4. My Process

In this chapter I will try to outline what my compositional process looks like. I will explain how I view arranging, producing and performing my own material as part of the overall signature of a song. The different strategies I employ, working alone or together with other musicians of diverse backgrounds will be traced. There will also be examples of work at different stages. 

I will show how I reference chamber music when composing. Sometimes as an influence on my tonal and harmonic language, sometimes at later stages as inspiration to arrangement textures and instrumental technique choices.

The material I show is in all of the cases part of a process and not a finished product. I therefore advise to view it as such, and not as polished, perfectly mixed and mastered audio files (because they aren't), but rather as an inside view into the search and quest for a signature sound. 

I publish this material in an attempt to give an insight into a space of experimentation - for me as well as for my fellow musicians - to try out things, to succeed and to fail. Sometimes the material is well rehearsed, sometimes you will hear a first runthrough at the spot. The media is sometimes recorded in a professional studio, sometimes at home, sometimes they are field recordings, or from mobile phone voice memos and cameras. They are to be understood as a field log, and a documentation of the process.

4.1. My aesthetic preferences

One important distinction for the reader, is that although this thesis explores how I reference chamber music, I do not compose classical music,but popular music influenced by classical music.

- My aim in this project is to operate loosely within a form that a listener of today expects from a modern song, and mainly structure my songs accordingly. 

This differs from my reference pieces. These pieces are mainly from the period between 1815-1920. As chamber works they display a craftsmanship and mastery of big and complex structures, which I don’t attempt to emulate.
For classical composers in the times of my source material, a musical piece was not only a way of expressing emotion or an idea, it was also an opportunity for the composer to display  mastery of great forms and structures. Each form came with its own set of rules regarding form and thematic treatment. (Ruud, 2023). I compose in a much simpler format.  

- My songs, in accordance with much of today's popular music and contrary to many chamber music works, try to express one main idea. 

This idea might come in different shapes depending if it is to be found in the verse, the chorus or the bridge. But it uses the same material. I want the listener to have clarity about the essence of the song, and I want all of the elements in the song to reflect, expand or contrast this nucleus. I do not intend to develop or vary my themes in nearly the same way as a movement within for example a sonata or concerto would.

Each song of mine is an independent piece of work. They are not part of a bigger form or cycle, as many chamber works might be. Some of my songs might eventually be collected on an album, but they have been written independent from each other. They do 

• neither draw on each other
• nor cite each other
• nor do they have to be listened to as a unit 
• nor always need to be played in the same order.

I try to create songs that are direct and straightforward enough to have appeal to a wide range of people. This does not mean they should be predictable; I want some unexpected or thrilling moments in the course of the song. 

In regards to the length of my compositions I adhere loosely to standards of expectations of today’s popular music. The length of the songs within this thesis vary from 3 to maximum 7 minutes. Many of the works I cite as inspiration might be closer to 15 minutes in one movement alone, and more than half an hour in the total opus. 

Live versions of my pieces might differ in length to studio versions. They are mostly longer, with added intros, solos or repeated instrumental parts where I talk to the audience. Her kan du finne noe material å sitere og referere til, kanskje lytteeksempel av Once through introen

I want strong and appealing melodies.

I see a composition as a unity, with equal importance on the instrumental parts and the vocals. Just as Schubert used the piano part in his lieder, as explained in chapter xyz, the instrumental parts are not supposed to be a mere accompaniment of the vocals.
I wish for my arrangements and productions to augment the lyrical content and the theme of the song.  

How I am inspired by classical music varies. I might be directly referencing works in:
-melodic lines
-harmonies
-voicings
-arrangement techniques
Sometimes using all the above, but mostly just one or two.

I might also have nodirect references to pieces while I compose, but I make decisions based on my background, and will thus be influenced by classical music also in this scenario. More on this in the next subchapter.

4.2. Composing

“To me, it starts with a basic idea – something that catches your attention – and then a developmental process unfolds that begins with composition / songwriting.”

(Büchert, 2024).

Composing with a chamber work as reference

In some of my songs I use chamber works for inspiration while composing.

Silence speaks can exemplify how this process works for me. The main idea of the song was to capture the calming presence of nature all around me.

I needed to find the right musical mood for what I had in mind, and the technique I used was to search my inner library. One of my absolute favourite pieces, Brahms Piano Trio no 1 in B Majorop 8 (2nd version), (Brahms, 1891) had the right kind of deep richness for what I was envisioning. 

