Becoming Amy, or Natalie?

Apologies - these posts are somewhat jumbled in order. I’ve been keeping notes of what I should write about when I get the time/get online, but now some of the things I thought about to tell you are quite a way back in the past.

Anyway, this was something that was asked in the Leeds Opera Conference actually - whether you had to have a specific singer in mind when composing. I don’t actually think you do - I think you just need to have a very specific voice type in mind - but obviously if you do know exactly who you are writing for, and they exactly fit what you have in your head, then that’s even better.

So, up until the workshops, I was very much composing Amy with Amy in mind - imagining how she sounded (from descriptions of her speaking in her biography) etc. But after the workshops, and having heard Natalie put her own personality into the part (which of course is what you want!) I’ve started imagining what Natalie’s interpretation of Amy would be, and this I think has had an effect on the music. As I’ve said before I sing a great deal when composing, and whilst writing a bit of what is effectively recit., I found myself mimicking Natalie playing Amy. This really struck me, I don’t know quite why. I suppose that over the time of writing this opera I’ve developed an ear for the minutiae of vocal expression, and it’s wonderful to be able to actually put this into the music. Actually, that reminds me of another question from the conference yesterday - whether I felt I thought that I, rather than a musical director, should direct the rehearsals of the opera. And basically the fact is that I don’t necessarily think I should - one of the joys of hearing other musicians interpret your music is that they sometimes find other things in it after all. But really I feel one of the skills that one needs when composing is to really direct from the score. So that everything, most obviously the dynamics, tempi etc, informs the performer of your intentions. But I also think this can extend to the notes themselves. If a phrase is carefully crafted, especially when set to words, I think the composer can make their intentions very clear. I don’t know whether I’m right or not - I will have to let you know once the rehearsals start!

The Prologue and Interlude

So, yesterday I came up to Leeds for the end of the International Opera Conference to do a brief round table with Adam Strickson and Lauren Redhead, another composer whom Adam has collaborated with. The whole conference looked to be absolutely fascinating and I was sorry not to have been able to attend more (I’m am literally doing only the things I absolutely have to do in order to be able to have enough days to compose. One of the hazards of composing to such a tight deadline is that it takes up sooo much time that you hardly listen to any other music (or at least music that isn’t associated/inspiring the opera) or really do anything else at all, and therefore you run the risk of becoming very dull). But I intend to remedy that once this opera is finished...

Anyway, so after the conference Adam and I met for what turned out to be about 3 hours I think. I played the opera through to him rather badly, and then we discussed the Prologue and Interlude, which until then I hadn’t thought about much, other than reading it through several times. Although after I sent off the scores, I arranged the text out on the floor of the kitchen (I literally do spread all the pages out, in order to get a kind of spatial awareness of the structure of a section) and realised I had so many questions that it would be impossible to start until I’d spoken to Adam.

The questions are all about timings basically - local young actors are going to be involved, and will be acting/speaking in these sections. Some parts will be partly improvised perhaps, so obviously this has great implications on the music - most specifically how long it should be. The other problem is that the stages in Leeds and Bridlington are very different sizes, so, sections of these sections will vary in length in each location. This is fairly new territory for me - I have written a semi-improvised score for a radio play, but with this, there was a great deal of silence. The music would come in for 30 seconds say, and then fade out. I want the music of these two sections of the opera to be constant, so composing a kind of music which isn’t totally inane (just endless repetitions) but that is also adjustable, not just in rehearsal but between performances in different venues, is going to be quite a challenge.

I’m sure once I get down to it things will become clear, and I already have quite specific ideas of the types of music that these sections will contain, but there’s always this sense of slight terror before beginning a new big section of work. Anyhow, it was great to talk to Adam because we were able to time each section (which although not exact at least gives you an idea) and to clarify a great number of things. Adam said it was very useful for him too, as he’d been very busy with other projects, and had not really thought about these sections lately, but with rehearsals for the choir and for the actors approaching, it was becoming a necessity.

I will try to blog about this properly, but, briefly, the Prologue is set in 1934, and the Interlude 2010. So, I’m basically planning to use influences from these two years in the music.

Basically (almost) my every waking moment has been concentrated on this opera. So, when I’ve been cleaning up or (on very rare occasions) cooking, I’ve been listening to either music from the 1930’s or from 2010. I downloaded every number 1 hit in 2010 the other day, and have been listening to them on loop (crikey there’s a variety of quality). But I’ve gradually been getting more and more inspiration, so that’s good. Obviously, these sections won’t simply be pastiches, but in the Interlude for instance, the young people come in with their iPods, listening to music, and the instruction is for music with a strong beat in the libretto, so, well, it would be fair to surmise that what they would be listening to. Anyway, more on this when I actually work out what I’m going to write and how I’m going to write it.

Piano score sent off!

Hello, and sorry for the massive gap in postings. Two days ago I sent the full piano score off to everybody, all the singers, the repetiteur, conductor etc. So the main bit of the opera (e.g. the bit just involving the professional singers) is done! I still have about 30 mins of music to write, but a lot of this will be fairly repetitive/background music underneath talking/acting etc. Still a massive amount of work to do but the psychological relief of sending my 132 page, 62 minute score off was quite massive!

With something of this length, even ‘small’ jobs take ages - working out the metronome marks for the whole work took 12 hours, putting in dynamics another full day, and instructions (‘sadly’ etc) a good half day. It was strange, I found putting words to the emotions I had created in the music very hard - it’s almost as if I’d worked out so specifically exactly what I wanted in the notes, that it had gone beyond words. Either that or I’ve been composing so much that I’ve lost the ability to use the English language properly. I expect it’s a bit of both.

