get.  If you give up too easily, then those voices are going to win over and over again...

How to compose

photo from Wikipedia

"In order to compose, all you need to do is remember a tune that nobody else has thought of."
- Robert Schumann

I like this line.  Well, if I didn't I wouldn't have put it up, right?

It's hard to compose taiko songs that are very different from other taiko songs.  Not convinced?  Think of how many groups there are, how many groups you've heard, and how many songs are similar.

• How many songs have a similar ji?  Dongo, horsebeat, straight beat - those three ji pop up in a large amount of songs.
• How many songs feature 3-5 naname drums facing forward in a line?
• How many songs feature all betta drums with people facing forward the entire time, shime in the back row?

That covers a lot of taiko compositions.  On top of that, the more taiko you listen to, the more you start thinking in patterns similar to what you're hearing.  So if you're in a group and don't listen to a lot of taiko outside of that group, there's a good chance that your new song will fit really well into a future performance, because it looks/sounds somewhat similar!

This expands out to what other music you listen to and arts you watch.  Think about it.  If you only ever listen to one genre of music, your brain has a smaller repertoire to work from.  You open up to new genres, and you get exposed to ideas that weren't there before.

So back to the quote.  Composition is a tricky thing if you're looking for inspiration, but sometimes it can help to look for what's not there.  What hasn't been tried?  What arrangement of drums haven't you seen before?  What stance would be different?  What type of movement have you never seen in a taiko piece?

Granted, some of the ideas you'll come up with won't work for a song, but that's ok.  The point is to stretch your imagination and creative muscles in thinking outside your expectations and comfort zones.  It's not to say you can't have an awesome song that has similarities to other pieces, but instead to look outside rather than inside for inspiration.

Video: Humor, composition, and Kodo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hRLTliFcNY

A bit of humor from Eiichi Saito and Masami Miyazaki of Kodo on Sado in 2013.  One thing to note is that what they do is a tool Eiichi uses to compose songs.  Watch it and you'll know what I mean!

Composition in the group

I recently received a comment on a post I wrote late June, asking me about the composition process as it related to working with the group.

It's something I've not really talked about, although I've talked about composition in general.  So what happens when you move off of theory and introduce your ideas to the group?  Eek!

SJT has been having composition workdays meant to give potential composers time to work on ideas and bodies for them to utilize.  While this is a really useful thing, most groups probably don't have the luxury to have that much time.  And that's ok!

So here's how I view a good composition session when working with other people:

Make it clear when introducing something to the group what the purpose is.  Maybe you just need to hear people play stuff, maybe you're looking for feedback (or maybe you don't want any feedback!), maybe you'll need them to be flexible as you change things on the fly.  The more they know your needs, the less likely anyone will get annoyed - including you!

It's also important to have a plan, even if it's just "teach/play pattern A, then pattern B, then pattern C..." so that you're not wasting people's time thinking what to do next.  Just as important is taking into consideration the setup you want.  Do you want as many people participating as possible, or a smaller amount of drums with people rotating?  What equipment do you need ready to go at the beginning so that you're not having people build stands in the middle of your session and lose momentum?

You also have to take into account how you're teaching.  If you want everyone to "get it", then you have to be able to explain/demonstrate it in ways that everyone will get.  If you don't have time or if you're not worried that everyone will get it, then that's ok too - but it's important that *you* know what you want ahead of time.  Maybe you'll want to see how people figure stuff out, so you don't say too much, but it needs to be intentional and you might need to explain that it was your intention to do things that way.

Also important to consider is what you want to have covered by the end of your time.  If you need to teach A before they can do AB before they can do ABC...and your goal is ABCDEFGHIJK, then you may have a time crunch.  If you know there are certain things more important than others, try to schedule your session to get the important stuff covered early on.

There's likely going to be issues that arise.  Maybe you don't like how it sounds once you hear people playing it.  That happens!  It's important to accept the output in that case and be gracious for the time you have.  Maybe people can't play things the way you want them to play.  Are you asking for too much skill-wise?  Will it just take time that you don't have in a single session?  Or maybe people are offering advice when you already asked that people hold their comments.  It's important to restate your preferences without getting upset.

Then again, sometimes the mistakes/accidents lead to some interesting paths you didn't foresee.  Don't be too quick to discount them as you review the process later.

Of course, different groups operate in different ways and have different dynamics.  Your experience may completely differ from mine.  The important thing is to try, to learn, to get better, and come back a stronger composer!

