I have mentioned before my intentions of writing a piece for a friend who is a sopranist. I was fascinated with his voice because he can reach really high notes but he also has a very nice tenor voice, and he can also do weird and very interesting effects with his voice. Together with that, I came across two very interesting texts, which I wanted to use for something. These were the Emerald Tablet (Tabula Smaragdina) and the Prophecy of the Seeress (Völuspá). I also had the idea of writing a bigger-scale work than I have written before, for at least 5 musicians, including voice. All these ideas merged into one, but I still have lots of problems with this.
The first problem is that I am still undecisive about which text to use in the piece. Both texts I chose are very interesting in terms of both content and language. Both are pretty long (the Völuspá is really long, but I intended to make a selection anyway) and both deal in some way with ancient worldviews. I still find myself going from one to the other in my mind, unable to make a choice. I think it is because I feel this would be the only opportunity I have to write a work using either text, which doesn't necessarily have to be so. I could use the unused text in a different occasion.
The second problem is in terms of harmonic language. I find myself constantly recurring to a kind of film-like, dorian (more like the first church-mode) harmonic context, which I feel very unsure of. It feels somewhat unavoidable for the kind of music I want to write and yet I also have the impression that I shouldn't write it in this style because it would be resorting to cliché. But then again, I can use old techniques and still be myself, can I not? I am not copying anyone, I am using some tools to achieve my aims. I think what stops me most from writing this piece is the constant internal battle I have regarding the harmonic language I want to use and the harmonic language I feel I should use.
And here I want to extend a bit on this. I think this has been one of my firecest internal battles in terms of the music I write. I have grown to reject the typical Hollywood-action-blockbuster soundtrack with my soul, because I think they always resort to the same kind of sound, the same chords, the same orchestration for the same special effects, the same chase sequences, the same building-destroying shots and so on. That being said, I also feel that my harmonic sensitivities are always on the tonal side. I have colleagues who can write very "modern-sounding" music with the greates naturality. I, on the other hand, love melodies and chords. I don't mean to say I dislike music that doesn't have this; some of my favorite composers couldn't be considered "tonal" by a far stretch, but still I seem to fail at every attempt I take to try this. I think it is simply because of a lack of interest in this, it sounds "ugly" to my ears when I do it, I feel that, to write this music, one has to come up with some sort of system, which I still haven't discovered. Every time I try to write something outside the tonal system or some weird stretch of it, I feel lost and usually the results are less from satisfying.
From this I have come to the conclusion that, in this period of my life, I am either not ready or not willing to leave the tonal area and its surroundings (large as they are, they are not eternal). I need to find a way of making it my own; I need to understand what can I do with it, in which ways I can stretch it to fit my needs of expression, order but also restraint and apparent lack of order.
I leave you to what I consider to be one of the most wonderful solutions to this problem in the history of music: Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring (choreography by Pina Bausch)
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