Tag: music composition

A Plant-astic Piece

heathersavage1

Last summer, I was commissioned by Gabe Porter (Fr. horn) to write a piece for woodwind quintet about a threatened or endangered plant in North Carolina. Since I am an herbalist and love plants (rather am obsessed with plants), I eagerly accepted the opportunity.

I chose the “Mountain Heartleaf” (Hexastylis Contracta) species of wild ginger.

Wild ginger is an herb native to the woodlands of eastern North America which has a scent and flavor similar to the Asian ginger found in grocery stores. It has a history of use among Native Americans and early European settlers, but there are also warnings it could be toxic.

I have never used wild ginger, but I have grown it.

Common wild ginger grows fairly quickly, but other types of wild ginger, like the Mountain Heartleaf grow very slowly and require more specific growing conditions, which is why it is rare. The Mountain Heartleaf species grows only in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee and Western North Carolina, and there are fewer populations of it in WNC.

Back to music.

All of my music is inspired by extra-musical ideas, mostly philosophical or literary.

Writing about a plant is different, yet also the same.

It’s impossible for music to directly represent a physical reality. If I were to paint a realistic picture of wild ginger, with any skill it would be recognizable as wild ginger. But how does one represent a plant in music?

To do this, I decided to approach the plant from more of a philosophical perspective, asking “What is its essence?”

What makes this plant different from other plants? What are the components of the plant? What characteristics do they have? How does the plant grow? Where does it grow? What are its qualities? What vibes do I get when I consider these aspects of the plant?

I used two pitch class sets to write the piece: the first five notes of the major scale, and the first five notes of the minor scale. Using extreme dissonance, extended techniques, or electronics did not seem to fit this modest plant.

Following are the program notes I wrote to explain how my music relates to five aspects of the plant that I used for inspiration. Due to the determined length of the commission, each section lasts about one minute.

Prelude: Conditions of growth. The Mountain Heartleaf lives in the deciduous forests in mountainous regions of Tennessee and North Carolina populated with Mountain Laurel and Rhododendron. The opening chorale establishes the rich, dense harmonic landscape of the piece.

Perpetual Permeation: Rhizome. The Mountain Heartleaf spreads across the forest floor by a rhizome, creating a ground cover. A constant eighth-note pulse permeates and propels this scherzo-like movement.

Overlapping and Variegation: Leaves. The leaves of the Mountain Heartleaf are heart-shaped, slightly variegated in their color patterns, and overlap each other, shading the forest floor and keeping it moist. A five-part canon provides overlapping and variegation in sound between the instruments.

Exquisite Simplicity: Flowers. The flowers of the Mountain Heartleaf are understated, subtle, and elegant, often hidden by the leaves. This movement borrows from Satie’s Gymnopedies, which I believe are the epitome of exquisite simplicity.

Vim and Vigor: Hot Herbal Energetics. Because Mountain Heartleaf is threatened, it should not be used, but it shares properties with other species of wild ginger*, and the root has a similar spicy taste to the Asian culinary ginger. The last section of this piece is a fast, energetic finale fitting for a plant with “hot” energetics which help to activate and enhance the actions of other herbs when blended with them in medicinal formulations.

*Before using any wild plant, be sure to do thorough research regarding benefits and risks, and make sure you have a proper ID and are using an appropriate species.

I loved working on this project, and now I want to write a set of pieces about plants for woodwind quintet!

Here is a video of the premiere of Mountain Heartleaf. I hope you enjoy it!

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    Has it Started to Get Hard Yet?

    heathersavage1

    I was asked this question the other day, in regard to my efforts in music composition.

    It is a truly ridiculous question. Out of respect, I won’t say who asked it, but I will say this person should have known better.

    While I rolled with it at the time and didn’t take offense, thinking about it more (and discussing it with my husband and my best friend) I realized it needed a better answer than the one I gave.

    And that answer deserved a blog post. So, here it is.

    Has music composition “started to get hard” for me?

    Well, music composition has always been hard. Or, at least not easy.

    It’s hard when I don’t feel like I have any good ideas.

    Yesterday I worked at composing for five hours and wrote nothing down. That doesn’t mean I didn’t experiment with ideas. It just means I didn’t catch any worth keeping. Like undersized fish.

    It’s hard when, instead of going out to see my husband’s gig, I stay home by myself and compose.

    I have learned to be by myself. A lot. Sometimes, I like it. Sometimes, I don’t. Either way, I feel I am communicating that I am antisocial. I’m really not. But I have to work, and this is my work.

    It’s hard when I feel discouraged about how slowly my composition career is growing, and I wonder if it will get off the ground before I die.

    I can relate to orchardists. Do you know how long it takes for a fruit tree to produce fruit? Several years. An orchardist must invest a tremendous amount of time, effort, and MONEY into purchasing the land and the trees, planting and tending, for YEARS before even a first modest crop is produced. That’s what a composition career is like. But instead of buying and planting trees, I am writing pieces. And, like the orchardist, I can use the best skills I have, but I am still susceptible to things outside of my control, like the weather (or in my case, public opinion) that could ruin everything before it even starts. Unlike the orchardist who can get a loan from a bank, I can’t even get funding from a grant before my work is proven.

    It’s hard when there’s no/not enough money coming in from my composition.

