What is the process of music creation?

What is the process of music creation? How to create music? Let’s take a look with me.

Most people want to know how items are made. But when it comes to how a piece of music is written, people readily admit that they are completely baffled. Where the composer began and how he continued to write—that is, how and where he learned his craft—is surrounded by an impenetrable darkness. In short, to most people the composer is a mysterious figure and his creative studio an inaccessible ivory tower.

The first question that several people want to hear first is the question of inspiration related to creation. They found it hard to believe when they discovered that the composer didn't think about it as much as they thought. It is always difficult for a layman to realize how natural composition comes to the composer, who tends to put himself in the composer's shoes and observe the issues involved, including issues of inspiration, from a layman's perspective. He forgot that composing music was like fulfilling a natural duty for the composer, just like eating and sleeping. This was what the composer was born to do; and because of this, composing lost this specialness in the composer's eyes. efficiency.

Therefore, when facing the problem of inspiration, the composer does not say to himself: "Do I have inspiration now?" but: "Do I want to compose music today? If he wants to, he will compose music." This is somewhat like saying to yourself: Am I worried? If you feel depressed, go to sleep. If you don’t feel depressed, don’t sleep. If a composer doesn't want to compose music, he doesn't compose it. The problem is that simple.

Of course, after you finish composing the music, you hope that everyone (including yourself) will admit that this piece of music was inspired by you. But actually this was added last.

A man once asked me in a public forum if I was waiting for inspiration to come. My answer is: ?Every day!? But this does not mean passively waiting for God-given inspiration. This is what separates professionals from superficial dabblers. A professional composer can sit there and write a certain type of music day after day, and the writing on some days will undoubtedly be better than on others, but the first thing is to have the ability to create. Because inspiration is often just a by-product. The second question that arouses most people's interest is: Do you use piano when composing music? There is a popular view nowadays that composing on piano is unseemly, which reminds me of Beethoven composing in the fields. As long as you think about it for a moment, you will realize that composing music without piano today is no longer as simple as it was in the days of Mozart or Beethoven. One of the reasons is that harmony is much more complicated than in the past. Nowadays, few composers can do it without reference at all. The effect of the piano was enough to write down the entire piece. In fact, Stravinsky even said in his "Autobiography" that it was a mistake to compose without a piano, because the composer could not do without "acoustic materials" for a moment. To say this is to go to the other extreme, but in the final analysis, how to write is a personal issue for the composer. The method is not important, what is important is the result.

The really important question is: What does the composer start with? Where does he start? The answer is: Every composer starts with music. You must know that this music is not thinking or words. or ultra-musical. Suddenly a theme came up (theme is used as a synonym for music). The composer begins with this theme, and this theme is God-given. He didn't know where it came from - he couldn't control it. The theme arrives like unconscious writing. Therefore, the composer often carries a small notebook with him. Once the theme comes, he writes it down and collects his musical ideas. No one can do anything about this element of composition.

Enjoyment may come in different forms. It could be a melody—just a melody that you can hum to yourself. Or it may have appeared in the composer's mind as a melody with accompanying accompaniment. Sometimes he doesn't even hear the melody, but just imagines an accompaniment pattern, and then maybe adds a melody to this pattern. Alternatively, the theme may appear as a purely rhythmic pattern. He heard a special drumming sound, and that was enough to make him take action. Over the drumming, he soon hears accompaniment and melody. However, the first thing that comes to mind is the rhythm.

Another type of composer might use counterpoint to weave together two or three melodies heard simultaneously. But inspiration for such a theme is relatively rare.

All of these are different ways in which musical ideas appear in the composer's mind. The composer has an idea, jots down a number of them in a little notebook, and then examines them in the same way that a listener might examine them when he sees them. He wanted to know what he had. He examines musical lines from the perspective of pure formal beauty. He wanted to see the way the line rose and fell, as if it were a drawn line rather than a musical line. He even attempted to modify it, as one would modify it when painting, in order to refine the rise and fall of the melodic contours.

But he also wanted to know the emotional significance of the theme. If all music has expressive value, the composer must be aware of the expressive value of his subject. He may not be able to express it in many words, but he can feel it! He knows intuitively whether his subject is joyful or sad, sublime or evil. Sometimes even he himself could not figure out its exact nature. But sooner or later he intuits the emotional nature of his subject, for that is what he is processing.

Always remember that a theme is just a succession of notes after all. The emotion expressed by the same continuous string of notes can be changed simply by changes in dynamics, that is, playing loud and bold or playing soft and timid. By changing the harmony, you can add new strong emotions to the theme; by changing the rhythm processing, you can turn the same notes into a fighting dance instead of a lullaby. Every composer has in his own mind a way of transforming his own sequence of notes. First he sought to understand its nature, and then what to do with it—how to change its properties in an instant.

In fact, the experience of most composers is that the more complete a theme is, the less likely it is to view it from different aspects. If the original theme is already quite long and complete, it may be difficult for the composer to change it because it is already in a fixed form, so great works of music can be composed based on themes that are not important in themselves. We might as well say that the less complete and unimportant the subject is, the easier it is to give it a new meaning. Some of Bach's most remarkable organ fugues are based on relatively boring themes.

The current view that music will be beautiful as long as the theme is beautiful is untenable in many cases. Of course, composers cannot judge their themes by this criterion alone.

After the composer has thought about his subject material, he must decide which sound medium is most suitable. Is it a theme suitable for a symphony, or is it more intimate in nature and therefore more suitable for a string ensemble? Is it suitable for a lyrical theme of a song, or is it more suitable for an opera because of its dramatic character? Sometimes composers The creation is already half done before figuring out the most appropriate sound medium.