This piece starts with the piano playing in a deep register. The right hand plays thick chords, with the melody doubled in sixths. The left hand stays on the B, playing a pedal point in the bass, while the harmonies in the right hand changes on top of it.

Then the cello enters, with one of the most beautiful cello entrances I know of. It plays a deep, sonorous melody, perfectly written for the timbre of the instrument. 

As you can hear in the voice memo recording my very first ideas for Silence speaks, when using this piece as a reference, I composed in a similarly deep register. 

As I mentioned in the chapter on popular music, there are artists who quote classical pieces quite directly, for example Muse.

I prefer to use the source material more to spark ideas. In this case that means my song have some striking differences to the movement in the trio, for example:

• I changed the key to Eb major (I chose this key because it is one of my favourite keys, and I perceive it as full and rich)
• I changed the time signature to 9/8 (a time signature I perceive as soothing)
• The lower voices in the right hand do follow the melody, although not in 6hts.
• In doing so, the right hand creates harmonic change over a fixed bass for the duration of one bar (Brahms keeps the bass note for almost the whole phrase)
• You can hear how I used “fill in notes” in a similar way as the piano in the opening of the trio. However, in the full version, I saved that for the second verse, and first introduced them only on down beats.
• I simplified the harmonic progression, especially compared to how intricately the trio later develops.

Composing without a direct reference, but still leaning on classical music

In some cases, I use a melody as the starting point for a composition. As these melodies often just “appear” in my mind, they are not directly referencing a piece as I did under the last headline. However, this is an intuitive act of creation, my inner reference system of classical music is still active. 

Acolyte can exemplify how I worked with a song from this angle, I composed it in the spring of 2024.

As I started with Acolyte, I had only the melody of the chorus. I wanted to compose harmonies.

A common way for classical composers to intertwine melody and harmony, is using much more harmonic complexity and shifts than in pop music. There are chord changes on many measures, and the melody is shaped around the existing harmony.

Listen to, for example, Taylor Swifts "Shake it off". (Swift, 2023).

<-

The pop song is built around harmonic repetition, repeating the same harmonic progression over a determined set of bars.

->

In contrast the classical piece has more harmonic movement. You will perhaps recognise that the harmonic structure in Gute Nacht is very closely intertwined with, and shaped by the melody rather than the other way around. That means that the harmony doesn’t follow a clear structure or predictability.

(Schubert, 1827)

I tried a similar approach in my song:

To the far right you can hear the very first demo:

As you can see and hear in this example, I avoided consistency in the harmonic progression. The synth bass also doesn’t play the same figure throughout the chorus. Instead, the best way to orient yourself around the harmonic structure is to follow themelody, just as in Gute Nacht above.

Another trick I tried was to use descending or ascending steps in the bass/harmonic lines, to counter or mimic the melody, a trait you can see in the example from Winterreise in fig xyz. I did it extensively and almost consequently in Acolyte, where the bass largely moves in the opposite direction of the melody, and mimics the bigger intervals. 

One last example song where I didn’t reference a specific piece, but where I emulated chamber works, is Brightly coloured pieces.

As I have already mentioned, I sometimes get a general feeling or lyrical theme I want a piece to have. With Brightly coloured pieces I didn’t want to start with a melody, or by mimicking another work. I sat down by the piano and tried to find a harmonic progressions, rhythmic idea or chord voicings that fitted that desired mood.

I decided to have more predictability to the chord changes, beginning as a typical pop song. I changed chords only at the beginning of every bar. I also repeated the harmonics of the first four bars of the verse. 

However, in this more predictable harmonic pulse, I still wanted the chord progression to somehow be more reminiscent of classical music than of pop.

I tried going from tonic-double dominant-dominant-tonic in the two first phrases, and later make some unexpected chromatic turns. A pedal point in the bass is also a trait I largely associate with classical music, so I decided to add one.

The mood I wanted to reflect was a chaotic, turbulent and lunatic one. I let it happen through the harmonies:

- I wanted to go “far” away from the tonic. I tried the double dominant as the second chord, hoping it would be quite unexpected the first time, and immediately bring me far away from the “home” of the tonic.

-The chromatic movements in the pre-chorus would hopefully take me unexpectedly outside of the original key, and then make a just as unexpected return back.