    Yes, I work. Not just at composition. I do other work, mostly playing the piano or teaching, that brings in income. But it is demoralizing to compose and not see rewards from your efforts. The Bible says workers are worthy of their wages. But our society says workers are only worthy of their wages if society determines that what they produce has value and only the wages society is willing to pay. This problem is not unique to artists, but it is hard nonetheless.

    It’s hard when I don’t hear back from calls for scores and competitions.

    It’s worse than rejections. At least a rejection makes me feel seen. Like I actually exist. But not hearing back feels like I just sent a piece into a black hole and no one cared enough to respond.

    It’s hard when it feels like other musicians don’t respect composers.

    Like the people who don’t let composers know the results of calls for scores and competitions. Composers spend many, many hours composing the piece. But they can’t spend 20 minutes getting an email written? I see performers complaining on Facebook about the cost of scores. They wouldn’t play for free. But they want to composers to do their work for nothing? I see certain ensembles asking composers to pay them to look at their scores, but if they perform the pieces, they don’t pay for the copies and probably don’t even report a performance properly so the composers can get royalties.

    Of course, not all musicians are like this. Many ensembles treat composers fairly.

    But it is hard to do the work of vetting who I will send scores to.

    It’s hard to write music in a style or combination I have not used before.

    It’s hard to figure out how to communicate and notate how to produce non-traditional sounds.

    It’s hard to figure out how to reproduce a percussion sound you fell in love with, but the instruments aren’t made any more because the inventor and sole producer died.

    It’s hard to write music in combinations for which there are no models (at least that my professor could think of.)

    It’s hard to know if all your ideas are going to work.

    Composers don’t have a true lab. Sure, a computer program can reproduce some sounds. But not all. And there aren’t always live musicians around to try out what you need to hear when you need to hear it. And sometimes the set-up needed is not something that can be assembled without a great deal of planning.

    Sometimes, the test happens in real time on stage at the premiere in front a live audience. What if it flops?

    This hasn’t happened to me yet – and I certainly hope it never does – but that would be hard.

    It’s hard to go through the process of composing.

    Thankfully, I have done this often enough that I know what to expect of my own process. (Every composer’s process is a little different.) I know it can take a long time for a good idea to ferment in my mind. Sometimes that is scary because I feel like I am getting way too close to a deadline. And I am not a procrastinator! But I can’t magically make a good idea. I can not-so-magically come up with a bad one, though.

    As George Crumb said, “it is easy to write unthinking music.”

    But hard does not mean not worth it.

    I wrote to my dear friend, Jerry, a 90 year-old composer who I consider to be my adopted grandmother, this week about the thoughts I’ve been tossing back and forth in my mind regarding my plans for after I graduate in ONE YEAR. Time flies by faster and faster as you get older, and I can’t believe I am already halfway through my master’s.

    I shared my frustration with the significant number of views my compositions get on YouTube. But few score sales. No comments. The significant number of hits on my website. But few subscribers, few comments, and few score downloads. It seems many experience my music or my writing, but just don’t engage. I feel like I am missing the mark.

    That’s hard.

    So, what happened in the two days since I wrote to Jerry?

    Two people liked blog posts and I got a new subscriber.

    Then, a huge surprise – my piece, Eidolons was selected for performance by chamber music players of the Raleigh Symphony!

    The life of a composer is like a roller coaster. Serious dips. Glorious highs.

    But riding a roller coaster all the time is hard.

    Knowing whether or not you should stay on or get off the ride is hard.

    Is it “starting to get hard?”

    No, it is not starting to get hard.

    It has always been stinking hard.

    From Apparition to Inspiration

    heathersavage1

    In the last couple of posts, I have been writing about inspiration. In “Inspiration is a Lucky Penny” I write about how finding inspiration requires discipline and practice. It doesn’t just happen. You have to keep an eye out for it, just like paying attention to changes in light can lead you to a lucky penny.

    In “An Attack of the Zielschmerz” I gave an example of how I found inspiration in a new word I learned in an email newsletter I read regularly.

    Today’s post is about how I grew inspiration from a spark (or, rather, a smoldering ember) into a fully engaged fire.

    A piece I wrote last fall started with a feeling. A vague feeling.

    I knew I was going to write a piece for flute and clarinet, and I knew I wanted to explore microtonality and multiphonics. But that was all I had.

    Part of my compositional process involves connecting my music to extra-musical sources. It helps keep me on track with form, motives and colors I want to use in my piece and excluding the ones that don’t help to convey the idea of the extra-musical source.

    That is where I was stuck. I didn’t have an extra-musical source. I only had a vague feeling. I kept searching for what this vague feeling was pointing at, for about a week, with no success.

    Then the solution came to me: use my favorite resource, the THESAURUS.

    I looked up “vague” in the thesaurus, and I went down the rabbit holes thesauri lead to, following all the tunnels between words, searching for the just the right word that would solidify the inspiration.

    I finally found it: Eidòlon.

    Eidòlon is an ancient Greek word that refers to an apparition or an ideal – a ghost, a fantasized hero, or even an idol.

    This was the vague thing.

    After that, I took another step in my artistic process and looked up other artwork associated with “Eidòlon.”

    Low and behold, I found Walt Whitman’s poem, Eidòlons!

    The poem is amazing. You can read it here.

    I was drawn immediately to two stanzas. The first is this:

    Lo, I or you,
    Or woman, man, state, known or unknown,
    We seeming solid wealth, strength, beauty build,
    But really build eidòlons    .

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      I was reminded of the biblical book of Ecclesiastes.

