My First Blog - some thoughts about arranging music
29.04.2009
Welcome to my blog! I will write about latest things that I am working on or subjects that interest me. You can also comment stuff that I have written.
Right now I am writing arrangements for the female choir Philomela. Arranging music is always inspiring, but it is also a lot of work. Some things write themselves and some things take a lot of time. I mostly try to find the form and the atmosphere of the piece as soon as possible. Most of the times I just play around on the piano and record that, trying to be as spontaneous as possible. Then I listen to the stuff and catch the things that inspire me. This might be just a groove or a specific voicing, you never know what gives you the basis. But to be honest, this could happen in a daily situation, as well. A musical thought could come to you when you're grocery shopping or sitting in a bus. This is common for more or less all the people doing creative work, I guess.
I often catch myself thinking too much vertically; finding cool chords and voicings is, or at least has been, almost a fetish for me:) I don't need an mp3-player to listen to the first studio album of Take6, I know it practically by heart. That album, "Doo-be-doo-wop-bop", really hit me when I was some 15-16 years old. My taste has changed pretty much since then, but I still think that it is a sort of a milestone in a cappella-writing. Many greetings to my "elder brothers", especially Mark Kibble! :D But then I hear something like "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen with the first chords I learnt to play on guitar when I was like 10...and it just knocks me off my feet! In music there are no truths, that's the only truth for me. What a challenge, what a relief.
I wish you all a nice spring, let it be sunny if you like it that way.
Strength and open eyes,
-Jarkko-
Comments (1)
oh yes
02.05.2009 11:37 Magma Nova
Thank you for these thoughts about music. It's always a pleasure to find myself in the words of somebody else. Keep on blogging! ;-)
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