Composing

[musicman5string]

Hello again all-
Hey, how many of you guys compose here? How do you compose, what are you influenced by, do you do write charts, arrange, etc?
Thought it would be cool to discuss....

Personally, while I've always liked to write, in a variety of styles, I've only in the last few months started to gather together material to chart out, arrange, and hire a band to record. I'm pretty excited about it. It's going to be an acoustic jazz project. I've got an electric one in the works also, but that will wait until the other is done. Usually I write on piano and record on Protools to arrange ideas, etc. (yeah, the horn sounds I have aren't the best, but work well for arranging).
Please share your experiences with composing....

[Bass Catcher]

In January I made a new years resolution to compose more. It's worked quite well so far. I'm taking it very seriously and trying to set aside at least 15 minutes a day - everyday. I'm finding that this consistency is what helps me. Funny! You'd think I would have realized that by now - as consistency is huge when playing your instrument.

I usually compose on the piano. However I'm somewhat limited on it - as I can play most anything as a single line, but I struggle a lot with playing two lines at once. For that I sometimes use my Line 6 loop pedal, but that is presenting lots of limitations too. I can only have one loop at a time, and the loop can only be 15 seconds long. I'm thinking about getting a keyboard so I can input my ideas into my computer.

If I want to compose something that is more technically challenging, I might compose on my basses.

[Clay_Bass]

I write alot. As for arranging my harmonizing sucks. But for my group counter melodies etc tend to work out better so I can get away with it.

I am studying composition and arranging privatley at the moment.

As for what instrument etc I try to change it up. Acoustic, electric basses, guitar, piano, vibes, or no instrument at all.

[Marcus Johnson]

I write. It might be cool to have a TB audio compositions section.

[Marc Piane]

I write. I try to spend some time everyday. I keep a spiral staff paper book in my bag at all times and just jot stuff down when I think of it. I also use the recorder fuction on my cell phone to sing an idea if I don't have my book handy. Then I'll get to a piano or guitar or even just Finale and piece stuff together. I play in two groups that are always willing to read stuff down so I don't really bother with making a more complex arrangement in Cubase (my sequencer of choice).

I also arrange but I'll often do that when I want to really learn a tune. I then pick it apart and put it back together. Sometimes simple stuff. I did and arrangement of Beatiful Love a while back where I whited out the changes and started from scratch.

I think a forum sounds like a great idea. I am by no means a computer wiz but I'd be willing to host clips on my iWeb (.mac) site if that would help.

[frichter]

I've just started writing/arr. in the last year or so and am finding it to be a great experience. There are so many possibilities that it is exciting to just try different stuff and see what happens. I have a jazz quartet which is always willing to read new stuff, and it is great to get their input/reactions. I try to allow the group to dictate the music, so we always have a good time reinventing or recreating what I have written.

To add a new question to this thread . . . who are some of your favorite jazz composers? I personally dig Ben Allison, Dave Douglas, Wayne Shorter, Mingus and T.S. Monk. I realize everybody has more influences than they can list, but who are your "top picks"?

[musicman5string]

Originally Posted by frichter

To add a new question to this thread . . . who are some of your favorite jazz composers? I personally dig Ben Allison, Dave Douglas, Wayne Shorter, Mingus and T.S. Monk. I realize everybody has more influences than they can list, but who are your "top picks"?

Duke
Strayhorn
Wayne
Herbie
Mingus
Chick
Metheny
Holland
Monk
Jaco

[Marc Piane]

As far as jazz Greg Osby is my favorite right now.

Frank Zappa is my man though. Everytime I'm stuck I find inspiration in putting any of his stuff on.

[Sam Sherry]

I write. Not much in the past few lots in the past decade.

I compose in little bits and pieces. I get an idea and develop it over a period of weeks. There's almost always lots of drafts. There have been very few pieces that sprang forth fully-formed, if I may apply such high-falutin' language to work as undistinguished as mine.