      All this STUFF we amass? It means nothing. We think money will get us somewhere. Or physical strength (or political power?) Or beauty? We build stuff…like houses. We collect treasures. But it will all be gone. It doesn’t last. We can’t take it with us when we die. It’s all just a phantom in the end.

      Eidòlons!

      King Solomon called it “a chasing after the wind.”

      I was reminded, too, of what Jesus said, “Do not build up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But build up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” (Matthew 5:19-21.)

      After reading Whitman’s poem, I knew why I was feeling so “vague.” This was the first piece I wrote after moving to North Carolina and starting my master’s degree in music.

      My old life was gone. I moved away from friends and family, and we left our house.

      Our house.

      We loved it.

      It needed work – more than we could afford to fix, really, but the land was even better – a very quiet 2-1/2 acre oasis in the woods. It was hard to leave that. I still miss it.

      I have kept in touch with my friends and family, of course, but we will never get that property back.

      But you know what? It was an eidòlon. Something that doesn’t last.

      The poem spoke to the intense feelings I was having about leaving a home – something that represents (to a degree, anyway) security and financial success – to pursue artistic development, which on the surface looks like almost the complete opposite.

      No wonder I was feeling so “vague.” I was perceiving the eidòlons.

      This next stanza also stood out to me:

      Ever the dim beginning.
      Ever the growth, the rounding of the circle,
      Ever the summit and the merge at last, (to surely start again.)
      Eidòlons! Eidòlons!

      After reading it, I decided to make the form of my piece into an “imperfect mirror” which means that the end of the piece is a reflection of the beginning. Which it mostly is, but not exactly. I won’t bog you down with the details, but I will say it is “imperfect” in the way ripples in water may not reflect every bit of an image accurately.

      My piece explores the blurred reality of pitch and rhythm through a nebulous sense of meter and tunings that seem “not quite right” based on multiphonics and microtones between the pitches Western ears are accustomed to.

      Eidòlons! Eidòlons!

      Here is a video of the premiere at the International Festival of Music by Women, on March 8, 2024. Dr. Soo Goh is playing clarinet, and Carol Shansky is playing flute. Many thanks to them for their willingness to bring this piece to life, and for their encouragement of my work. They did such a great job!

      I’d love to hear your thoughts – on the poem, on the idea of eidòlons, on the piece! Leave a comment!

      An Attack of the Zielschmerz

      heathersavage1

      If you read my last post, you know that I look for inspiration everywhere. The inspiration for today’s post comes from this essay in The Marginalian, by Maria Popova, an email newsletter on philosophy and art. I find many good tidbits in this newsletter and even have a commonplace book (rather, a digital file) full of quotes, many of which I came across in The Marginalian.

      In reading Maria’s essay, I learned the following term: Zielschmerz.

      According to The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig, which Maria reviewed in her essay, Zielschmerz is “the dread of finally pursuing a lifelong dream, which requires you to put your true abilities out there to be tested on the open savannah, no longer protected inside the terrarium of hopes and delusions that you started up in kindergarten and kept sealed as long as you could. German Ziel, goal + Schmerz, pain. Pronounced “zeel-shmerts.”

      The hardest thing in life, I think, is to be true to yourself. I don’t mean this in a selfish, no-one-else-matters kind of way. What I mean is being honest about who you are and what you want. That is the most vulnerable someone can be; it is in those moments we are baring our soul.

      When we tell someone we love them.

      When we claim an identity others don’t approve of.

      When we make necessary decisions that could have negative consequences for other people.

      When we start our own business.

      When we make art.

      Zielschmerz is a real thing, and that Zielschmerz may be THE thing that keeps so many adults from moving into being true to themselves.

      It takes courage to be real, because it is very risky. The possibility of rejection or failure looms large, and if the consequences were not so substantive, the fortitude it takes to live true to oneself would not be worth noting.

      When we’re young, risks don’t have repercussions as great. If we fall, we bounce back a lot easier. At the same time, we have the comfort and support of being with peers who are in the same situation. Everyone is learning new things, everyone is trying to figure out how to get through life.

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        But, as the years progress, life gets more cemented, and our joints stiffen; it becomes more difficult to maneuver into something new.

        The sediment piles over the dreams with time, and it gets harder and harder to dig out what has been buried.

        Those dreams from kindergarten. Why were they hidden and protected in the first place?

        Because someone told us they weren’t good dreams.

        Not practical. Outside the norm. Pretentious.

        The killers of dreams told us we needed to stay in our place – the place they told us we belonged.

        We believed them, and along the way became accustomed to that way of thinking, even adopting it ourselves as justification for keeping the dreams hidden and protected.

        We thought it was better to believe them to be wrong than to let the dreams see the light of day and risk proving them right.

        I liken the feel of Zielschmerz to getting on a thrill coaster.

        When you’re young and carefree, you look forward to the ride. It’s more exciting than scary. But, as I have gotten older, I strap myself in, and thoughts of dread immediately enter my mind: “What have I gotten myself into? What is the actual risk regarding those health condition warning signs? When is high blood pressure too high to ride roller coasters? When was the last time my blood pressure was checked? Am I going to die of a heart attack in the next two minutes? Should I scream as loud as I can to get them to let me out before this thing starts rolling?

