Problems with my new piece

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)

Being home

A couple of weeks ago, I came back to Chile for the summer vacations. Apart from the fact that I got a really bad cold that has lasted already exactly a week, it has been a very nice, quiet and relaxed time. At first, I must say I had mixed feelings about coming back for the vacations. I mean, there was no choice, the tickets were bought, but still I felt kind of uneasy coming back home after living alone for so long, it is always difficult to get used again to being again under your parents' roof (with all that entails) after you have had so much time making your own decisions and choices.

It was a good time, though. I have rested a lot and slept a lot, both because I have vacations and because my mom cooks (she cooks delicious also) and I also don't have to worry (too much, at least) about cleaning and stuff like that. Also, I don't share the same vacation period as my friends that study here, since here they are already beginning their second semester of classes, so I have a lot of time to myself, and time with my mom. 

This has served me to reflect upon how my previous year in The Hague was, and what can I learn from it in order to have an even better second year starting this September. 

The first thing I realized was that this previous year I was not as focused in my studies as I would have liked to be. This doesn't mean at all that I wasn't focused, just that maybe I got distracted more often than I would have liked and that I could have been more productive in my studies. For this, I need this year to be more organized with the use of my time and also be more strict with myself, not letting myself be lazy (which is one of my biggest problems). This year I will also be having violin lessons, so I need to be organized enough to have time to compose, study and practice violin. 

The second thing is that I didn't manage my living budget very well, so I sometimes spent more than I should have. This overspending was basically due to two things: food and travel. It's not that I ate lots and lots, but that I ate out more than I should (i.e. more than my budget allowed) and I travelled aproximately once every two months, This, of course, meant I spent much more money than I was meant to on a given month. To fix this, I need to travel less and cook my own meals as much as possible. By doing this I will reduce very much my expenses. On top of this, I plan to look for some sort of part-time job to also have a small income to help finance this (my study visa allows for a maximum of 10 hours a week of work, which I think is also the amount of time I will have to work anyway). 

The third thing is that I realized that, despite all my efforts, I gained weight and started developing a belly (oh the horror). This I think is also related to my eating habits, which were a bit too disorganized and also due to the fact that I was not so consistent in my gym-goings. So this year I will try to cook my own meals to eat healthier and also go to the gym at least three times a week, maybe occasionally going out biking long distances on weekends and holidays. 

So this was my little reflection about my last year, and the three points I wanted to improve for next year. I hope I can make it, but even if I make a small progress towards this ideal, I will feel accomplished. It's all about being organized in the end. 

New project

Remember that piece I was planning to write using the text in Latin? Well, in the end I changed the idea a bit. Now I am going to use a different text. It is called the Völuspá (The Prophecy of the Seeress), it comes from Viking mythology, from a collection of epic poems called the Prose Edda. It deals with the creation and the destruction of the Earth, with a subsequent rebirth.

Artistic depiction from one of the final scenes of the Völuspá, when

Thor fights Jörmungandr, the serpent. He is succesful but mortally wounded, 

and is only capable of taking 9 steps before dying.

I like this idea more for several reasons. The first is that the text is much more appealing to me, it is very epic and it deals with themes that have always interested me, such as the Nordic gods, the orgin of life, the end of the world, epic battles, and mythological creatures such as Jörmungandr (the great serpent). Secondly, the text itself has already a kind of rhythm which I can use to give more structure to the music. Third, I can make selections from the text because all the different stanzas are clearly separated. The other text was a very compact whole and I would have to use it entirely for it to make sense. 

The fourth reason is also a main difficulty of using this text, which is the fact that I plan to use the original in Old Norse language. This is very appealing since I love the sound of this language, it is very archaic and perfect for the kind of music I want to write. But it is a major difficulty when trying to explain to the musicians how to pronounce the words correctly, since it has lots of very uncommon sounds and the writing system can be unfamiliar (although it uses the Latin alphabet). To solve this, I have thought of recording myself reading the fragments of the poem I want to use, and give this recording to the musicians, so that they can listen to the pronunciation. I also found a video on YouTube where a man chants part of the Völuspá, so I might also include that. Luckily, there are plenty of resources in the internet regarding the pronunciation of Old Norse, like this, which is I must say a bit daunting. Still, I know it will be a major difficulty of the piece, especially for the singer, since he will have to deal with the text the most, but I have faith in him.

The Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavík, Iceland. I know, it's a Christian building,

but still it has to me at least the feeling of Nordic epicness.

Also I think it is very interesting the fact that I am going to collaborate with a male singer that has a soprano voice range. This kind of ambiguity is also perfect for what I want, since the poem is narrated by a Völva, a Seeress, a woman who gets into trance and can speak to the gods, see the future or register can and the past and give advice based on that. I think that having very extreme changes in range from a high soprano voice to a tenor voice can add to this sense of being in a trance, of speaking with many voices. 