White Truffle Oil

I watch a lot of cooking-based reality shows.  Some of them have professional chefs while others feature amateur cooks.

Every now and then the amateurs will have access to some really fancy ingredients such as caviar, lobster, black truffles, saffron, etc.  Some of the cooks will go nuts with access to these fancier items, which almost always backfires.  They tend to either use nothing but the fancy stuff which means there's no real substance to the dish, use an ingredient so much that it's overpowering, or mask a fancy ingredient so much with other seasoning.

White truffle oil is an ingredient that marketing has elevated to "high quality" but is seen by a lot of chefs as perfumed garbage.  Still,  that marketing makes many people want to use it, which then can poorly affect - if not ruin - a dish.  The failure is in the idea that one ingredient will make the dish good, when it's how you use all the ingredients and where the balance is.  It's funny to watch judges watch a competitor grab the truffle oil, because they can't hide the look of worry and/or dread at the anticipation of having to taste it.

This is also something that happens with taiko compositions.  As in, there's so much you can do with a brand-new song idea!  So many ingredients!

Let's take meter, for example.  You can have a 4/4, or common time meter (white rice) to 7/4 (risotto) to 3/8 over 9/4 (lavender-infused dehydrated rice "essence").  Now, that rice essence, whatever that is, might be damned interesting when done well.  But will you want to eat it all the time?  Think about how many times you've had something over rice.  The rice isn't exciting - and doesn't need to be - but it gives a solid base to showcase the other flavors and textures on top of it.  Also, you can put nearly anything on top of plain white rice, where as infused rice essence is pretty limited in what you can pair with it.  If it's not done really well, then the entire dish could be unappetizing.  

Let's also take movement.  Staying stationary behind/next to the drum for the whole song is like iceberg lettuce.  Arm movements in simple shapes (up, down, circles, etc.) would be romaine lettuce.  Moving around a bit but with simple-to-moderate difficulty would be microgreens or arugula.  Bachi twirls and flips, intricate poses, complex choreography - that's like having a kale/chard hybrid with a Meyer lemon infusion.  Just like the paragraph above, think about the salads you've eaten.  Would you want a whole bowl of the fancy-strange stuff?  More likely you'll appreciate that in a smaller size  and enjoy the simpler greens as the base for your meals.  You may learn to appreciate the unusual new flavors, but a bowl full of them overwhelms the palate and becomes unappetizing.

I love all the creativity in new pieces, but sometimes it feels like the focus is about the attention-grabbing moments which, when sprinkled liberally throughout a piece, lose their punch and become so much "noise".  Moments are powerful when they are moments...and not minutes.  Simplicity is underrated as a vessel to showcase the truly cool stuff in a piece.  This is just my opinion, but hey, it's also my blog.  :)

Improvisation and Composition

Improvisation and composition are both wonderful things that have a bit of overlap.   One is real-time and one is more at your leisure, but both are things that you are creating from your head.

I've found that a lot of people want tips and tricks about how to get better at one or both, whether it's formally in a workshop or just in casual conversation.  While I recommend a more formal workshop (like the ones Roy Hirabayashi teaches), I had a thought on the subject I wanted to share.

I think of improvisation as a muscle.  The more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.  Like with lifting weights, you can do different things like increase the amount of weight or amount of repetitions, depending on your interests.  This would equate to focusing on the style/songs you play, taiko in general, or other kinds of world percussion.

Improvisation in taiko is a combination of mental acuity and reflexes.  This makes it seem difficult for some people, because you need both to be effective.  It just takes time to first be able to recognize what you want to play in the moment, then have the ability to make it happen.

I think of composition as a skill.  It simply takes work to get better but isn't something that people need to have to be good at taiko.  Composing can be as difficult or as simple as you want it to be and the group you're in may impose certain conditions or rules on new works that shape what the outcome may be.

Composition relies a lot on inspiration and/or necessity.  Because it takes both time and thought, it's easy to over-think an idea and agonize over decisions.  Setting goals and parameters is often a good way to start generating ideas, as well as starting small.  If this is a skill, you wouldn't want to tackle a larger project at first without knowing how you managed that skill.

Improvisation is over before you know it while a composition can span years.  There's excitement in both, depending on if you like immediacy and the joy of being in the "zone" or if you prefer planning and a payoff after a lot of work.  Both of them take practice and effort to make better but are never bad to spend time developing.  If you want, you can compose a song that has a lot of improvisation for the best of both worlds!