I slacked by as a head-writer for a long time. Over the past five years I've been trying to work toward more arranged work with more going on. Over the past ten years working with lyrics was a definite growth opportunity. Transcribing and arranging Brecker, Woody Shaw, Pat Metheny and the like for my kid's high-school combo has definitely helped.

As for influences, it's all the guys I dig as players. Chick Corea has been a dominant influence -- man, what a deep well that is! Dave Holland, too. Michael Brecker. Chick. Woody Shaw. Herbie. Coltrane. Steve Grover, a deep jazz composer who lives in Maine. Did I mention Chick?

I listen to Wayne and Branford and Hen a lot. Wayne, for whatever reason, has not been a deep compositional influence -- maybe my ears aren't big enough. Hen, I love his playing but I don't think he's on the same level as a composer. Branford, a lot of his stuff is just too hard to play. If I had Branford and his band to write for it'd probably be different.

That's the thing: I try to strike a balance. I'm not afraid to write stuff that's hard to play but I want some things that folks can just step up to and blow on. It takes me so long to really work on a song that I usually want to have something at the end that won't just sit on the page.

Above all I want my music to be melodic. It might get fast or angular or tough but I try to have it SOUND like a melody. Similarly, as an arranger, I try to give people something to hold onto -- that "head-blow-head-thump" thing is part of the problem with jazz, IMO.

Well. Me me me me meee. Sorry, all. "Had I more time I would have written a shorter letter" -- Thoreau

[damonsmith]

I have a stack things I have written over the years, from fully notated Orchestra and Piano scores to graphic scores.

When I was younger I was listening to a Tim Berne record and I just hated the part he wrote for Dresser. I had a vision of Berne shuffling over to Dressers music stand with said sub-standard bass part. From that moment I gave up writing music for groups I play in and decided that I would try to never play with a musician I felt I needed to tell what to do. That is working so far.
I have no idea how I would react if I heard that same music now, a decade later. However, it has defined the working method I still use today.

I am not anti-composition, I play classical scores everyday and work on tunes, I just don't use it in my own work anymore, I use great players instead.
Still, I enjoy working on my friends music when the opportunity arises.

Here is my two cents:

1. Compositional ideas should come before the idea to be a composer.

2. Study the instruments you are writing for, make sure the lines make sense and are somehow more or at least as worthwhile as what the players would do on their own.

3. Nobody needs your permission to improvise in the 21st century. If you are going to take compositional credit then write enough music and structure to justify calling it your own.


Some interesting things I have been learning from compostion lately is that composers tend not to write notes/sounds that are not functional, where improvisors will often put in a bunch of notes/sounds that have to do with getting from one functional note to the other. Often it sounds great, but I am trying to be more aware of it, and when necesarry, cut it down.

[damonsmith]

Originally Posted by Sam Sherry

Transcribing and arranging Brecker, Woody Shaw, Pat Metheny and the like for my kid's high-school combo has definitely helped.

-Isn't making kids play Metheny covered under some kind of child abuse law? Indecent exposure maybe?

[Sam Sherry]

Naw.

Years ago I thought Metheny's first few quartet records didn't live up to the potential he showed on Bright Size Life. And I thought his writing tended toward the fluffly. (I was a terrible jazz snob then, too.)

That changed for me with 80/81. Now, I think he's a good example for kids about how hard work, coupled with natural talent, yields a personal sound and some beautiful music too.

[damonsmith]

Originally Posted by Sam Sherry

Naw.

Years ago I thought Metheny's first few quartet records didn't live up to the potential he showed on Bright Size Life. And I thought his writing tended toward the fluffly. (I was a terrible jazz snob then, too.)

That changed for me with 80/81. Now, I think he's a good example for kids about how hard work, coupled with natural talent, yields a personal sound and some beautiful music too.

I was just joking around. I wanted to like him but he just too damn surpy for me. I can't stand his playing, even the nosier stuff, and especially Song X. His surgary playing makes my teeth hurt.
That is just me, everyone has their opinon, and better than somethings kids could be doing, I guess I'd rank playing Metheny somewhere between breaking into houses and arson as far as activites kids could engage in.