So far I have been assuming an abstract composer dealing with an abstract subject. But I think there are actually three different types of composers in the history of music, each of which conceives of music in somewhat different ways.

The composers who best capture the public imagination are naturally inspired composers—in other words, Schubert types. Of course, all composers are inspired, but this composer's inspiration comes more naturally. The music just came out of him like a fountain, and he didn't even have time to write it down. This type of composer can be identified from his prolific output. Schubert wrote a song every day during certain months. The same goes for Hugo Wolfe.

In a sense, the creation of this kind of person does not start from a musical theme so much as it starts from a complete work. They are all good at writing relatively short works. It's much easier to improvise a song than it is to improvise a symphony. It's not easy to be inspired naturally over a long period of time. Even Schubert was more successful with shorter musical forms. Naturally inspired composers are just one type of composer, and they have their own limitations.

Beethoven symbolizes the second type - which may be called the structural type.

This genre, more than any other, facilitates the articulation of my theory of the musical composition process, since in this case the composer literally begins with a musical theme. There is no doubt that this was the case with Beethoven, for we have notebooks in which he recorded the subject at the time. These notebooks show how he worked on his subjects and would not rest until they were perfect. Beethoven is not at all a composer who is naturally sensitive like Schubert. Rather, he is the kind of composer who starts from a theme, makes it sprout, and then works day and night on this basis to create a musical work tirelessly. Home. Most composers after Beethoven fall into this category.

Due to the lack of a proper noun, I can only call the third type of composers traditionalists. Composition icons like Palestrina and Bach fall into this category. They are representative figures born in a specific period in music history when the development of a certain music genre is about to reach its peak. The problem in this period is to compose in familiar and recognized genres and to surpass those who have gone before.

Beethoven and Schubert start from different premises. They both seriously demanded originality! Schubert virtually single-handedly invented the song form; with Beethoven the whole face of music changed. Bach and Palestrina simply improved upon the original.

Traditionalist composers do not so much start with a theme as they start with a form. Palestrina's creation is not so much the conception of a theme as the personal treatment of a fixed form. Even Bach, who conceived the forty-eight most varied and inspired themes in the Well-Tempered Clavier, had mastered the model of this general form in advance. Needless to say, we are not living in the age of traditionalists.

For the sake of completeness, we might as well add a fourth type of composer—the avant-garde: such as Gesualdo in the sixteenth century, Mussorgsky and Berling in the nineteenth century. Lioz, Debussy and Edgar in the twentieth century?

Edger Varese. It is difficult to generalize about the creative methods of such different composers. It's safe to say that their creative approach is diametrically opposed to that of the traditionalists. They were clearly opposed to traditional solutions to musical problems, and in many ways their attitude was experimental - they sought to add new harmonies, new sonorities, new formal principles. The avant-garde was distinctive from the end of the sixteenth century to the beginning of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, but today the characteristics of the avant-garde have been greatly diminished.

Now let’s return to our theoretical composer. We can see him and his music, he has some idea of ??the expressive nature of his music, he knows how to apply his music, and he has thought in advance which genre will be most suitable. But he has yet to write a piece of music. Musical thinking is not the same as writing a piece of music, it can only lead to a piece of music. Composers know that something else is needed to complete a piece.

First of all, he tried to find some musical ideas that seemed to match the original musical ideas. These ideas may have similar characteristics to the original idea, or they may contrast with it. These additional ideas may not be as important as the original ideas - they usually serve only a supporting role. However, these musical thoughts seem to be necessary in order to complete the first musical thought. But that's not enough! You have to find a way to get from one thought to another, and this is usually done using "passthrough materials".

There are two other important ways for composers to process their original material. One is the extension method. Composers often find it necessary to prolong a particular theme in order to give it a more distinct character. Wagner was a master of elongation. Another approach is involved when I think of the composer's exploration of the possibilities of structural variation of his theme, which is the development of the material that many people have written about, which is a very important part of composition.

All of this is necessary for the creation of a large-scale piece of music - the embryonic musical idea, the addition of secondary musical ideas, the extension of the musical idea, and the transition material that connects the musical ideas. , and the full development of these musical thoughts. After that comes the most difficult task - welding all the materials together to make it a coherent whole.

In the finished work, everything must fall into place. The listener must be able to understand the context of the piece. There must be no chance of confusing the main subject with incidental material. The work must have a beginning, a middle and an end; the composer's task is to make the listener always aware of which of the above he is hearing. Above all, the whole piece must be arranged so carefully that it is not apparent where the welding begins, where the composer's natural creativity stops and the hard work begins.

Of course, I am not saying that the composer must start from scratch when weaving the material together. On the contrary, as a matter of idiomatic means, every well-trained composer possesses certain formal structural models as the basic structure of his works. The formal models I'm talking about were gradually developed through countless composers working together over hundreds of years to find a way to ensure the coherence of their works. What these forms are, and in what way exactly the composer relies on them, will be dealt with in the following chapters.

No matter which form the composer decides to adopt, he always has one pressing requirement: this form must have the "long line" I heard about in my student days.

For laymen, the meaning of this word is difficult to explain. To properly understand the meaning of "long line" in a piece of music, one must feel it, which means, literally, that a good piece of music must give us a sense of flow - a sense of flow from the first note. A sense of continuity to the last note. Every junior music student knows this principle, but how to apply it has challenged the greatest musicians! A great symphony is like a man-made Mississippi River, and we know it from the time it leaves its shore. Follow the river inexorably toward its distant, foreseen end. Music must always flow because this is part of its nature, yet the creation of this continuity and fluidity - the long line - is what determines the success or failure of every composer. ;