        They are similar to the thoughts that immediately come to mind when I am getting ready to release a music composition into the world:

        What if they think my piece is stupid? What if they think it is just awful, unskilled writing? What if it is, and I don’t know it? (Can I recover from such public embarrassment?) Can I afford to take the risk on making this recording? Will it be worth it, or a waste of a lot of money? What if I say the wrong thing and they misunderstand my politics? What if I don’t say enough and they misunderstand my politics? (After all, cancel culture has been around a long time, you know, and many musical artists and composers were, at minimum, questioned by the FBI during the Red Scare…) How long will it take for me to “find my people” who appreciate my work? What if I never do? Maybe I should just go hide my dreams again before they get too far into the world.”

        This is Zielschmerz, the pain of reaching toward goals you kept hidden for so long.

        It hurts, but it’s worth it.

        I get a sinking feeling in my gut every time I send a piece to a competition or call for scores, every time I ask someone to look at it, every time I put a piece up on Soundcloud or YouTube, every time I make a post about my work on social media. I’m not sure it will ever go away.

        At least I have a word for it now and can identify what’s happening.

        I’m having an attack of the Zielschmerz!

        Does this resonate with you? Tell me about it by leaving a comment!

        Inspiration is a Lucky Penny

        heathersavage1

        It’s a common misconception that a spark of inspiration instantly brings about the creation of an artwork. I wish it were that easy. But, like most artists, I must “work out” that inspiration by dutifully showing up with pencil in hand to turn the inspiration into notes, erasing and rewriting if what I have put down does not quite capture the idea.

        I think it is also a common misconception that inspiration just strikes an artist like a bolt of lightning.

        Finding inspiration is work, too. “Becoming inspired” is a discipline all its own, because you must always be on the lookout for it.

        Many years ago, I read about how lucky people are not actually lucky. Rather, they are very observant, notice opportunities, and are ready to take advantage of them when they come. That is what finding inspiration is like. Inspiration is the “lucky penny” you find on the sidewalk. You have to be observant to notice the penny in the first place and be ready to pick it up.

        The penny didn’t show up for the “lucky” person; it was laying there, waiting to be discovered. But most pass by those pennies unaware, paying no attention to how the light is reflecting irregularly on the pavement.

        Often, inspiration is about as exciting as a lucky penny. What can a single penny buy, after all? Well, a penny can’t buy anything anymore, but the creative mind will take that penny and come up with a story about it. giving it meaning.

        Like this blog post…finding inspiration in a lucky penny to tell you how inspiration is like a lucky penny.

        I find lucky pennies frequently; I came across one just last week. A couple of months ago, I found a quarter. Despite the fact that loose change has become less common due to the move toward digital currency, I continue to find random coins.

        Inspiration is scattered about. It is like finding a single coin in every spot a multifaceted prism refracts light. The treasure is found in the process of collecting individual coins, rather than finding a whole pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

        And so, I am an inspiration hunter, and inspiration could be anywhere.

        Inspiration might come from the weather. Or it might come from the pattern of sunlight on a forest floor after it filters through the trees. It might come from a book or a poem, or through a conversation with a friend. Maybe it will come from traveling, or from experiencing an already-existing work of art.

        When you have practiced become inspired, you know that anything, anything that has caught your attention could be the start of a new piece of art.

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          In fact, inspiration is so abundant it is impossible to collect all the coins laying around. Still, it is useful to pick up as many as possible, far beyond the number you could ever actually use.

          I keep a notebook of ideas. I have at least twenty pieces on my “to compose” list. I currently have seventy-two potential blog posts in my draft folder. Both of these lists get longer and longer since it is easier to come up with ideas than to complete projects. But, if I don’t write down my inspirations, I will lose them. So, I keep my inexhaustible lists.

          These lists are not fleshed-out with details about how I will go about writing the piece, or the blog post. Most of them are simply a working title or a short phrase or sentence – enough to remind me of the original seed of the idea so I can bring it back to memory when I am ready to work on the project.

          I may never use some of the inspirations on my lists. I might run out of time, or my interest in some may have faded. That’s OK. I am not a slave to my inspirations; they are there to help me. I keep my cache full, which serves me when I am at a loss for ideas.

          (I am never at a loss for ideas, because I collect them. That is the whole point.)

          I think most people experience inspirational moments a lot more often than they realize. but they probably dismiss these oddities as meaningless, like worthless pennies. What if, instead, they saw these small observations as possibilities? As seeds for creative projects? As inspiration?

          Here’s a quick true-life example:

          Last week, when I was leaving the library at the end of the day, I was hit on by an Irish man in the elevator. As I hit the buttons, I simply asked him if he was also going to the first floor. The man was nice enough; it was a pleasant interaction, but he was clearly curious to know what I was doing after work. That is definitely not something that happens every day. This moment could have just been a chuckle lost to time. But I thought to myself, “You know, this would make a great first line to a novel or short story: ‘My mistake was asking which floor he was going to.'”

          Now, since I am not a fiction writer, I am not going to use this line. However, if you are, feel free to take it. Or, perhaps, it will inspire something else.

          May your days be filled with things weird and special, strange, and poignant, and overfill your purse or pockets with lucky “pennies.”

          Happy inspiration hunting!

          Where do you find inspiration? Tell me about it by leaving a comment!

          The Case of the Missing Measure

          heathersavage1

          When I took on my graduate research fellowship at Appalachian State, I knew I would be engraving the work of Tui St. George Tucker. For the most part, it has turned out exactly as I expected: I read her handwritten scores and “engrave” them in modern notation software to make the scores readable for future performances. Engraving was once done on metal plates at print shops; we don’t need them anymore now that we have new technology and software, but the term has remained. One person was recently intrigued by my work, thinking I was actually engraving real metal plates. No, nothing that fancy.