-In the chorus, I wanted the listeners to be thrown between conflicting states of mind. I tried letting the harmonics constantly change between minor and major modes.

Unfinished demo of the song:

The main essence, and the catalyst for this composition, however, was to be the piano arrangement.

I wanted to create a piano part reminiscent of a lied by Schubert.

If we recall Schubert's Gretchen am Spinnrade from the history chapter, the piano depicts objects of the lyric.

I wanted the piano to play the part of a turbulent sea with maelstroms, as these were lyrical ideas that came to mind as I was composing. I needed lots of stressful rhythms, and movements that could depict the tugging waves.

Some Schubert lieds I turned to for inspiration:

You can see techniques developed to create rhythmic content. Playing 16th notes backbeats with the thumb or the littlefinger in the right hand, is a typical way of fast rhythmicmaterial in a classical piece.

I tried using upward movement in the upper fingers of every bar as the “swirls” of the maelstrom. The fast backbeats in the thumb were supposed to be the haunting stress of being pulled under the surface at any moment. 

I later kept the sea reference in the lyrics, but omitted the word maelstrom. I think the piano arrangement reflects how I would “hear” a maelstrom, and hopefully the listener gets this impression.

The backbeats of the thumb also became part of the overall signature of the song, and I later arranged a stringpart from the second chorus, that you can hear in the unfinished demo.

Composing without references, but tying things together by the arrangement:

Ease and flow, and Stop motion I did not compose using much influence from classical music. Instead, I used classical ensembles to tie the sonic landscape to my sound signature in the arrangements. I will describe this process more closely in chapter 5.1. Stop motion. 

4.3. Music production, creative mixing and arranging

In this research project, arranging, recording and producing my songs has been an intertwined process. I work with many different layers of recording and production, with several overdubs of instruments and voices at different occasions, times and places. The overdubbing technique was popularised in the early 1950:s, and allows the same person to play multiple parts on a recording.(Bell, 2013, quoting Buskin, 2007) 

The distinction between what is arranging for instruments and what is computer work is blurry in my work, as the arrangements might be written based on parts I have made in my DAW, or I might cut out bits and pieces of recorded tracks in my DAW to create new ideas that aren’t necessarily what the instrumentalist originally played. 

In this chapter, 

- When I refer to producing, I generally mean everything that happens in my DAW.

- When I refer to arranging, I generally mean what I write in scores to musicians, or what decisions are made in meetings with other instrumentalists.

- When I write about mixing or audio processing, I mean in a creative sense, giving the audio tracks certain characteristics. I alwasy do a very rough equalisation and balancing of the mix, but it is outside of my expertise (and this research) to achieve a final mix of the songs.

The process eller en annen sub headline

“The definitive score version of a work rarely coincides with the first ideas that come to the composer’s mind.”

(Borem, 2020, p. 5).

As a first step of my compositions, I devise a piano and voice version of the song. This version can be more or less detailed and more or less continuous.

The textural material I later use for the arrangements for other instruments is sometimes extracted from or inspired by this version. I have begun the whole music production in Ableton, by recording a midi version of the piano part, and using that as a reference. 

I tried this in Love your Lover,(see the image below)where it is very easy to mute or unmute midi notes in the piano roll, and to move different notes between different midi instruments. I will describe more closely how I've used it in the case study of the song.

When I record acoustic instruments, I am generally wary of allowing them to sound too natural or too pretty, as a part of my sonic identity.

“Mixing is more than the sonic refinement of audio signals—it also involves a creative process (mixing as a performance) that satisfies the mixer’s musical and emotional connection to the song.”

(Anthony, 2020)

As an example, we can listen to the piano of Water Mirage. I chose a lot of different effects, among them the delay downbeat in Ableton for its offsetting detuning effect, and automated the wetness.

Without delay

With delay downbeat and other effects

In the same song, there is another example of my preference in audioprocessing is the vocals. I wanted them to sound other-wordly and misty to reflect the lyrics. I managed this by adding heavy compression, lots of reverb and delay, and a chorus effect directly to the track.

Without effects

With effects

At the chorus, I went even further, and added a vocoder. I also made a midi instrument out of the voice, that I added in the background.

In Silence speaks, I automated the clarinet tracks with saturation and delays,cut out bits and pieces to create effects, and processed these in different ways.

On the cello I mainly played around with saturation and EQ to bring out sounds I liked.

