So, that’s it then. This time last year I was about to start my Master’s at the University of Surrey, and last Tuesday I handed in my final piece of work. It’s been quite a ride: >25,000 words of commentary and analysis, 50 compositional sketches and experiments, 10 fully scored and recorded ensemble compositions of various sizes, two solo recitals, a competition appearance, one piece of musical theatre(!), a handful of both informal and formal academic presentations, two semesters of lectures and seminars, and 100s of hours of independent study and practice. And, as I say, now it’s all over. It feels a bit weird, and perhaps inevitably somewhat of an anti-climax.
I was on campus for one final time last Wednesday, to return a handful of scores to the library, but mostly I was there to see my fellow students give their final recitals, which ran the gamut from Mozart to Villa Lobos, Randy Newman to Copland. Needless to say, I thought they all smashed it, as my daughter says, although there were a lot of nerves on display before the show! Having performed my own recitals in the previous semesters, I declined this time (for reasons I outlined here). I felt an odd mixture of disappointment and relief at merely being an audience member this time.
What I settled on delivering as my final submission instead was a fully scored and recorded 30-minute work for small ensemble: mezzo-soprano, viola, guitar, vibraphone, and pre-recorded atmospheres. Having worked with fellow student Yi Zhang on a set of Elizabeth Barrett Browning settings earlier in the year, I wanted to take vocal writing further. An obvious route was to set Chinese poetry, and after background research I settled on the Tang-era poet Li Bai1 (701-762 CE), considered one of China’s greatest poets. I'll post a score video as a YouTube video as soon as I can, but in the meantime, here it is on Soundcloud:
Knowing that things were going to get busy on the work front in September, I did the bulk of the research, compositional work, and scoring over the summer, consulting with Yi on the vocal setting and the Brighton-based viola player Ellie Blackshaw on the viola writing. I then recorded Yi, Ellie and my own guitar playing in September. With little time to rehearse, the music was recorded one part at a time, often just a few bars at a time, and the final assembly in Logic required 1000s of painstaking edits, perhaps robbing the piece of some spontaneity. The electro-acoustic interludes were an attempt to combine my previous practice with a more rigorous harmonic framework.
Once I get my final marks and feedback, I'll post my commentary on this blog. In the meantime, in a somewhat stream of consciousness, a few thoughts on finally completing the programme, and where it's taken me.
Although I can't really "hear" the piece at this point, having been so close to it for so long, I can nonetheless say that it would have been inconceivable for me to have created something like it this time last year. As a previous (mostly) auto-didact, I've been blown away by the impact of this year's teaching. As I say in my commentary: "I’m happy that the overall results reflect a real integration of many of the compositional approaches covered this year, and the piece represents a substantial step forward for me in terms of compositional technique and range."
Of course, I've totally thrown myself at every assignment over the year, acquiring a huge number range of technical skills and aesthetic understanding along the way.
It has been fantastic working with Yi and Ellie. To work with highly trained and supremely capable musicians as a, let's be honest, fledging composer, has been a real delight and honour.
On the subject of being a fledgling composer, one of the real breakthroughs for me this year was raiding the university library for scores, which I would study while listening to recordings. It's opened up my ears, and to some extent eyes, and given me innumerable pointers in terms of texture, harmony, and orchestration. But it's had a down-side, too: occasionally it's been dispiriting to look at my own jejune scores alongside those I'm studying. Only this morning I was reading and listening through Jonathan Harvey's Rabindranath Tagore settings "Song Offerings", all the while thinking, "Christ, this makes my stuff sound like the Ramones - and without the cool". Yes, I get it, it's a process, but really!
While I'm talking about Harvey, he's one of the composers I'll be studying in much more depth over the coming months (or years); the other two are Messiaen and Takemitsu. Make of that what you will, but for me they encapsulate a sound world to which I'm drawn ineluctably. (Saariaho and Radigue are in there too, I think).
But in the meantime, I have a lot of remedial work to do, specifically around harmony, counterpoint, and orchestration. Back to those classic Walter Piston tracts! It's worth remembering that I tapped out on my music theory grades at 7. We've covered some pretty deep and abstruse ground over the last year, and while it hasn't always come easy, I've kinda got there. But I do wonder how much easier it might have been had I been on more solid theoretical ground. No, maybe being a bit more assured in say, figured bass realisation wouldn't have helped with Neo-Reimanian Theory. But then again it might have. Voice-leading is voice-leading, after all. Not sure what I'm saying here other than that I've got to sort some shit out before I go any further, whatever that route takes.
And finally, the aspect of my musical practice that's really suffered this year has been my guitar playing as I've had to redirect so much of my daily music "time" to compositional and theoretical practice from the rather more mundane pursuit of practicing guitar. Well, I've gotta get down to it now. There are performances on the immediate horizon (very immediate in one case: the Brighton Guitar Quartet are playing at the Unitarian Church in Brighton this coming Saturday!); and of course, the Performance Diploma I abandoned once lockdowns kicked in is now back on the cards. So, much work to be done!
That's it for now, then; not an especially eloquent - nor particularly structured - set of musings, but they're what come to mind a week on from finishing this exhilarating, if at times bruising, year.
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