          I have to say being an “engraver” in the old-fashioned sense does carry more prestige than what is actually involved in my work today – typing in letters and numbers. For example, in my software, typing in “6A” places a quarter note on A, though I may have to change the octave using another couple of keys. It’s not unlike playing the piano while sight-reading; as I type away, I barely have to look at my hands.

          I’ve always wondered what it is like going to research OLD manuscripts from a couple hundred years ago, traveling to other countries to see if the modern-day scores truly match what Bach or Beethoven or Chopin really wrote, or to see if there is an undiscovered or long-forgotten score that needs to be brought to the public eye like an ancient archeological find.

          Tui St. George Tucker died in 2004, which was not very long ago. I didn’t expect to do anything but simply copy her scores. I certainly didn’t expect to solve any mysteries.

          I was wrong.

          Granted, the mysteries I’m solving are not big ones, but they are important to anyone looking to study or perform Tui’s scores. But since Tui is dead, I can’t ask her any questions about her scores. I have to make decisions that make sense to me as a fellow composer.

          Here are some of the mysteries I have solved in my first semester:

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            In one piano piece, music was written in the treble clef in the last system of the page, but the bass clef had been cut off. This section was an otherwise perfect repeat of a previous section, so I referred back to the first section to fill in the missing notes.

            In another project, I had to create a score from two viola parts. In three of the four movements, the parts did not have an equal number of measures! Not only did I need to figure out where the missing measures belonged, I had to determine what they contained. In all of those instances, I went with the simplest explanation: Tui lost track of counting when there were multiple measures of repeated material. (Losing track of counting is very easy to do, even for a composer.)

            In my last project of the semester, unbeknownst to me, the unnumbered pages in the file I had access to were out of order. I typed in 3/5 of the score before I got to a point where I said, “THIS cannot possibly follow THAT!” and began to look for the wrinkle in the music so I could align everything in the proper order. I was very glad I was not engraving on metal plates! The cut-and-paste function in my software made that a quick fix.

            I’ve had to decide whether a sloppily written note is on a line or a space. I’ve added articulations and dynamics that were clearly unintentionally left out in one part. I say “clearly” but this is, of course, my educated opinion because the score does not explicitly say.

            The overarching question is, “Am I trying to make this engraving original or playable?” Sometimes the original contains mistakes or inappropriate markings. (This is a common issue – composers are not experts on every instrument and need input from instrumentalists/vocalists to know best how to notate certain musical ideas.) In these cases, should I be using Tui’s marks or the “fixes” that were written in someone else’s hand?

            I, of course, run all my decisions by my supervisor who has the final say on the finished product. But I do feel a sense of being important and having some authority, since I’m more than a copyist. I’m a musical detective.

            Have you come across any musical mysteries? Tell me about it in the comments!

            Making a Little Magic

            heathersavage1

            When you get down to it, there are only two basic approaches to composition: writing for oneself or writing for someone else.

            This is obviously not a matter of style. Any style can fit under either of these broad categories. Neither approach is necessarily better than the other, though the second can be more lucrative if you have enough people who want you to write for them and can pay well.

            As an emerging composer, most of my work has born out of me writing for myself. I am still developing connections with people who might want to commission me. But I have had the privilege of composing a couple of commissioned pieces, including one I worked on over this past summer.

            The story begins in 2020, when I was commissioned by the Greater Tiverton Community Chorus to write a Christmas piece in celebration of the ensemble’s fortieth birthday.

            Beth Armstrong, who was directing the group at the time, must have really liked my work because I got a surprise email from her at the end of May 2023 asking if I would be interested in a commission for her other chorus, The Chorus of East Providence.

            The obvious answer was YES!

            But there was a major snag: I was moving. We had just put our house on the market.

            Could I write a choral piece AND pack up my house AND finish an orchestra piece I was in the middle of AND seal up the sale of the house AND move one thousand miles AND settle in before the work was needed to start rehearsals, with an eye to performing it in December 2023? Given the timeline, I’d probably even start school before I finished the piece.

            That was a tall order.

            My interest in the commission wasn’t just about the money. In fact, I got creative in negotiations because of the ensemble’s budget constraints. I wanted to write it for Beth and help her dream come to life.

            Beth has been one of my biggest cheerleaders since I met her in January 2020 when I started accompanying the Tiverton chorus. She knew I was a composer and when the pandemic hit, she was the driving force behind the first commission with the Tiverton chorus, providing me with some work while everything was shut down, despite only knowing me for a couple of months. When we all got back together as things improved, she championed my work. She entrusted me with the ensemble in her absence. She changed my title from “accompanist” to “collaborative pianist” and always said she felt we truly collaborated together, solving problems and making decisions about the music we helped the chorus prepare.

            Beth’s idea for the new commission was unique. She had written Christmas songs a while back and wanted them arranged for SATB chorus with piano and oboe.

            Now, she was entrusting me with her musical babies to help them grow into something bigger and fuller. This was an honor I could not say no to. I didn’t want to say no.

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              So, I determined that, despite all the obstacles, it was going to happen. I would write the piece, and I would give it my all.

              The funny thing about this commission is that it really wasn’t my “style.” I wrote a piece in a style I probably would have never chosen if I was writing for myself only.

              But I see music as a bit like acting – taking on a character and telling a story. I always compose in service to the non-musical idea and consider what will best communicate it.

