french music

I've been hard at work on these French pieces for Chapman over the last 2 weeks and I'm having a fricking blast (I wrote one entire movement in a single sitting the day after Thanksgiving). Why have I never set anything in this language before? It's actually easier than writing in English.

That being said, it's been a challenge because what's coming out is really different from anything else I've ever done before. I actually wrote in a functional fully-diminished seventh chord the other day and completely fell in love with it (if you've got a keyboard in front of you it's Bb-Db-E-G and resolves out to Ab-C-Eb-Ab). It's got such a harsh, prickly edge to it that it makes me scrunch up my face and one of my eyelids flutters when I play it on the piano. That can't be bad, right?

One of the interesting things I'm finding in regards to my own creative process is how theory can sometimes intrude upon what I find fun when I'm improvising. Case in point: my setting of Rimbaud's "Ma Boheme" was coming along fine at the keyboard and I was really digging what was coming out. It was actually exhilarating (if I can use that term) because it was just a whole lot of garish fun to play around with. Big, bull-in-a-china-shop music that makes you smile while you perform it. Then I went back later and all I saw was the theoretical analysis of what I had written. For instance, I remember feeling really unoriginal that I had just written a V7 chord that--surprise!--resolves to a I chord.

So there is this weird balance I've had to strike between writing something I like and something that I don't feel is derivative of anything. In fact, I think I've hit a major hurdle with the concept of being able to put away my ability to look at a piece of music and see how it functions without hearing it (I'm not bragging here...it's just what I went to school to learn is all) while at the same time writing. So "yea" for that, I guess.

Here's an obligatory picture of the Eiffel Tower from the archives.