On Composition: Parameters

A lot of people who have composed or who want to compose often find themselves having trouble with beginning a new piece.

Where to begin?

Imagine you have a big canvas in front of you, totally blank.  You have brushes and paint and pens; you can create anything you want.  Go!

...hmm, where to start?  What color, what pattern, what brush, where on the canvas?  So many choices!

And that's where a lot of people get stuck.

Now imagine you come to the canvas and someone has drawn a couple of things.  What those things are doesn't really matter.  It could be two large circles on top of each other, a series of jagged lines across the page, or something like a hand print.

Is it easier now to start creating?  Your mind takes the basic shapes and starts creating around them.  It's like cloud-watching; we interpret abstracts and flesh them out in our heads.

So if you want to write something but can't figure out how to start, put some parameters in place and see what happens.  These don't have to just be visual, they can be anything that gives you a starting idea.

• Use only one taiko, the rest is non-drum percussion (cowbell, shekere, kane, etc.)
• Set up is in a certain shape, like a T or X or something abstract
• Everyone plays while kneeling
• Mirror images - either split down the middle or pairs or what-have-you
• Fast and/or dense patterns but sections or solos that are sparse and/or full of movement
• More people than instruments - what do they do/where do they go?

This was just 6 ideas off the top of my head, some are definitely better than others, heh.  The point is that having a jumping-off point often makes it easier to start something.  And if you have trouble coming up with parameters yourself, ask a friend!

"How to compose"

The title of this post is in quotation marks because by no means am I an expert on composition.  However, I have seen a lot of new taiko pieces over the years, and written several myself.  I’d like to offer up some words of advice, based on my experiences.

1.) Don't put everything you can into it.  The kitchen sink is good for dishes, not for songs.  For those newer to composing, it’s often tempting to put in as much as possible into a new piece, but you wind up bombarding the audience with too much "stuff" and very little gets retained.  I’ve been to too many concerts where on the drive home, I couldn’t tell you what half of the songs were like for just this reason.

2.) What makes this song different?  If your song looks or sounds like the rest of the repertoire, why are you writing it?  If your group has a repertoire with 80% of songs on naname and you want to write a naname song, ask yourself what will make it stand out?

3.) When will it debut?  If you know you only have a few months to teach a piece, you really need to account for the skill level and accountability of the group.  Maybe it’s best to simplify or to pull the song instead and come back at a later date with what you really want.  I’ve seen new works where the players were just barely comfortable with the piece and the audience can feel that.  I’ve been guilty of writing songs like that myself, so I know...

 

4.) Know what’s important to teach.  In other words, prioritize.  Sequence, then substance, then details is generally a good order.  Focusing on one move too much or one pattern too much in the beginning may be detrimental to those learning the piece.  Realize that the players may be worried about how the whole song goes while you’re trying to improve a single part of it.

5.) Can it survive without you?  Are you the only person that can play a certain spot in a song?  Then you risk it never being played when you're not around or leave the group.  Also, consider writing pieces that you're not in from the beginning, to be able to really be able to work on it without having the added distraction of being *in* it.

6.) Gimmick or highlight?  If your song is written around a fancy move or a single moment, does the rest of the song hold its own?  Does the gimmick get old soon?  Does the moment warrant an entire song?

7.) Perfection can come later.  Maybe in your head you know exactly what you want, but realize that your piece will take time to write, time to teach, time to adjust, and time for people to get familiar with it.  If you want it to sound and look perfect at the first go, you will be disappointed.  Give it time.

8.) Familiarity breeds contempt.  You may very well get sick of your own piece as you write/teach it simply because you've heard it thousands of times in your head.  Fight that feeling as much as you can; other people haven't heard it anywhere near as much and it's not old to them!

9.) Know how you want to teach your piece.  I’ve watched people who know their piece really well struggle to get across their concepts, spend a lot of time talking about the piece instead of teaching, or both.  If it sounds like you don't know what your piece sounds like, people might tend to lose faith in the song before it's finished.  If you talk too much instead of teaching, it starts to sound like an exercise for your ego.  If you have the time, I recommend rehearsing how to teach the patterns/movements before doing it “live”.

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There's no "right" way to write a piece.  Still, there are ways to make it easier on you as the composer, easier on those learning it, and easier on the audience.  Admittedly, sometimes you have to stumble in order to figure out what works best for you, but a little help can't hurt!

Limitations?

The other day I was on the computer, while listening to Kodo.  I asked myself, “why can’t I solo like that?”  The question quickly turned into "why don't I solo like that?" And then the answer hit me like a light bulb going off: because my group limits me.

