Songs In Two Keys of Life

That's one of the perks of being a piano player. When you get sick of practicing your scales, you can do two different ones at the same time. The possibilities are excellent! This is how "Sage & Lupine" came into being. Listen as you read.

Out in Montana, at or nearby the wonderful Montana Artists Refuge, I was playing the B scale with my left hand, and the A harmonic minor scale with my right. To make it sweeter on the ear, I started the A minor scale on D. (Do I need to put these sounds in here? Just for the record, it's a little bit of a learning curve over hear at Composer/Blogger Central. So please pardon the spackling on my virtual walls. And feel free to make suggestions or requests.) Anyway, you WILL hear the final result of this combo.
The sound of those two scales got my little harmonic happy glands hopping, and I decided to write out a bunch of six-note combinations, aka voicings. I decided they didn't have to be sounded all at once, but could come in lightly staggered. So then I had rather many of these charming little sklangelations, strahmbootskies, or what-have-you. Yes, interesting little fragments of sound, maybe forty or so. I picked several of them and arranged them in an order that allows the harmony a delicate and deliciously gradual increase of excitement.

Somewhere in there came the name. I saw a field of gray-green sage with dark purple stalks of lupine scattered through it (a rendition of it in the video). Ah, a lovely and unexpected balance of contrasts. For me, a perfect visual manifestation of the harmonies the two scaled evoked.

Long composer's pause then, I think. As in - a day or two. And then came melody on top. And then, as I am so fond, came yet another melody on top of that. The good news about mindlessly practicing the two scales at once, for some period of time before I started the piece, was that I had quite a nice harmonic fermentation already roaring in my mind. And so, tra-la, no striving or silly contrivances were necessary to easily finish the piece.

Luckily for me, and for you, I have this extraordinary band called
Lyric Fury. Composer's dream, these angels. You'll be hearing plenty about them! So they played it, and here is a sample. You'll hear the barest beginning of a solo by Lisa Parrott on the soprano sax. Yes, the soloist has a different set of chords from the rhythm section for improvisation. Same celestially dissonant pairing as the rest of the piece. You like?

Groundhog Day Is Over

"Groundhog Sunday Stroll" (click to listen) is a really fun tune. (Also, by the way, an award winner in one of those song competitions.) And a true story, as the author was able to decipher it. This one started from words. Or you could say it started from a transplanted Arizona woman sitting on a Central Park bench, wondering about things. One of the aspects I believe contributes most to my work as a composer, is the ability and desire to sit quietly and contemplate. Even on Groundhog Day, even in New York City.

So the lyrics arrived first, actually as a much less friendly rant than the end product of the song. Thank goodness for the willingness to edit! It was all written that afternoon, in and after the time in the park. The rambling quality of the poetry, and the realization that it was all pretty humorous and deserving of a wry smile at my own het-uppedness, generated the ambling somewhat sardonic nature of the harmonic action.

The melody and harmony first came from the words, and in complete interdependence with each other. And as the sections and the form became evident, the poetry/lyrics were transformed and edited, to create clearer idea development and further strengthen the form. I often work this way, letting the musical form and the content manipulate each other into pleasing coherence.

As the harmony goes, I consider the quirky little perambulations of most of the song quite nicely set off by the rather more controlled and predictable melodic and harmonic motion of the hook:

"A well-defined and ritual display

Of a well-defined and ritual life

Groundhog Sunday Stroll"

Is the relationship of the words and the slightly rigid aspect of the music evident? The composer wants to know.

Tree line creates melody!

Here's a tune that started off as a physical rendition of notes on the page forming the shape of the melody, "A ROCK'S LINE" (click to hear the tune). Huh? Here's the melody, written.

Here's an artists rendition of the scenery that inspired the line..

See the similarity of the shapes of the orange-ish line to the shape the notes make on the page? Yes, I actually wrote a song based on that sort of thing! Who knows why. I definitely enjoy writing from all different angles of the music.

So in this case, the melody came first. Then, and quickly I should say, the harmony started up. The driving rhythmic aspect of the harmonic content was doubtless influenced by the fact that it was a chilly early autumn day out there. The words and more of the melody and harmony developed naturally from the initial four measures (of the vocal portion on the recording).

Guess where the words came from?

"This is a rock's line, this is the line of a tree

How the mountain lays

This is what we call red on the mountains all green

In the blue haze

This is the snow falling motionless

On the first fall day..."

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Synesthesia and other sensitivities - friend or foe?

I'd say my synesthesia is mild, if it is in fact diagnosable. Fmaj7 chords are pink, Dbmaj7 chords are yellow. And then I experience a lot of undelineated but nonetheless evocative associations, such as those mentioned in my last post. I have never heard a tone associated with an oven of any color. ; ^ } One thing I like about synesthesia, is that it is considered mental illness by some, and a special and desirable attribute by others. Aha and behold! The well-documented and seldom understood tormented artist! Here's a relevant quote, not from a jazz composer: "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -J. Krishnamurti

I think this does relate very strongly to the sensitivity of composers and other creating musicians. I believe the often short lifespan of the truly creative is directly related to the difficulty of living in the ongoing workaday insanity of earthlings, whilst living in an exquisitely sensitive and thoughtful mind.

How "Love Song For a Mountain" harmony & line relates to the physical mountain

So there was the mountain, bare on top, above the tree line, reddish running to mauve, a bit indistinct through the distance haze of a Montana summer. Very simple lines, abrupt in the landscape, standing alone, yet still seeming almost to fade into the surrounding air by virtue of the pastel hues and the light haze.

I wrote the melody and harmony of "Love Song for a Mountain" all at one time. The words came much later (months!). The harmony is more reflective of the colors and diffuse light of the mountain. The melody is sparse, simple and yearning, in my mind a rendition of the stark but subdued presence and line of the mountain, and the gradations/lines caused by tree line, sky, etc.

Written in 3/4, the rhythm is pale and spacious, and once again, sparse.

As I write this, I hope that you enjoy synesthesia as much as I do! Have a listen and please feel free to expand the conversation.

How "Love Song For a Mountain" came into being

I spend a lot of time in Montana, often enough at the lovely Montana Artists refuge, a jazz composer's perfect refuge. So I had been hanging out with a painter there, and we were rather enthralled with each others' creative process and output. He took me all over the countryside and we would hike or search the ground for crystals or stare at landscapes for a couple of hours or so. We drove past this big bare-topped mountain somewhere south of Butte. Glorious and sparse and dreamy, it was. he asked if I could write a song about that mountain for him. Yes! No, it wasn't a torrid love affair. Anyway not the usual sort. We traded a song for a painting. "Love Song for a Mountain", that's the tune.

It begins. The trip inside the verbal portion of a jazz composer's mind. Judging from the various ways people have asked me "Where does that song come from?", it's a topic of interest. I better not give away all my answers now. More than one piece has come from freeform interpretation of lines and forms in nature. Compositions such as? "Love Song for a Mountain", "A Rock's Line", and "Sage and Lupine" . Where does your song come from?