Clarinet

Cello

LOG FROM PRODUCTION:

Water mirage 19.01.2024:

Andre vers: Ha noen støy-lfo-movement rytme perch aktige ting her

To do:

Fikse pianoet - tighte opp det

Andre vers - lek med kick og gjør noe gøy ut av dette

Kanskje mer forskjellige ting på vokalen? Kanskje mindre direkte

Andre pre - noe mer omnious, drivende

Gjøre mer med fløytemiksen på bridgen - mer bruk av reverb etc

Og sjekke bassen - den måste bli litt mer gøy

Miksen på siste ref må også tightes opp

Slutten

Moving onwards to drums: I used 4 different procedures for arranging and producing drum tracks and beats:

1. I programmed a demo with sampled and electronic drums, then asked the drummer to play something similar, but with their own embellishments and ideas.

In some cases, when the drummer did a specific version of a phrase or a few bars, I changed the arrangement of the other instruments to fit.

<- Programmed drums in the first demo that the drummer got to listen to.

<- Second demo with live drums.

2. I had the drummer create a groove from scratch, with some general directions from me.
See the case study Stop motion.

3. I programmed the drum tracks myself using sampled and electronic drums. 

See the case study of Love your Lover.

4.I used a mix of recorded drums and samples. 

<- The first demo, using only electronic drums.

The second version, blending electronic and recorded drums, can be heard earlier in the chapter.

Regarding my choices of instrumentation:

I have quite distinct ideas about the instrumental make-up of certain songs. 

I had an image of Water Mirage being light and silvery, in accordance with the title. Recording flute and piano felt like a good fit. 

Love your lover had a romantic theme, and I wanted it to have a string opening, and a more orchestral landscape later on. 

The cello in Silence speaks was a nod to the Piano trio by Brahms, that inspired me composing.

In the case study Love your lover, I write much about how I worked arranging for chamber ensembles when I wanted them to play specific things.

I also wanted to try some more open processes, so I experimented to get my classical musicians to open up to the idea of improvising. 

In some cases, like in the intro to Once through, I asked for atmospheric sounds rather than melodies or rhythms. I also told everyone to keep to a simple G major scale if they wanted to add some tonal material, or arpeggis on a G major scales.

Video, press on image to play ->

I wanted similar atmospheric playing in Water Mirage, but even less tonal material. The flautist tried taking many different takes, playing from directions me such as: “create flutters”, “bend the notes”, “sing into the flute” and even “imagine textures from Debussy and see what happens”.

In other cases, I had to experiment with writing some directions in the score, with examples of notes, or scales they could play.

Tornquist describes in his “Improvisasjon, Interaksjon, Komposisjon” how he can invite performers in orchestras to greater freedom by using incomplete notation. (Tornquist, 2008). I wrote no directions on how to play in regards to rhythm, note lengths or sound quality. It was a sort of mid-way improvisation, introducing a little bit of freedom and unpredictability into the live performance, even for the classical musicians.

<- Video, press on
image to play

One such attempt was made in Acolyte, where the verses are inspired by Polish composer Lutoslawski.

I wanted a sort of jumble of sound, a “mat” of strings, not necessarily playing melodic phrases, but still operating within the same framework. Lutoslawski’s string quartet was a great piece to steal organising ideas hva betyr organising idead? from. In the piece, there are set notes for the instrumentalists to play, but they are not meant to be lined up in time or to coincide on specific beats. Lutoslawski referred to his own method of composing as “controlled aleatorism’. (Skowron, 2016, p. 22).

I asked my quartet to do something similar. I did a rather crude notation in the sheet music, but used them in combination with an oral explanation. 

4.4. Live concerts

In the course of this project, I have experimented with playing live in different settings. Some of them are accounted for in chapter 5.1. 

 
Of biggest note are two constellations in which I played: one for a tour in the summer of 2023, consisting of me on vocals and keys, a drummer, and a bass/synth player. 

For this tour, we mainly played with backing tracks to ensure a full sonic image. The only exceptions were two songs that we did in stripped-down versions. 

The second constellation was with a much larger ensemble for my masters concert: drums, bass (varying between upright and electric bass), piano/stynth, string quartet, background vocals, horn, percussions, and laptop. Plus me on lead vocals, piano and synth. 

I did separate arrangements of songs for this concert: you will see some of them in the next chapter.