(edit: Actually, let me make it sound less conceited here - for any group, yours or mine or someone else's, there is a group style that members may or may not fit into exactly right.  We all have to make those adaptations, whether it means stepping up, holding back, or what-have-you.)

Now this isn’t going to be me disrespecting SJT or even being critical of it.  What I realized is that in our repertoire, when we have solos, I have to hold back.  In my earlier years, I was often told to ease off/back off/play less/etc. and at first I didn’t understand why *I* had to put limits on my abilities.  Later on I realized that just because I could didn’t mean I should.

When a song called for more interaction and cohesion in the solos between players, me playing really complex syncopation often meant the next player would get shafted.  As awesome as I thought I just was, I’d just make for a very awkward hand-off to the next soloist.  When a song had a groovy ji and I wanted to play something densely polyrhythmic, it was like me playing a different song from everyone else.  No matter how “good” those solos might have been, they weren’t strengthening the song or the ensemble.  In time, I came to realize this and figured if I’m really as good as I think I am then I should be able to tailor my solo to the song and play within those parameters.

I should clarify that the solos I’m referring to are more chops-oriented solos, less about movement and more about rhythm.  However, I was still effectively limiting myself by continually soloing within the established parameters.  It doesn’t make me mad to think about, it doesn’t make me think that SJT is to “blame”, or anything like that.  These were the songs and those were the rules!

What I realized was that while I get to express myself through ki and kata (energy and physicality) within the group, I don’t really get to express myself musically.  *That’s* where I feel restrained.  Again, this is no one’s fault.  What I have to do, if I truly want to express myself in a solo, is write a song where I can solo however I please.

Okay, there are limits on that – I can’t write a 10-minute-long solo featuring me.  I am still playing with SJT and there are a few considerations.  Any song I write needs to have parts that eventually can be played by others. Even if others aren’t able to play what I play in my solo, the spot itself can’t be too difficult or so customized to me.  And it's not just about the solos, although that is a large part of how I like to express myself.  My compositions were mostly with SJT in mind, thinking about how they would fit into the existing repertoire.  I never really tried to push compositional or musical limits and am just now realizing that I have the ability (and desire) to do so.

While I can strive to write a piece that is challenging to be in, I have to be aware that if others don’t find the challenge fun, no one’s going to want to play it.  It’s also interesting to think that if I make a piece that pushes people’s chops in order to play it, won’t that improve the group as a whole?

Ultimately, I am at a point where I want to express myself more, and explore what that actually means.  If I don’t feel the ability to do it within the group currently, it’s unfair to wait and expect it to just happen out of the blue.  I want to get into the studio, grab a bunch of drums, get the metronome on, and just solo until I feel what the ji should be underneath me, until I feel what kind of song would support that kind of soloing.  This idea excites and inspires me!  I have a song I’ve started to make some progress with, but this will be a very different creature entirely.

Examine your own group and soloing style.  You may not solo or you may not be familiar enough with soloing to feel you can ask yourself this question, but are you limited because of the repertoire and/or sensibilities of your group?  If so, what are you going to do about it?

Limitations can be like a brick wall, but sometimes it’s a brick wall where when you step back you realize you can either walk around it  - or find a better path altogether!

Cheese sketch

I've been a Monty Python fan ever since I was a kid.  Even before I got half of the jokes, I loved the randomness and creativity from the troupe.

One of my favorite sketches is the Cheese Shop sketch, which I love.  I'm not going to ruin it for those of you who haven't seen it, but I understand those who don't find it as amusing as I do.  Here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3KBuQHHKx0

So why am I posting about this?  Because of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1x2yvK4gbjM

For those who don't feel like watching the video, it's an interview with John Cleese explaining how the sketch came about.

Ok, so what's my point of this post?

To summarize, *spoilers* the sketch is about a man going to a cheese shop and finding out that they have no cheese at all.  And the idea for the sketch came about in a very roundabout way.  After John Cleese got really seasick after a sketch, he was hungry and asked if they could get some cheese.  While looking for cheese, between the three Monty Python members in the car at the time, they got the idea that they could write a sketch about a man looking for cheese at a chemist's shop (pharmacy).  It's silly and random, sure.  No chemist would have cheese, after all.

But that wasn't the sketch, obviously.  They asked themselves, "why would a person be at a chemist's to buy cheese?  Because the cheese shop was out of cheese."  And that became the sketch.  A cheese shop out of cheese, made funny because the owner wouldn't admit to it.  Bam!

