While I’m on a roll, let me keep going. Let me now pay specific attention to aspects of my musical practice I wish I kept up with but don’t really. It helps to be reflective of them, even if I don’t take the time to do it regularly. I know this may be a bit repetitive, covering some areas already covered in previous posts, but I feel the need to drill down on them a bit more. The repetition helps not only with continuing to turn over the dirt, but it also helps to motivate me to move forward.

  • Composition: In the past I have identified myself primarily as a composer; it would be nice to do so again. Really, I need to get back to working my way through Schoenberg’s Theory of Harmony as a way to refresh my ideas. I could also re-familiarize myself with Wuorinen’s Simple Composition as a way of adding structure to my compositions. Wuorinen’s book, in particular, shows a path toward logical long-form composition, even if the harmony of serial composition still seems foreign to me. I guess that is one of the reasons I like Schoenberg’s book - Schoenberg arrived at his theory of serial composition by working his way through the consonant and dissonant complexities of late-Romantic music to the point where nothing seemed all that dissonant to him. This is one of the reasons jazz harmony is so attractive to me - the complexity of harmonies still sounds consonant, even while there is quite a bit of hair on it.
    • One project I could think of would be to work my way through Schoenberg’s book in a manner similar to that of the book Harmonic Experience (I forget the name of the author). Essentially, the author of that book found a very personal way of experiencing the dissonances of equal-tempered tuning by working his way from consonances to more and more complex dissonances. This is really the progression Schoenberg takes in his book, working his way toward a natural hearing of the serial system. Something to think about, for sure.
    • Try my hand at songwriting. This is closest to jazz composition, albeit with lyrics. I have never been a lyricist, though I have bought a few books on the subject. If my compositional style is most closely related to Afrobeat - my favorite tunes I have written have a distinct Afrobeat feel to them - then it is not much of a stretch to try songwriting as a field of composition. It might help me to get gigs, in the end.
  • Piano: The piano would be a really useful tool for re-starting my practice as a composer as well as broadening my experience as a musician in general. In many ways, it is a more important instrument for me than the guitar given that it is so freaking logical. There are a few different aspects of playing this instrument I should pay attention to.
    • Playing from Lead Sheets: This is where I live as a jazz composer and arranger. I’ve not gotten the hang of reharmonizing tunes using the guitar, but I have a feeling it is a much more natural thing to do at the piano. Just keep working on Haerle’s book of jazz chords and see how that sinks into my playing. I can also work on some of Levine’s arrangements from the Jazz Piano Book, but I really want to be able to play from a lead sheet.
    • Playing Music as Written: Here I am thinking about learning pieces from Bartok’s Mikrokosmos as well as Bach’s Notebook for Anna Magdalena. Working on this stuff will help me with score reading, but the Bartok pieces in particular are great little mini-lessons in composition.
    • Score Reading: Here I am thinking about reading my way through composition exercises, scores I might study, and scores of my own works. I particularly like reading through scores by Stravinsky and Wagner, though I have a bunch of Mahler scores hanging around as well. I also have a mini-score of some of Webern’s work somewhere. I need to get back to reading these scores along with recordings, and writing piano reductions of choice passages. The piano, in this instance, is just a tool.