              In this piece, I was writing to serve Beth and composing to help her style be brought out in the piece. Her songs provided plenty of inspiration, and listening to her melodies gave me with everything I needed to capture the essence of her music. I found it fun to creatively think of ways to bring out the best in Beth’s songs; for me this was the epitome of collaboration.

              It didn’t matter that the idea – or even the melodies – didn’t start with me. In fact, many of the sometimes-overwhelming steps of composing were either eliminated or reduced because my choices were already decided for me.

              I ended up writing a 7-minute choral song cycle of four songs I titled Magic & Merriment. Knowing Beth, I felt the title suited her and captured the full spectrum of Christmas themes in her songs: the magic of wonder, and the merriment of celebration. It also harkens back to Christmases of yore, matching some of the age-old poetry Beth used for texts. The oboe added a hint of the Renaissance, and I couldn’t refrain from adding a tambourine to round out the festivity.

              I believe that “composing for oneself” and “composing for someone else” should overlap. If I can’t connect with the project on a personal level, I won’t be able to capture the essence of the idea and the music will not come alive. While I wrote in a different style than I usually do, I found the part of me that resonated with the project – and in this case, it was a love for Charles Dickens’ writing.

              Magic & Merriment will be premiered by the Chorus of East Providence at their concerts on December 9&10, 2023. Information about tickets can be found here.

              If you are interested in collaborating on a project, contact me here.

              If It Can Happen at the Oscars, It Can Happen to Me.

              heathersavage1

              I’m not a movie buff, and I don’t watch the Oscars. I really don’t care who wins because I’m probably not going to watch any of the movies anyway. But I do know what the Oscars are, and how big a deal they are. I am aware of the planning, precision and attention to detail that is needed to put on such an event, and that millions of people who are watching the awards ceremony on live television.

              A lot is at stake to get it right.

              So, I was surprised over the weekend to learn that, back in 2017, a wrong winner had been announced on stage, and that the wrongly announced winners were already giving their speeches before the correction was made.

              That’s a really big gaffe.

              Apparently, in 2015, the wrong winner was announced at The Miss Universe pageant! The crown was placed on the head of the runner-up, then had to be removed and placed on the real winner’s head. In front of millions of people.

              At least I wasn’t on stage or on television in front of millions of people.

              I got an email and phone call this past Thursday with the announcement that I had won a competition I entered. I was beyond excited, because this was the first competition I had WON. I’ve been a finalist a few times and have come in second before, but for me this was a huge deal. In my excitement, I shared it with my family, my friends, and my social media following (which is not very large.)

              This wasn’t a mistake of failing to read the fine print, like the characters in the old Alpert’s Furniture commercials.

              (Alpert’s Furniture was a regional family-owned furniture store. If you aren’t familiar with their incredibly funny commercials, here’s the one I’m referencing: Alpert’s Furniture – Lottery TV Commercial – YouTube.)

              Unlike the almost-winners at the Oscars and the Miss Universe pageant, I wasn’t misinformed for just a couple of minutes.

              Twenty-four hours later I received an email telling me there was a mistake, and I had not actually won. The winner and I both had the same title for our pieces, and they picked up the wrong one. I had come in second.

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                I was extremely disappointed and embarrassed that I had shared that I won. I didn’t know whether to take down my social media posts, or “come clean” and tell everyone I didn’t win or let them stay up. Two days later, I was still receiving “congratulations.” I know I didn’t lie, but I did unknowingly tell a falsehood and felt bad. I couldn’t bring myself to say “thank you” to those well-wishers (yet.)

                An older friend congratulated me yesterday after church, and I told her what happened. She expressed sympathy, but then said, “You’re a winner in MY eyes.” – a sentiment that I found surprisingly touching. She told me not to take down my posts. “Let them think you won,” was her advice.

                I shared this news with a composer friend of mine, who agreed it was a real bummer, but a regular part of being a composer.

                It is?

                If I know a composer who has been wrongly told they were a winner, I don’t know their story. That is why I am writing mine today. Anyone who reads this story and has experienced being wrongly told they are a winner can know they are not the only one.

                One of the things that upsets me most about this story is that it’s a private pain: mine. There’s no public apology or announcement of a mistake. When the organization made their public announcement of the winner, they didn’t have to admit they originally screwed up and let another composer think they won for twenty-four hours. I hope there’s a change in their policies to prevent a mistake like this from happening again, but no one is not going to be asked back as an announcer.*

                If I mess up my applications to these contests, I’m disqualified. If I accidentally send a broken link or a link to an empty folder, that’s it. I’m out. An overwhelming number of submissions can be difficult to process if something is missing from an application. It can also (accurately or not**) speak to a person’s ability to complete a project. Applicants to universities must have their applications 100% completed before the deadline. That’s the way the world works.

                I wrote in a blog post quite a while ago that, while I am applying to Calls for Scores and Competitions, I am also vetting the ensembles and organizations. I pay attention to how they treat composers – what they are offering, how they communicate, what they say in their rejection letters, and how organized they are. They have a team of people. If someone can’t get back to me in a timely manner, or if they go and tell the wrong person they won, I question if that is a group I would want to work with in the future. That level of disorganization, to me, says a commission could be a disaster.

                This is the danger of having only one shot at communication. We’ve got to get it right.