[musicman5string]

If you really listen to Metheny's stuff, there's always great stuff to be had, even among the lesser pieces.
I really think in his best moments, he's one of the greatest modern jazz writers of our day. I do agree that some of his stuff is kind of "fluff".

[damonsmith]

Originally Posted by musicman5string

If you really listen to Metheny's stuff, there's always great stuff to be had, even among the lesser pieces.
I really think in his best moments, he's one of the greatest modern jazz writers of our day. I do agree that some of his stuff is kind of "fluff".

- In all seriousness I recognize he is a great musician, just too far outside my taste, if he played bass that well but that sappy, it would be different...

[oliebrice]

Originally Posted by damonsmith

When I was younger I was listening to a Tim Berne record and I just hated the part he wrote for Dresser. I had a vision of Berne shuffling over to Dressers music stand with said sub-standard bass part. From that moment I gave up writing music for groups I play in and decided that I would try to never play with a musician I felt I needed to tell what to do.

funny, to me Tim Berne is one of the best examples of a modern jazz composer who shows why composing is still worthwhile, and meets all your 2 cents worth of criteria!
I agree with you re Metheny though, both in terms of the respect and the dislike...

[neal davis]

I agree that tim berne is a great composer but not everything that every person does is great, I really love the work of the late Urs Blochlinger but there are some pieces of his that I think aren't as well concieved as others. I have heard some Tim Berne pieces that blow me away and others that seem like he is working on a concept that isn't fully realized yet. That is the great thing about composing you can work things out, change and modify as needed so you can finally get it to sound the way you want but sometimes if you are so imbedded in what you wrote and don't take in ideas from the others musicians the music may not take on the life that it could have. I think all good composers know the instruments that they are writing for as well as the musicians that are playing them. I think this is something that is left out by a bunch of composers, when you start writing for someones particular sound that is when music can get really interesting you are not just writing a new melody to a standard that we all play anyway.

[Marc Piane]

I think fair number of composers, either through arrangers/orchestrators or even the players themselves, had help making ideas work for the particular instruments they had in mind. This is not to say that composers should not know about the instruments they write for. I know nothing about hammered dulcimer so I don't try to write for it. However, there are a ton of behind the scenes people that never or rarely get mentioned.

I agree though. One of my favorite things about Zappa was he often wrote for the musicians he had available to him at that moment. That's what I aspire to do.

[damonsmith]

Originally Posted by oliebrice

funny, to me Tim Berne is one of the best examples of a modern jazz composer who shows why composing is still worthwhile, and meets all your 2 cents worth of criteria!
I agree with you re Metheny though, both in terms of the respect and the dislike...

It was a moment and bassline when I was about 23. I have warmed a bit to him over the years, I don't think he always meets any my two cents though, tricky head + one chord vamp is not an interesting compostional form and he uses it often.

Jazz/Creative music composers I like:

Mingus
Steve Lacy
John Lindberg
Early Gerry Hemmingway
Anthony Braxton
Franz Koglmann
Guillermo Gregario
Mark Dresser
Frank Gratkowski
Misha Menglberg
Maarten Altena

[oliebrice]

[quote=damonsmith;4063023] tricky head + one chord vamp is not an interesting compostional form and he uses it often.

fair enough, sometimes. He also writes some fascinating extended forms and rhythmic cycles. I love the 'post-mingusy' (thats a pretty cool new genre name I've come up with, no?) writing on 'fractured fairy tales', and for very different reasons on more recent albums like 'the sublime and...'

I really agree with all of the composers Damon listed that I've heard, so I'd better check out the others!

my favourite jazz composers include:
Monk
Ornette
Andrew Hill
Steve Lacy
Wayne Shorter
Mingus
Kenny Wheeler
Tim Berne
Billy Strayhorn
Herbie Nicholls
Anthony Braxton
Herb Robertson
Paul Motian