Studium Generale

In two weeks, I need to present at the Studium Generale of the composition department, here at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. The Studium Generale is a weekly meeting where (almost) all the composition students go and listen to others present their works. I find it very interesting to see how we all have such differnet approaches to the creative process of writing a piece of music.

So in two weeks, it will be me presenting. I have mixed feelings about this. While I'm very much looking forward to sharing my work with others, and hearing their comments and answering their questions (which will also allow me to clarify my ideas), I'm also scared of showing what I do, maybe because I know I'm younger and less experienced than most of my colleagues, and maybe my music is more naive than theirs, more immature. But I am myself, I do what I do, and I love what I do. 

I need to know what I will say, though, because I don't want to be just repeating myself for an hour, just saying nonesense and not arriving to any point. 

For me, my whole life until now has been, one way or another, a really long journey of self-discovery, of trying to achieve complete honesty with myself. This is, of course, not something that is finished now, it will continue until I die, I will always discover new things in myself, new situations, new fears, new insecurities, new loves. 

This relates really closely to my process of composing, since I think what every composer does is to understand to the greatest extent possible, the sonic universe that exists in her/his mind. This is the case with me. I still feel there are many interferences that prevent me from seeing the whole landscape more clearly, the biggest one being my own expectations of my own music. This can sound very strange, but I feel there is a great difference between the music I expect to write, and the music I actually write. This difference is because the music I expect is the music I feel I should write, according to the stereotype I have of myself. The music I really want to write lies somewhere hidden below all this, and now I am gradually pulling it out. It is a more simple sound, more pure if I may, more clear, but also more sad and bleak. I don't know very well from where it comes from, but I like it, it has light, it has silence, it reflects me perfectly. 

I saw this for the first time with the piece Another year..., where the whole harmonic structure of the piece is based on three pitches (E-A-F in ascending order, but also invertions of this) and the rhythmic structure is just composed of the simplest subdivisions of a 4/4 time signature. Then, in Pavamana Abhyaroha (the vocal piece that uses the sanskrit text) I just wrote short, simple musical fragments to be freely combined by the performers. Most recently, in the Trois tableaux for accordeon, I wrote three short movements, each using a very simple idea that was kept the same during the duration of the piece. 

It is in this last example that I think I got closer to the main idea, which is basically try to pull out this true music I have buried in my head, buy understanding the little fragments of it that suddenly arise in my head. This is only achieved with great patience and focusing on small details and developing them extensively and intensively. 

In this journey, I discovered a love for dissonances, but dissonances that are subtle and maintained in time, like whispers. Also for slow slow slow music (the last of the accordion pieces has a tempo of quarter note 34), which allows me to have lots of time to enjoy individual sounds, to rejoice in the silences, or in the development of their individual vibrations in time, and how they gradually become part of the space that surrounds us, and also become the fabric of our mids. I love that soothing feeling, that suddenly all the interior monologue is gone, is quieted by the music, by a single chord or a single note even, the rest is just silence, the rest is just engulfed by that only sound. I have been very fearful of exploring this field, since of course it's very easy to get lost there and begin doung music like it has already been done, but at the same time it is a world that fascinates me. 

Now my future projects are two mainly: a ballet piece for piano and percussion, and a piece that will be performed in the Rhijnhof cemetery in Leiden, which will be for 3 trombones. I still haven't began either, but soon I will be able to say more about that.

The Rhijnhof cemetery