                *As far as this organization is concerned, second place comes with a small monetary award and a performance next season. Nothing was said about 2nd place on the competition description, so I’m not sure if it always existed or was created for me. They still want to meet over Zoom. I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet, but I will play nice and agree to it.

                **Having recently been involved in a Call for Scores and overseeing the collection of entries, I was pretty shocked to see several competent composers (who I know personally) have problems with their links and folders.

                Has something like this ever happened to you? Tell me about it in the comments!

                Love Came Down at Christmas

                heathersavage1

                Music is something beyond rhythm and pitch. It is beyond any written notation, no matter the style – or even if it is written at all! The notes, the chords, even the instrumentation are just a medium, an avenue for communicating the message which is transcendent. We must listen beyond, much like we must read between the lines of a poem. Like the notes in music, the words of a poem are only a vessel for the message. Well-placed syllables and vowel sounds, the use of alliteration and onomatopoeia, and various other poetic devices are not the meaning in themselves. They only direct the reader to the meaning.

                Back in September and October, I was in quite a slump and did not compose at all. One day in early November, I was contacted by a woman I only knew through Facebook, a friend of a friend, asking if I had any pieces suitable for Advent or Christmas. She was looking for something new to sing for her church’s Christmas Eve service, instead of rehashing the same old standards. At that point I didn’t have such a piece, so I decided to write one for her. I did not want any money for it because I was writing this for my own benefit. It wasn’t just about the wisdom of having such a piece in my portfolio; it was also about my need to get back to composing regularly after about two months of stagnation. The encouragement of being told my work was desired was enough reward and something I needed more than payment at that time. (She and her fellow performers were also willing to give me a copy of their recording, which is very helpful.)

                I asked if she had a text in mind.

                Finding the right text is the most difficult, and most important, part of writing a vocal piece. I am very picky about the text. The flow of the words, whether syllables are more open or closed, the rhythm of each line, and the pattern of rhyme (if there is one) all contribute to whether or not I will take on the challenge of setting a text.

                She suggested “Love Came Down at Christmas” by Christina Rossetti: 

                Love Came Down at Christmas

Love came down at Christmas,
Love all lovely, love divine;
Love was born at Christmas,
Star and angels gave the sign.

Worship we the Godhead,
Love incarnate, love divine;
Worship we our Jesus:
But wherewith for sacred sign?

Love shall be our token,
Love shall be yours and love be mine,
Love to God and to all men,
Love for plea and gift and sign.

                I’ve got to be honest that, while I enjoy much of Christina Rossetti’s work, this poem is not one of my favorites. The mouthfeel just doesn’t work for me. The changes in the shape of the syllables from line to line seem abrupt and rather square. I don’t like square; I like round. The syllables are short, the words are short, the lines are short, the stanzas are short, and the entire poem is just three stanzas! It takes about twenty seconds to recite the poem out loud, with pauses. It’s impossible to stretch it out further by reading each word slowly. Try it! It sounds silly. It also seems to me to be “unfinished.” I get to the end of the poem and feel a bit like I was left hanging. Is that it? I would not normally have chosen this text myself, but since I did not have the emotional energy to go find one I liked, I accepted the challenge.

                One piece of compositional advice I have heard is that a good estimate for the amount of time it will take to set the text in music is about three times the length of reciting the poem. For this poem, that would be about one minute. Adding in accompaniment, I knew I could stretch it out to about one and a half minutes, but this still was not sufficient. I knew immediately I was going to have to do something to change up this text.

                When I first began working on the piece, I was unhappy with the sound of it. I was writing for a church service and using a very popular poem, so I wanted to keep the music relatively approachable for the average listener. Yet, I wanted it to be more like a classical-style art song than a popular-style common in much of Contemporary Christian worship music. My piece was heading in the direction I didn’t want.

                As I discussed the issue I was having with my twenty-year-old daughter, she encouraged me to try and figure out what the poem was really about. In a “Duh!” moment, I realized I had skipped some very important steps before beginning to write the music. Normally, I jot down words that capture the feelings and ideas that I hope to communicate through the music. I do this for all pieces, vocal or instrumental. But this time, I had forgotten to take the time to do this. I had forgotten to read between the lines of Christina Rossetti’s poem. The words were just a frame. What was she really communicating? So, I went back and spent more time with the poem and wrote down some thoughts.

                There’s a difference between setting text and setting context.

                I am reminded of the words of one of my English teachers admonishing my class of young writers: “show, don’t tell.” That’s my job as a composer: show, don’t tell. Simply setting text without trying to capture the substance behind the words is simply “telling” or “reciting.” I need to use musical devices to help bring listeners on a journey to encounter the transcendent meaning for themselves.

                Christina Rossetti’s works are in public domain; I do not need to get permission to make changes. So I did. Musically, I stretched out the words and made the single-syllable word “love” last an entire measure in some places. I repeated words and parts of phrases. I rearranged the lines of the first stanza so I could make the musical ideas more cohesive.I made the first stanza into it’s own musical section. I combined stanzas two and three into one section because the third stanza answers the question that ends the second stanza, and in my mind, there was interior rhythmic consistency that brought them together. I then repeated the first stanza/section again to address the unfinished feeling I got from reading the poem and to reiterate the answer to the question of “why?” inherent in the second and third stanzas. All in all, I made this short, pithy poem last four-and-a-half minutes.

