Compositional Process

A series of questions was devised to examine the creative processes of composition. The intention was to develop some understanding of these processes and then relate them to the creative processes of performance. I wanted to explore the general concept of creative process and to understand if awareness of process could influence practice, although investigating compositional process is considered by many commentators to be at best equivocal. This difficulty relates to the fact that subconscious creativity is a significant factor in creative processes and understanding unconscious motivation is uncertain. In Music and Inspiration, Harvey refers to the importance of unconscious inspiration in guiding the composer’s path from idea to realization:

The role of the unconscious therefore can never be usurped; however it can be modified. A composer’s inspiration is significantly affected by his experience of life, and by his relationship with the outside world: these factors mark the unconscious, and through it, the finished piece of music.

Harvey, 1999: 36

Table 7 outlines the questions that were used to inform the discussion on creative process:

TABLE 7

Questions on Compositional Process-Pilot Study

What about inspiration, where do ideas come from?

At what point does inspiration/conception end and practice begin? Discuss a recent example of inspiration.

What is the criterion by which material is selected as useable or vice versa?

The history of composition in western culture provides a huge legacy for today’s musicians, what relevance does this have in contemporary composition?

In composing, do you get ideas unbidden subconsciously and then exercise conscious control on those ideas?

How difficult is it to have musical unity between various episodes of composition?

The discussion that followed revealed some potential for difficulties in this particular area. In particular, Canning felt cynical about the whole subject of inspiration:

PR: What about inspiration where do ideas come from? RC: [laughs loudly] From God, a direct line!

And in relation to other composers being inspired:

PR: It seems to me a lot of your searching is to find the language, that’s interesting because it seems to

me that other composers already have that language

RC: Yeh, they hear the voices!!! That’s why they're composers [clearly cynical]

In general there was a sense that some of the questions proposed could prove, at best, ineffective:

PR: In composing do you get ideas unbidden subconsciously and then exercise conscious control on

those ideas?

RC: It’s kind of the type of question where you would get lots of waffly and useless answers.

Along with the questions above, I asked Canning if he thought the composers might be willing to use the following schema (Figure 2) to stimulate some form of written commentary when they were composing the new work:

Figure 2:

Sloboda, Schema for Compositional Process

Unconscious Conscious Sloboda, 1985: 118 Judgement Judgement Modification Transformation extension and development F General tonal and stylistic knowledge C Intermediate forms B Theme E Repertoire of compositional devices D Final Form G Superordinate constraints on form and direction Inspiration A Idea Goal alteration

This was met with considerable negativity, but the suggestions made by Canning were unambiguous as indicated by the following dialogue:

PR: What would you think if I asked composers to use this diagram as the basis for mapping their

process?

RC: It’s very generic, your perception of how the process works…It’s cold, it’s clinical, and I don't like

it.

PR: Don't like that, why?

RC: I’ve tried working to a plan in the past using flow charts and so on. PR: Is it because over-emphasising the process can become an impediment?

RC: And also the amount of work during the different stages of the process…it's not linear like that.

You could say at the beginning you had an idea but there are lots of time shifts and so charts get twisted and don't add up.

PR: By being so reductionist it doesn't necessarily reveal very much? RC: What were you looking for when you showed me that?

PR: I suppose it was an idea to use this chart for each composer to see how it would work.

RC: I suppose it could be useful to give the composers this diagram [seems very doubtful and clearly doesn't think this is a good idea]…Fine reduce me to a fxxxxxx A4 sheet!

PR: No, it’s just something to throw out there.

RC: Don’t worry, its fine, try it if you like, but you might get some strange responses!

Roe-Canning, 2004: Pilot interview

I also asked Canning how he thought the composers might respond to being observed whilst composing. This idea was concerned with the possibility of using some form of video recording of the compositional process to develop a more complete record of the activity. I had not considered the details and practicalities of this suggestion, but I considered having such a record could help in generating further data for analysis. However, as with the previous suggestion (in relation to using the Sloboda diagram) this idea seemed quite ridiculous to Canning. He indicated that the composers would get no work done if someone was standing there with a video recorder. The idea that a composer would also take details of their creative process seemed unrealistic to Canning:

PR: Would it be useful for me to observe the composers at work to get a commentary on this work? RC: This is odd, I don't think you can do this, you could try...but with me it could be 10 fags, 2 cups of

coffee, one note!!! [Laughs] What the fxxx how could you!!! I suppose it could be a novelty...no one’s going to get any work done while you sit there with the camera [clearly thinks this is ludicrous].