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Matthew Hindson: Comin’ Right Atcha process diary, 2002 page 1 of 11
Composition Process Diary
Comin' Right AtchaComposed for the Absolute Ensemble, June-August 2002
Matthew Hindson
Preliminary Thoughts and Ideas
Title: Idea for the title came previously with a conversation with Chris Latham, who is the
promotions manager at Boosey and Hawkes Australia. He called a sampler CD “Coming
Right Atchya” in order to convey some of the sense of the music 'coming' right out to the
listener. This is something that I have been interested in for a long time.
It also seemed to fit the idea of the piece being written for the Absolute Ensemble:- loud volume, therefore music ‘coming out’ at the audience
- energetic conductor and selection of music that they play
The title of the piece has its own rhythm and pitch shape:
(Motive A).
I decided that this would be one of two main motives in the piece.
As a foil to this, the other motive would be based on the following pattern:
(Motive B)
I met the conductor (Kristjan Jaarvi) last November (2001) whilst in Adelaide. He conveyed
to me how he likes the group to approach their concerts a la a rock group rather than
necessarily a classical chamber group. This again led to some initial ideas of perhaps using
popular idioms within a classically structured work. Mind you, I may have done it anyway.
Preliminary Listening
* Absolute Ensemble CDs, such as Absolution and Absolute Mix. This helped me get a sense
of their playing. Was very impressed with their virtuosity, in particular the violinist and
trombonist. Thought about perhaps featuring some of these performers as soloists in some
way since they are so good.
Kristjan Jaarvi also encouraged me to write a piece that was “really James Brown”. As Ididn’t know any of Brown’s music, I thought that this was an interesting proposition, but
didn’t know quite how to take it!
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Matthew Hindson: Comin’ Right Atcha process diary, 2002 page 2 of 11
* James Brown pieces, such as Funky Drummer and Sex Machine. Points noted from this
listening included:
- brass punctuations, generally in rhythmic unison
- repetition bar-to-bar
- riffs and/or patterns overlaid amongst different instruments- percussion/kit rhythmic patterns
- funk rhythms (I wondered if these could be overlaid with some of the rhythmic
patterns esp. those derived from dance music that I have found to be useful over
the years).
* Other funk CDs such as those by groups such as Funkadelic and Tower of Power. However
the James Brown influence seemed much more in line with what I was thinking, as it was
much more straightforward. These other CDs were a reaction to James Brown’s music in
themselves (so it seemed to me). I preferred to go back to the source.
Other pieces that I heard before and during writing this piece included:- Brett Dean Pastoral Symphony: a work completely different to my music in just
about every respect, but which was extremely effective. Lots of overlapping
layers everywhere. I wondered if I could use a similar technique at any stage in
Comin’ Right Atcha.
- Mussorghsky arr. Julian Yu: Pictures at an Exhibition: some very interesting
textural and orchestrational techniques, though they didn’t seem suitable for this
piece.
- John Williams On the Conveyor Belt : Someone said that this sounded just like my
music – I didn’t think so, but was interested anyway by ideas such as sequences
and moto perpetuo.
- -Bruckner “Scherzo” from Symphony No. 7 : Whilst from a different period of
music, this music was very impressive in terms of its clarity. There were many
lines of music going on, yet everything could be so clearly heard and worked
extremely well together. This clarity of expression was something that I hoped
would be present in much of Comin’ Right Atcha.
Composition Process
The writing of Comin’ Right Atcha (CRA) took place in a number of stages. I either worked
by hand, or more usually, using a computer. Firstly, I wrote the development section of the
piece. Then I wrote the beginning, then the end. These were not by any means finished
versions. After this, I went through and swapped and changed different sections of the piece,
as well as going through and polishing. Finally, I re-entered the entire piece into the
computer software Finale, and created a score and parts.
1 – “Development” section
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Matthew Hindson: Comin’ Right Atcha process diary, 2002 page 3 of 11
First I wrote out the motives on a blank piece of paper, just to get a sense of their shape. I
then considered what developments I could subject these motives to. Here are some
examples:
Motive A: or
When inverted (put upside down) or retrograded (put back-to-front), the result is the same:
(inverted or retrograde)
Interval Expansion (increasing the distance (intervals) between the notes):
The opposite to this is interval contraction:
The contracted intervals were initially most interesting, and I decided that they may form
some part of the middle of the piece. So I began working from the middle of the piece,
outwards.
e.g.
This motive was further developed in terms of adding other parts around it.
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Matthew Hindson: Comin’ Right Atcha process diary, 2002 page 4 of 11
To create polyrhythmic patterns, I created numerical patterns from the shape of Motive A.
i.e. if a note is high in pitch, it gets a certain number. These numbers were then used to create
rhythmic patterns. My aim in this was to create a chaotic, overlapping texture, that may be
funky. I didn’t know if it would work, in any case, I tried and came up with the following
result.
