A Musical Disposition... or five

A Musical Disposition... or five

You know, in addition to my musical aspirations I do hope that one day I can produce titles half as clever (and cringe-worthy) as Michael Barone's. Until that day however, I can only work with what little originality I already have.

After having investigated open score C-clef reading for many moons, we've seen that it broadens and orders the mind when practiced and can reveal the true nature of contrapuntal music in a way not available by other means. After all, the music we know is made of intertwining lines of melodic force which, when assembled together, create a unique and harmonious whole. I can think of no better way to accurately represent this on paper than by assigning each voice its own staff and clef and binding them together. 

But... is that the only way? What if you have music written on the now conventional two staves? Is there something that can be done with this conventional notation that can break through the divide separating the true nature of the music's composition from its shallow surface?

Let's look at hymns. 

The priority of my daily practice nowadays is to make some inroads on the subject of improvisation. I consider myself fairly familiar with the subject, but unpracticed. The first step towards easy and successful improvisation is through the study of harmonization. I'm using Sol Berkowitz's book Improvisation through Keyboard Harmony at home so that I can use headphones and save myself the embarrassment of having someone hear me working on Camptown Races and one of my favorites: Grandma Grunts.  At the church, I am working with Dupre's treatise on improvisation and am currently ironing out my harmonic treads and creating smooth bass lines with the use of inversions. But that's a different discussion.

I've also set aside time to play from an old Presbyterian hymnal. I don't mean to talk on how to play a hymn with creativity, variety, and sensitivity to the text, but I should say that a couple of techniques for sprucing up your hymn playing involve in how you distribute the notes on the keyboards:

The first way we play these four part hymns is to play all four parts on the manuals, since we all started as pianists once. Then we learned to play the bass line in the pedals and play the remaining three parts on a manual. Finally, we may or may not have learned to play the soprano melody in the right hand on a manual with a solo registration, the bass in the pedals, and the alto and tenor parts in the left hand on an accompanying manual. You can call this the 'solo style'. It uses the organ's capabilities well without very much effort. This arrangement of playing is called a disposition, and there are others. I make use of 5 in my daily practice:

• Melody in the Soprano:  R.H. plays soprano on solo manual, L.H. plays alto and tenor on accompanying manual, Pedals play the bass line.
• Melody in the Bass: Pedal plays the melody, the hands play the alto tenor and bass on accompanying manual.
• Melody in the Tenor: L.H. plays the melody on a solo manual an octave lower than written, the R.H. plays the alto and tenor on accompanying manual, Pedals play the bass line.

You see after a little practice that we're dividing the four voices we see on the page into three groups: the Melody, the Bass, and the Middle Voices. The three above dispositions take turns putting the melody into our three main appendages, counting our feet as a single appendage. Additionally, we can play a little further with the four voices:

• Melody in the Alto (Soprano and alto switched): R.H. plays soprano and alto with the alto an octave higher than written, the L.H. plays the tenor line on the same manual, Pedals play the bass line.
• Melody in the Tenor (Soprano and tenor switched): L.H. plays the melody an octave lower than written, R.H. plays the alto and tenor lines with the tenor an octave higher than written, Pedals play the bass line. 

We could go further (and probably will in the future), but this is a good set to get started with. These dispositions will change the color of the hymn without actually changing the notes, so it's good for practical purposes to become familiar at least with the first three. Those last two deliver you already-written descants for your melody so are useful as well. What about this disposition, though?

• Melody in Soprano: R.H. plays melody in soprano, L.H. plays bass on accompanying manual with 8' and 16' stops, Pedals play 8' stops double pedaling alto and tenor lines.

Well, it requires some coordination, but it likely won't sound any different from our first disposition of Melody in the Soprano. So why on earth would we practice it? Also, the tricky maneuver of placing the melody in the left hand an octave lower could easily be substituted with playing our first disposition again with our right hand soloing out the melody, only an octave lower. The aural effect is identical. Why would we choose to play something in a way that's more difficult to play even though it sounds the same as the easier way?

If your scalp tingles while studying these dispositions, that means it's working!

The Point:

The point of these dispositions (at least, the reason I'm practicing them) is not to provide different sounds so much as it's to build my flexibility. While not all of these dispositions are very practical for use in playing hymns, we are preparing for the days when we will be creating our own music ex tempore, out of the moment. To quote from Michele Johns book, Hymn Improvisation:

"The object is to expand your options. When creating music it is likely that you will only use the techniques which are familiar to you. If your style is a simple one of playing the melody in the right hand, chords in the left hand, and long notes in the pedal, then that is the way your improvisations will sound."