I didn't write this post to make you all watch a Monty Python sketch (although you should).  I wrote this post to show you that creativity doesn't really work in a linear format.  A does not lead to B then to C.  A can lead to "fish" then to "Oklahoma".  If from A you expect B and wait for only B or B-related things, you very well might wind up with nothing - except frustration.  If you allow things like risk and open-mindedness into the mix, it will pay off.

What's more, the more you practice and get familiar with that sort of thinking, the better you'll get at it.  At first, perhaps it's a little scary.  You might feel stupid or vulnerable.  Months, years later?  Not only is the fear gone, but the quality of the outcomes are much higher.  It's a skill, like anything else!  So stretch your mental fibers and warm up the cranial membranes...then start creating!

In the meantime, I'm going to go get some cheese and compose stuff.  No, seriously, I have some edam in the fridge.  :)

How I compose.

Composition can be a daunting thing.  When you get ideas, it's not always easy to get them out of your head into something you can utilize.

People have asked me how I compose, enough that it warranted a post.  My process is chaotic, mostly "whatever works" but backed by a lot of experience mixed with some actual training.

I'm going to use an example pattern I made in February 2012, called "Hooo."  Don't ask why it's called that, I have NO idea...  I'll show how each example applies to how I would capture the pattern:

• I started with hash marks, vertical lines of differing sizes with dots to symbolize where the notes would fall.  This is something I still use when I have a tricky passage I can't figure out with western notation.  I didn't even know I was effectively making 16th notes with the hash marks; they were just a way to keep a count.

•  When I got into music theory, I learned Western notation, a very effective way to write out rhythms.  It also helped to be able to "see" the patterns in a musical way instead of just dots in a linear progression.

• Recording audio through a micro recorder, smart phone, or even calling your own voicemail works when I have a pattern where I can't write anything down.  If it's really complex or I'm on the freeway, it's easier singing the patterns out.

(This isn't a live recording, but the audio from my notation software.  Check out the link HERE.)

• Recording video is also an option, but usually only if I have something really specific I want to capture, like a pattern with specific sticking.  It's pretty rare where I'll do that instead of one of the first three.

• Finally, I keep an archive of all the patterns I create.  There's over 300 in a folder on my computer, everything from finished compositions to four-second snippets.  Sometimes I'll come across one that sounds really interesting but that I have no recollection of!  This is good for getting new ideas (that are actually old ones).

It's not hard to learn just enough Western notation to get basic concepts, especially for most patterns.  8th notes, triplets, horsebeat, 90% of all the taiko "staples" won't take a lot of time to figure out.  The most important thing is to figure out what works for you.  Maybe the hash mark system is something you can use and adapt, or you can use something like graph paper in a similar manner.  Just get those patterns down!

Composer’s block

Man, I gotta write a new song.

I haven’t felt challenged musically in a couple of years now, and it’s not SJT’s fault.  I’ve been asked to play things at a ridiculously quiet volume, and I did that.  I was asked to play the Kulintang and I learned how to play that (ok, I'm still learning it, but it's a set part).  What I get put on, I deliver.  So the only way that I’m going to get pushed is if I actually write a bloody piece (that was for my British friends) and teach it to the group.

I’ve lamented about this before, the whole deal of writing new pieces.  Why can’t I get out something that I can take to completion?  If someone asks me, “do you have any new song ideas?” I would have three or four at any given time, some with melodies and movements and sequences.  I just can’t settle on one idea, one path to take.

Do I go with the body percussion-oriented piece?  I feel *I* need more instruction in the art before I start incorporating it.  Do I do with the karate-oriented piece?  None of our pieces should rely on any one person, so who would take my part if I wasn’t in it?  There’s the Heavy Metal piece that I’m still fond of doing something with, but how do I make it into a SJT piece?  Oh, and I can’t forget the left-hand-isolation piece that is a great concept ...but I can’t figure out how to evolve it.

And it continues this way, on and on.  I miss the days when writing a new piece was simply daunting – where to begin?  Now the beginning is never the problem, it’s the impetus I lack.  There’s also the issue of committing to a piece – I have eleventeen hundred ideas (no, that’s not a real number), so which one do I spend my time making happen?

So back to my original point, about not being challenged.  I struggle with knowing that the only real way I will grow as a taiko player at this point is to write new music, and yet writing new music is something I’m not able to do lately.  Hmph.

Stay tuned?