Let me loop a bit on composition, especially given that I have two degrees in composition.

  • Melody & Counterpoint: transcribe music from Sun Ra and Fela; transcribe blues tunes; transcribe anything; go back through Walter Piston’s Counterpoint to review what he has written about composing melodies, as this was an important book for me in the past; work on modifying jazz heads; re-read Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum (sp?) and write out all the exercises; play all exercises at the piano; pay attention to the bass as the primary counterpoint line; get a bass so I can record bass lines; read lines from scores by Wagner, Stravinsky, Mahler, etc.;

  • Harmony: reharmonize tunes to fit my style, paying particular attention to modal reharm; write out all the Schoenberg exercises from his Theory of Harmony; go back through Wuorinen’s Simple Composition; apply the structures from Wuorinen to the Schoenberg exercises, and vice versa; work out how the exercises from Van Eps’s Harmonic Mechanisms can help to strengthen my guitar playing as a compositional instrument;

Go back through my compositional files and find stuff I want to play; re-arrange my tunes for a small ensemble (e.g., guitar, bass, drums, alto sax, tenor sax, trombone); write comping and riffing figures for the horns; use the horns as the primary melody instruments and soloists; guitar is an accompanying instrument; compose guitar parts for bottleneck playing; work on drum grooves and accents; write drum parts with cues for melody.

I’m a little rusty where my compositional chops are concerned, so I need to start off by dusting off things I have composed in the past. Play through the various parts and work out how to arrange them better. Get together a repertoire of compositions I can perform with a group, then find people to play it. This may involve paying people for some rehearsals.

Setup a permanent recording rig so I can make better demos. Where possible in my Finale scores, record myself playing the guitar parts, muting the midi playback from the guitar tracks. Record a bunch of demos and upload them to my portfolio site, hiring players where I can. Put out a CD’s worth of music.

Compose for drums, bass, horns, and bottleneck guitar. Focus on bottleneck grooves and melodies, using the horns as comping instruments as well as melodic instruments. Make sure to write killer parts for the bass and drums. If I end up teaching at Berklee, see if there are opportunities to get my stuff recorded (there used to be a composers’ group setup specifically to read through people’s charts. I wonder if this is open to faculty.). Get together a demo that I can use to get gigs, and get over my aversion to self-promotion. Use social media to promote my music and my blogs (I have been reticent to do so thus far). Reintroduce myself through social media as a single guy and as an artist. Claim my status as an artist, making it part of my professional skillset.

Be a composer.