In addition to this important goal, it also helps to break down the connection between notes on the page and the physical realization of those notes. The melody could be played by any appendage, not just the last three fingers of your right hand. No part of the music is attached to a particular part of your body. When you are at the point where you can play any part of the piece with any one of your hands or feet, you are a significant step closer to that mythical musical perfection, not in an aural and idealistic way, but in a real physical and tangible way. This flexibility is of great importance in successful improvisation and for a clear and ordered mind. This clarity and order gives fertile ground for freedom and creativity. 

Happy practicing!

Beginning Composition

Beginning Composition

This topic has little directly to do with the organ, but is still an important part of the Associate and Fellow exams for the AGO. This is another skill that takes a great deal of time to cultivate, and a lifetime to master, so it's best to get started as soon as possible. I've done some composition from time to time, mostly in connection with my church employment, but always at the last minute and quite rushed. A deadline makes for great motivation to write something even though it may not be exactly what you had in mind. If forces ideas to come out. However, I can sense the lack of a good fundamental understanding of writing music, so I'm trying to work from the ground up.

There are those that say that you cannot learn composition or improvisation, that it is something you are born with; either you have it or you don't. I want to assert my opinion that those assumptions are simply not true. The concept of originality, on the other hand is up to debate. It seems that Chopin was the only one who could have written Chopin's music because it is so individual and unlike anything else. It bears his stamp of originality in a way that very few have equaled. Perhaps you've noticed how some composers write music that is striking in its originality regardless of the medium in which they compose. There are other composers that write music of the highest quality, but lack the quality of originality. This is the first lesson for today:

We cannot learn how to be original, how to be a rare and unique snowflake. If you can learn this quality of originality, then I know of no method to increase it. What we can learn is the craft of composition, and constantly improve our ability to present our ideas (original or not) in whatever medium is desired. The skilled invention of well crafted music based on mediocre ideas sounds much better than a great idea which is expressed in a very poor and unskilled way. Just imagine what Schubert could have done if he had taken counterpoint lessons...

A final example is that of the Spanish language hymnal we use at our services (I won't mention the name of the collection). I have seen a great many examples of poor presentation in this hymnal. So many good ideas are presented in very rough fashion, so much so that the original idea gets lost in the poor presentation. Uncertainty of harmonization, accidentally irregular phrasing... there are a lot of problems. Even one at my skill level can see that these musical 'rules' are being broken through accident and omission rather than expressive purpose. 

The Plan

The process for practicing composition will be basically a three step process:

1. Copy
2. Imitate
3. Compose

In musical composition, as well as in painting, a time honored tradition is to study and emulate the works of the masters to learn about the process, adding to your mass of conscious and unconscious knowledge of creating. I've found that some people forget about the first step above, that of not just imitating a composer's work, but copying it directly.

Now, I agree that mindless copying of a piece, one note after the other, is a pretty fruitless exercise, although it will improve your penmanship. What I'm actually endorsing is attempting to co-compose a piece with Bach, or Mendelssohn, or Sorabji. Enter into apprenticeship with that composer and let him guide you to his successful realization of a musical thought. 

For instance, I'm beginning with the Bach Harmonized Chorales. Each one is a little study in harmonization and simple voice leading. I try to copy them out by hand in the manner that it was probably composed. We begin with a melody in the soprano and then we seek to harmonize it. We write in a complementary bass line, with the use of inversions to help us smooth it out, establishing cadences at the end of each phrase, and decorating the line a little more with non-chord tones of passing, neighboring, or suspension dissonance and consonance. Then we fill in the middle voices, filling out the background tread of chords and smoothing the leading with expressive lines. 

Of course, I doubt Bach had to take the trouble to compose each part completely before attempting another; I'm sure he could plan out and execute most of the chorale completely in his head before putting pen to paper. However, this is the basic process I am using since I am still a mere mortal. Along the way, I try to anticipate what he will do; what kind of motives will he juggle between voices? will there be an expressive voice crossing between inner parts to highlight the final cadence? will this tenor voice be so active that it will steal the activity of the alto? Often times I'm correct in my assumption; many times I'm wrong and his answer is much more artistic. 

The point is to try to comprehend all that you see while copying, and copy in the same way that you will later imitate and compose.

After copying enough that you feel somewhat secure in the basis of his style, then we try to write our own chorales in the style of Bach. Now we're on more uncertain ground and have to think, What would Bach do? 

...

These exercises will actually train us indirectly in our free compositions in our own style. We don't then compose our own style of chorales, because it's most likely that we have no reason to compose a chorale. We aren't of the Protestant Reformation generation and it serves no practical purpose, unless you just really like them. We will more likely be composing pieces to fit our own purposes, which are only faintly related to these old compositions. However, our study of style and our cultivated awareness of the elements of composition and how they work together means that when we require a section of music of a more harmonically balanced, rhythmically regular nature, we will be well prepared to execute our realization with good construction and presentation. 

Long story short, I'm copying Bach Chorales to see how they work. I've copied out 5. After 5 more, I'll try writing new chorales in his style. This is my first step in rigorous composition training. 

Good work!