So, still a lot to do. Orchestrate, and write the material for the Prologue and Interlude, which, to be honest, is newish territory for me...I’ll explain why in the next pos

Quick Update

Hello...

Sorry to have not blogged for so long. I'm really in the final stages of writing the piano score of the main bit of the opera now - probably about a day away in fact. Hope to write about it soon....but suffice to say things have been going well but I'm totally knackered! Opera writing is such a long haul and I don't think I've ever written so much music in this amount of time.

That's it for now, but hope to get back to this in a few days after I have got a complete piano score for the main body (i.e. not including the bits with spoken dialogue over them which the community groups will be involved in) in a few days time....

Do think of me over Easter as I shall be at the desk for all of it...must pick up some chocolate to see me through...

A Bigger Picture

So, this week I went with my Mum to see David Hockney’s A Bigger Picture Exhibition. Although I was really looking forward to it I was worried about having a day away from composing, particularly as the day before I’d had to force myself to stay at my desk. For some reason some days I just really can’t be bothered to compose. Anyway, so I got a bit done but it felt like running through mud.

You can see details of the exhibition here.

But, the day off at the Royal Academy of the Arts did me the power of good, and I got a really good idea whilst in the exhibition! I think it’s something to do with the fact that when you’re in the middle of writing, everything seems pertinent or relevant. But as it happens many of the pictures in Hockney’s exhibition are of the area that Amy would have flown over (he lives in Bridlington now the majority of the exhibition was made up of painting of the lanscape in the surrounding area). One of the pictures (I wish I could remember the name) was almost like an aerial view of the local landscape - probably from the viewpoint of higher ground but it could have easily been the view from a low flying plane. This painted view of the fields from above, in vibrant colours gave me an idea for the harmonic structure of the last section of the opera, which could be said to be a hymn to the glory of flying.

So, anyway, I’m thrilled about this, as I’m just about to begin this section, and feel newly inspired.

You can see details of the exhibition here.

It got me thinking about perspective too - in the opera are we looking up at Amy and Jim flying, are we in the plane with looking down at the lanscape, or are we viewing them from the air (as if in a separate plane)? Well, I realised when looking back at the music I’ve written that it’s all three (at different times). I don’t know that’s that’s particularly pertinent, but it just struck me the other day...I suppose however that some of these things only occur to you after you’ve composed certain bits - and it’s amazing how structurally things seem to fit into place, sometimes unconsciously. I’ve been surprised how well some of my themes fit together - when, in for instance a coda, the text harks back to previous material and I’ve tried to bring back the melodies associated with that material too. It’s nice to have surprises like that.

More anon. I have to make myself start this section. So far today I have done every piece of admin possible, in order to delay starting...

Scene finished!

Erm, I thought that I’d have some really interested things to say about how my plans altered, how I did something drastically different from what I said I would do in the last post, but, it pretty much went to plan. So, erm, that’s it for today!

On Saturday, everything crystalized. I thought I’d tell you how.

On Saturday 25th February I got all the ideas for the Atlantic crossing. Days like this are great. I haven’t known how to set this bit for a while, couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but now, after weeks of putting it out of my mind and writing other bits instead, it finally all came together. Days like this are also great because one feels one does a tremendous amount of work with hardly any effort, which in my book is really the way it should always be but never is. Things click into place, things which were perplexing suddenly become obvious, and connections become apparent and tangible between things and other things that previously seemed totally unrelated.

As soon as everything came together I had to stop, as I had to go to a performance of a piano trio of mine the next day, and now as I type am on my way up to Leeds to teach. But I thought I’d put down on paper all my thoughts about how I’m going to compose this section first, before I actually write it, and then, when I’ve finished it in a week or so, I’ll tell you what I actually did.

The last section that I set involved Amy and Jim embarking on their joint Atlantic crossing. I think I wrote about this earlier in the post about Jim Mollison. The part that I was worried about was the section directly after this - where they start to run out of fuel and then crash.

So, it’s basically a section in two parts - they start off in England in the first part, run out of fuel over the USA and crash in the second. I wanted to represent the change of continents with a change in harmony - in simple terms from English pastoral to New York cool. So the first sections are based around E and F chords, moving in to F sharp majory/minory chords in the second (as they just ‘fit’ to me). The first bit is set to a sort of off-kilter waltz (see a few blogs back) and the second will be completely different - variable time signatures etc with very likely a constant quaver motion running throughout.

Thinking about pacing, this is going to move rather fast, and the rhythm is going to be repetitive but with ‘spluttering’ breaks in it that will increase due to the gradual failure of the engine (as it runs out of petrol). Harmony-wise, I spent an hour or so looking through Mark Levine’s Jazz Piano book, as I wanted to find jazz influenced harmony that would sound very ‘urban’: I think to Jim New York might be some kind of socialising mecca. The chapter on upper structure chords was what I was looking for, and in fact simply playing through the table of the 9 upper structure chords sounds really great on it’s own. In other parts of the opera the chords span a wide distance - sometimes in a five note chord each interval may be more than an octave apart. In this section I am going to keep the top and bottom notes of the chord quite close together - probaby under two octaves. This is partly just for variety, and partly because I want to use write chord melodies, with all the parts playing in parallel motion, going up and down mimicking the motion of the airplane as Amy continually urges Jim to get the nose higher and circle in order to lessen the impact of the crash. This will be more apparent if the chords are quite narrow in range as they will be able to go up and down over wide distances without going out of intrumental ranges. The vocal parts are going to be quite rapidly delivered - they are after all in increasing panic, so they may be quite recitative-like over the busy orchestral writing.

Well, I think that’s as good a place as any to stop for now. I’d better get on with writing it...