In terms of instrumentation I am keeping the choices I had for the previous idea, plus some percussion. So the instrumentation in all will be 2 harpsichords, accordion, cello and percussion apart from the singer.

I am very excited about this, I think this idea can have a very ncie result, now I just need to sit down and begin writing, slowly but surely.

I leave you now with a traditional song from Iceland, telling the story of a man that dies because he refused the love of a mermaid to save his soul for Jesus Christ.

I have no idea what this other song is about, but it's really cool. Apparently it's about Siegfried (the one from the Nibelungenlied) portrayed as a dragon slayer.

Final exam tomorrow

In approximately 12 hours I have my final composition exam for my first year. I want to have a moment to reflect on how my year has been, what did I learn, what did I leave behind and what lies ahead (at least in my mind now).

This year was a year of lots of changes and lots of new experiences. It is the first time when I have had so many performances of my pieces. It has been a very enriching experience to work with performers because I learned how to express myself more clearly, which influences the way in which I approach notation. I realized that sometimes all the expression indications are redundant and that the music can speak for itself, only needing maybe an f or p to give the reference of intensity. Before, I used very 19th century-style indications like "moderato cantabile." Now I think this kind of indications are superfluous and a simple metronome mark or concise tempo indication is enough. For the acordion pieces, I wrote short pharses that dictate more the mood of the piece, but in a very abstract way. For other pieces, I just wrote metronome markings. For other pieces, none of these were used bu I recurred to other ways of determining the tempi, such as breath length or just the performers' free choice. 

In a more structural way, I started to focus on more simple material, and trying to develop it as deeply as I can or want, but always focusing on very few elements at a time. This especially happened from the second of the accordion pieces onwards. Oh tiempo tus pirámides was a greakthrough in this sense, where I focused on very simple rhythmic motives that were almost not even developed throughout the piece but were just repeated and recombined with other elements, but always very simply and almost like crystal. I also dared more to explore the world of silence, of the space between the notes. It is a fascinating phenomenon to realize how one can create so many different atmospheres just by insinuating a contour with a few notes and silences. It is also a very counter-intuitive way of performing for most classically trained musicians, who are used ot more 19th century music that is sound all the time. 

I also went away from the kind of faux-romantic style that predominated my school years. I was very influenced by the mid-late romantic composers and I wanted to write music like them. I don't reject this period in my life, I learned a lot from it, but now I am more interested in simplicity, in creating musical structures that are pure and simple and elegant without being pedantic. I like this way because I think music like this creates lots of space for meditation and slef-kowledge. In an ideal or naive expectation, I would like to affect the people that listen to my music in that way, to make them feel at peace with themselves and the world, to have a moment to rest from the noise of the world. 

What lies ahead? Well for now I have 3 projects in mind. The first, which I think I can finish quite soon, is to write a cadenza for the first and second movements of Haydn's Piano Concerto in D Major. My sister is studying it and I offered to write her a cadenza to play with it. I already have some ideas for it. The second is the piece I mentioned before based on the Tabula Smaragdina. The piece will be approximately half an hour long and the instrumentation is singer (sopranist), accordion, cello and two harpsichords. My idea is that using two harpsichords will give more depth and increase the possibility for multiple voices sounding at the same time. And the third piece will be a collection of short pieces for fortepiano inspired on paintings by Giger (I also mentioned this a while ago), to pay him an homage after his death. After that, I have more ideas but they are all still quite blurry (a piece for solo harpsichord, a piece for organ, another for two pianos and one for solo violin, and also I thought of one for solo singing bowl), also, I just prefer to focus on what I have clear now before I begin wandering around mroe and more different ideas. It confuses me.

I am excited and a bit nervous for my exam tomorrow. But at least for me this year has been completely worht it, I am really satisfied with what I have done, I learned a lot and I feel like coming here has been one of the best decisions I have made in my life so far. I feel really fortunate to be here and to have learned so much. 

And I am feeling inspired tonight so I will end this post with a simple mantra.

ॐ शान्ति शान्ति शान्तिः

Recordings!

This week I finally got the recordings from the performance of two of my latest pieces. I've already talked a lot about them here, the first one is the vocal piece with the text in Sanskrit, which was finally titled as Pavamana Abhyaroha; the second one is the piece for accordion, the Trois tableaux.

I feel really satisfied with both performances, all the musicians with whom I worked were really interested and involved in the project and they all gave their best to perform my pieces. Also most of them liked the music very much, which is great at many levels. First, it makes me feel reallu happy that someone likes what I do, then it results in the musicians enjoying to play the pieces, this results in the pieces sounding great, which results in the audiences also liking the music. So, it's a win-win.