The “stabbing” referred to above relates to the brass interjections found in funk music, but as
if they were really compressed and all happening simultaneously. Whether this actually
happened or not is another question… but the effect was interesting (if slightly chaotic).
This, and its subsequent developments, were contrasted by less busy, more straightforward
sections, based upon other material derived from Motive A.
I worked on further developing these ideas and similar derivations quite a bit. This involved
creating and manipulating material on a sequencer called Logic Audio. My way of working
in this is that notes are either played in or entered into the sequencer, then manipulated in
various ways, including in large blocks:
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Matthew Hindson: Comin’ Right Atcha process diary, 2002 page 5 of 11
and piano roll notation:
This also helps relate to the graphical representations of motivic developments as outlined
above.
The sequencer is very good at some things, less so at others. For example, it can play better in
time than real players can, and so it’s very easy for extraordinarily difficult rhythms etc. to be
created. It is not good at creating dynamics without much effort.
There were many other developmental techniques used in this section. For example, I came
up with a series of slower chords in the woodwind and brass parts, the melodies of which
were based upon augmented versions of inverted Motive A and the shape of Motive B (i.e.
the rhythms were made much much longer, meaning that their character could change from
fast and staccato to more legato and extended). Contrasting material was placed over and
around this material to maintain interest, and also to create a reference to the original motives,
themselves.
The idea of a bassoon solo was also formulated after talking to Anna Yerbury, Musica Viva’s
Education Coordinator who plays bassoon. The bassoon is somewhat of a neglected
instrument, and so I imagined a section where the bassoonist goes off with a totally wild and
self-indulgent, ridiculously-virtuosic solo. This could be ended by a sudden percussive bang,
or some other stabbing figure, indicating “hey, stop that!”
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Matthew Hindson: Comin’ Right Atcha process diary, 2002 page 6 of 11
The structure of the development section was important in that it needed to maintain a sense
of flow with all of these small sections placed next to each other. I represented it in graphical
form.
I stuck to this plan to a large extent though not exclusively. The “instruments get higher
leading to a high, repetitive fff figure”, for example, was cut from the piece later in the
compositional process.
During the course of the composition I continually revisited sections that had been written. It
takes a long time to get things right – but on the other hand, the consideration of whether a
section works or doesn’t work can change from day to day. Some further refinements
included adding more ‘space’ and silences into the piece to create a balance between loud and
soft material, and revising some of the rhythmic and cross-rhythmic relationships so that theycould be heard more easily.
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Matthew Hindson: Comin’ Right Atcha process diary, 2002 page 7 of 11
***
It was a bit strange working on the development section of the piece before working on the
beginning! However, at the same time I was coming up with ideas for other parts of the
piece, e.g. I had the idea of very opening the work with a hi-hat solo, in which the player
could improvise:
I was also continually referring to a hand-written text by Martin Highland that outlined some
typical patterns used by drummers. This text also indicated that there is a very strong
tradition of improvising amongst drum-kit players. With regards to this, I also discussed kit
writing with Philip South, a Sydney-based percussionist. He pointed out some notational
conventions and also some interesting different drum grooves.
A section where the percussion was not playing formed one of the first explorations of the
juxtaposition of Motives A and B. In this section, the violin had a repeated-note pattern.
Statements of Motives A and B were placed on top of this, rather obviously.
I had no idea where this section would fall in the piece, and in fact tested it in different places.
Other considerations and decisions arrived at during this time include:
- that I shouldn’t worry too much about making the piece too much like funk –
probably what I already have in terms of initial starting points is sufficient;
- that I should mix and match different styles/moods etc. as necessary;
- that I should perhaps try to feature each instrument in a solo capacity at some
point;
- that the instrumental palette that I am working with: clarinet, bassoon, trumpet,
trombone, piano, drum kit, violin, double bass – plus amplification - is fairlylimited as compared to say, an orchestra, so I need to be creative with regards to
things such as instrumental doublings and combinations;
- that the piece should be structurally tight since I’m aiming for a 10 minute time
frame;
- that I may be able to further consider humorous elements, such as the bassoon solo
already mentioned, but also that I need to be extremely careful as to what the
‘focus’ of the piece should be, and whether any humorous elements enhance the
work as a whole.
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Matthew Hindson: Comin’ Right Atcha process diary, 2002 page 8 of 11
2. Opening sections of the work
I have already stated the idea of beginning the work with a hi-hat solo of reasonable length.