                Earlier this week, I made the mistake of listening to other settings of this text. I did so in response to a strong sense that I needed to modify my own piece slightly, which I wrote about in “When Music Wakes You at 4am.” I came away feeling insecure. I complained to my husband that my setting, comparatively, seemed to come out of left field. “It’s just so different. All these other settings are so pretty and in major and mine is in minor and, well, it’s just so angsty.” He responded, “Of course it’s angsty. It’s 2020. Times are tough, and you’re a product of your time. The angst of these days is going to show up in your work.” Each artist interacts with their sources differently due to different personalities and experiences. My own self, mingled with the uneasiness of 2020, influenced how I interacted with the meaning in the poem and combined to create the meaning in the piece.

                The idea of a poem or a piece of music being only the container for a message relates very much to the Christmas story of Jesus Christ, the Son of God come in the flesh. The body was the container – one that we, as humans, can recognize and interact with, much like how poets use words that we understand or composers use notes we can hear and comprehend. But Jesus was much more than an ordinary person; he was God, incarnate. The acts he did in the body – the way he lived, taught, performed miracles, died, and rose again – all those things point to something much greater: the message that mankind can be at peace in relationship with God and each other, the message that Love came down at Christmas. In becoming a person, Jesus didn’t just communicate God’s love for the world; he also experienced life from a human perspective and became familiar with our suffering. During this topsy-turvy year full of illness, death, unrest, injustice, distress, chaos, and uncertainty all around us, the Incarnation takes on even more significance, at least for me.

                So, I present my setting of “Love Came Down at Christmas”, by Christina Rossetti, written during November 2020 and premiered by Michelle Marinelli Prindle, soprano, Dan Prindle, cello, and David Kidwell, piano. In these times, they needed to make a recording for their church’s virtual Christmas Eve service, and they chose to do so by recording individually and then making a video. This creates challenges that don’t exist in a live situation where everyone is performing together in one place! The piece and the recording, both, are a reflection of our time. I am grateful for their beautiful performance, hard work, and willingness to perform this piece. I hope you enjoy it and that it contributes to a deeper understanding of the words “Love Came Down at Christmas.”

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                A professional recording of my piece for string orchestra, Daughter of the Stars, is now available. It can be found here.

                When Music Wakes You at 4am

                heathersavage1

                Sometimes I can’t sleep for the music swirling in my head. Despite my body happily resting, my mind is a whir, playing and replaying pieces. Not even whole pieces. Segments of pieces. One line. One phrase. Over and over. This commonly happens when I’m in the middle of a musical production. One season, Charlie Brown and Linus just would not leave me alone!

                I have heard that some composers dream up new compositions. I usually only dream of compositions already written. If it’s someone else’s piece, I can continue to “sleep”, somehow resting despite the conscious awareness that my mind’s playlist is on repeat. I often have my own pieces churning in my head for days or even weeks after finishing them, my mind still digesting the work. It’s annoying, but I can deal with it.

                When I’m in the middle of composing a piece, I relish the fact that my mind works on it while I am sleeping. Sometimes I wake up with solutions to a problem I’ve been trying to solve, or I wake up with ideas for a new direction. In fact, I often look over my work right before bed to give my subconscious something to do. It’s a way of making good use of my natural tendency to overthink.

                But this week, I had a different experience. I had recently finished an art song for a virtual Christmas Eve Mass and even turned it in to my performers a few weeks ago. Yet, I woke up at 4am with the intense feeling that it needed fixing. This one I couldn’t shake off. I was too stressed out to fall back asleep and got out of bed. I spent part of that day listening again to my own piece, as well as a couple of other settings of the same text I had used, trying to figure out what about the piece was bugging me, and if it was worth the effort of making any changes. After all, Christmas Eve was one week away (yikes!) Did I really want to inconvenience the performers, who were making a recording (in other words, it involved more time and effort and starting work on the project sooner) on such short notice?

                I didn’t act on my feelings that day.

                But like Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, who ignored the warnings of the first ghost, I was visited again in my sleep by the nagging sensation that I needed to FIX MY PIECE – the dang piano part! Two measures needed a little more movement to push into the following measures, and I needed to make the notation in another measure clearer. Minor changes, but still…

                The anxiety of making these last-minute changes spawned more thoughts: My performers are giving me a recording. I’m going to try to sell this score. Don’t I want the recording people will hear to match the changes I know I need to make in the score? What if this is my only shot at a good recording? Time is ticking away. The longer I wait, the more I will inconvenience the performers. But these are minor changes. Surely they won’t mind. But what if they have already recorded? I don’t want to put them out and make them re-record. After all, this is for their church service and I’m getting a copy of the recording for free. I don’t want to be a pest.

                Once again I got myself out of bed at 4am, unable to fall back asleep. It took me all day (until about 8PM) to gather up the courage to contact my performers, ask politely if they could possibly accommodate the very minor changes, and send the updated score. At that moment, I was very, very grateful for digital technology! All turned out well, and they agreed to the changes.

                Now I know that if I am wakened at 4am by thoughts that plague me about alterations I need to make to a piece that I thought was already finished, I just might have to listen the first time, especially if I already have people lined up to perform the piece. It is not worth waiting, because I will only be haunted again the next night, and perhaps every night, until I obey the spirit.

                Resolving this issue has brought great relief, and I slept much better last night. Now I eagerly await the recording. I am very excited to hear my piece performed by real musicians instead of the computerized mock-up. Stay tuned! I will release “Love Came Down at Christmas”, my setting of Christina Rossetti’s poem, as well as more thoughts on the compositional process, on Christmas Day.

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