I was a bit doubtful with the title of the accordion piece being in French, because I feel that it could sound very pretentious, and the intention of the piece was quite the opposite. But in the end I decided to keep it, because in my mind the accordion sound and the idea of the piece has a kind of Parisian air to it that I thought was highlighted by the titles in French, there is no more reason for it. The thing is that still I don't feel that Trois tableaux is a great title for it, it's a bit bland, so I guess I have to think a bit more about it.

The métro in Paris

The other piece was completely satisfying to me. It was great because the organizers of the concert decided to project on the background the texts of all the pieces that were performed (they were all vocal pieces). I sent mine in the original script (in Devanagari, one of the scripts used for Sanskrit), so the audience (unless there was some person that knew Sanskrit) had no idea what the text meant, which is good because I always felt that the translation of the text sounds to preachy and cheesy.

So, without further ado, here are the links.

Pavamana Abhyaroha, performed by Jasper Leever (voice) and Ivan Pavlov (piano) at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. April 22, 2014.

Trois tableaux, performed by Robbrecht van Cauwenberghe (accordion) at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. April 25, 2014.

A thousand acid alien tears for Giger

Two days ago, in Zürich, R. H. Giger died, he was 74. He was, to me, one of the greatest artists that ever lived. He suffered from chronic night terrors, which means that he had horrible nightmares every time he went to sleep, and he painted them. To me, he was like a window into the dark parts of the soul, into our own suffering, which I think is one of the most important things we need to understand, because that makes us realize our own frailty. His art is really dark and sometimes very disturbing, but also very humand and beautiful. He creates impossible machines, or robots, or aliens which reflect at the same time such deep states of mind. But to me it's also the fact that his art is just so perfect and beautiful and moving in every way. 

Here is an article to the Huffington Post piece on his death.

"My paintings seem to make the strongest impression on people who are, well, who are crazy. If they like my work they are creative ... or they are crazy."

For all my geek friends over there, you will recognize this... yes? no?

It's part of the concept art for Alien!

And this one is one of my favorites actually...

Now thinking about him and the deep impression his art has always had on me, I think that maybe I should write a piece in his honor, to pay my respects to such a great artist. I don't think anything I do could be up to the task, but I guess he would have appreciated it even if it was modest in its attempt. I decided to change completely the concept for my fortepiano piece and rather make it an in memoriam for him, forgetting a bit about Beethoven.

New pieces in process

I was absent from the blog for quite a while since there was a really big festival organized by the composition department, the Spring Festival, and I had two pieces performed (the accordion pieces and the vocal piece in sanskrit) and played in two other pieces by my friends. It was a great week, with over 12 concerts concentrated in 4 days, but at the end of it I was exhausted, I slept for 4 days in a row barely leaving my house. 

Now I began three new pieces, one of which I think is finished. 

The first one, the one that is finished or almost finished, is a piece that will be performed in the rhijnhof cemetery in June. I already mentioned it before, it's a piece for beer bottles. I decided to make it as free as possible, the score is just a text indicating what kind of sounds can be made from the bottles, what kind of texture should be aimed for and how to end the piece. I hope that with some two or three rehearsals this piece can be ready to be performed. It is by far the most free thing that I have ever written. I wonder what my teachers will think about it, but I didn't do it just for laziness, I genuinely think that this is the only way to obtain the texture that I want, and also the state of mind of the performers.

The second one is a piece for solo fortepiano that a friend asked me to write. The fortepiano is the parent instrument of the modern piano, but it has a very different timbre, and very different sonoric capabilities. It has in general a softer sound than the modern piano, but it compensates by having a very clear lower register, which in the modern piano is in general very muddy. What I decided to to with it is "deconstruct" the Sonata op. 2 no. 1 by Beethoven in different ways for each of the movements. The first movement is almost readyin its first draft form. It basically consists of a mega-extension of the last two bars of the first movement of the Beethoven sonata, which is just the final cadence. For the second movement I have the idea of making a "minimalization" of the second movement of the sonata, adding lots of silences and deleting as many notes from the original as possible, so that the shape is still at least vaguely implied but the texture is completely disappeared. For the third movement, I wanted to write a different dance, now one inspired in the dances from the region north of Chile, south of Bolivia, but still using in some way (that I haven't yet thought about very deeply) the material from the third movement of Beethoven. I still have no ideas for the fourth movement, but it will be very fast, that I know for sure.

I hope I won't make the old man angry with my music.

The third piece is in stand-by mode for the moment. It will be a piece for two harpsichords, accordion and singer. The text is the Tabula Smaragdina, a XII century alchemic text in latin, which deals with the nature of the unvierse and the origin of all matter (the One Thing from which all came, and that kind of stuff). I don't particularly believe in that, but I find it very interesting to use a text in latin that does not relate to the Roman Catholic ritual. Also, latin is one of my favorite languages, and the text is actually quite interesting.

An image inspired by the Tabula Smaragdina, 

it's not less weird and epic than the original text.