The pattern stated in the above section is intended to allude to some of the funk origins of the
piece. I considered long and hard over whether to have other instruments playing something
over the top of this, and one idea was to have instruments enter one at a time, to create theeffect of “coming right at you”:
However in the end I decided that a straight hi-hat solo would probably be fine as it is. You
can get away with certain things at the very beginning of a piece, and in the hands of a good
player, it could actually sound very virtuosic and stunning with a single instrument (hi-hat).
I did try to create some structures using this pattern, and in fact placed one of them at the end
of the piece.
The structure of the opening two minutes or so started to develop, as the diagram below
illustrates.
These structural deliberations did take a lot of time, but of course even more time was spent
in actually creating the notes for the players to play. I decided that the opening material of the
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Matthew Hindson: Comin’ Right Atcha process diary, 2002 page 9 of 11
piece should create a fairly vibrant and happy atmosphere, underpinned by a moving bass riff
working in a similar way to a bass guitar part in a funk song. Once the bass part and the drum
kit parts were created, the process of adding material based upon developments of the motives
was much easier.
I also decided to create interlocking parts, much in the same way that the parts may interlock in a funk piece. They were all based somehow around the unit of the semiquaver. Rhythmic
consistency at the opening I felt helped to create a groove of sorts, and in addition, contrasted
markedly to some of the rhythmic complexity of the development section. There seems little
point in introducing rhythmic complexity if there are few areas of rhythmic transparency to
compare it to.
Another consideration was the mood of the piece, and how intense I wanted to make it. I
chose to have the work not as tutti-focussed as a work such as Speed , but rather, through a
process of building up to places of high intensity. For example, after the bass enters, the
violin enters playing Motive A, then a short interjection, then the piano joins in, then another
interjection, then the clarinet and muted trumpet, another interjection etc. This meant that notall instruments are playing all the time. There is a bit of ‘space’ in the music, though the
work is still at a fast tempo, crotchet = 144.
The number of interjections in this passage are also deliberate. I was conscious of not letting
the music get a real buildup, but rather, be interrupted all the time. In addition, I have stayed
away in places from a straightforward four-bar structure. Sometimes the interjections utilize
time signatures and rhythmic constructions that are irregular. The length and timing of such
musical fragments required much musical deliberation – some of them I still find rather
annoying in terms of breaking the flow of the music. This may or may not be successful in
performance – I can’t really make a final decision until the work is performed by real
musicians.
In the end, the opening 1/3rd
of the piece contains a number of smaller sub-sections. Some of
these were recycled and re-fashioned from discarded material that was originally intended for
the development section. Similarly, some of the ideas that were created for the opening of the
piece were instead placed towards the end of the piece. Computers are good for helping to
work out such structural matters since an entire block of music can be dragged into an entirely
different context with very little effort.
At the same time as working out the structure of this opening section, I was trying to divine a
possible structure for the entire piece, as the following diagram illustrates:
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Matthew Hindson: Comin’ Right Atcha process diary, 2002 page 10 of 11
I was aware that the piece should have a clear and discernable structure. For me, this meant
discrete sections, though for other composers (such as Brett Dean in his Pastoral Symphony)
it may be a more fluid process overall. This required much thinking and in fact did not really
become clear until the piece was just about finished.
3. Final third of work
It is always exciting as a composer when items like large-scale structures become more clear
over time, and when you know that they are going “to work”. As the overall shape became
more evident in my mind, the process of placing it onto paper was again utilised, as the
following diagram illustrates.
This quite illegible diagram nevertheless demonstrates that the piece is constructed in discretesections. It is particularly relevant in terms of my trying to work out the final third of the
work, and what sort of shape it would take.
In terms of working out what material was going to be in this third section, I knew that to a
large extent, it would be derived from sections of music already heard, particularly in the first
part of the piece. Sections were copied across and then altered, for example through
modulation, to make them sound a little more fresh and new.
When I was coming up with the final part, the following things were foremost in my mind:
- that I should always remember to have Motives A and/or B obvious in many
places, as these are the motives that the entire work has been built upon;
- that repetition of previously heard material is important and indeed desirable. If
something is introduced, it’s great to hear it again later;
- that I should think about tightening up the piece as a whole – the final section in
the piece should not drag on and on;
- that each section should try to lead somehow into the next section, or if not, it
should be a deliberate jolt.
Creating balance in the work as a whole was again a large concern at this point in time. It is
not easy to create the balance between light and shade, fast and slow, energy and repose over
an entire piece. Another point is that computers don’t really give a good realisation when itcomes to things like instrumental timbre and colour in solos. There is the temptation to put
“too much” into a work because it may sound boring on the computer, whereas with acoustic
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Matthew Hindson: Comin’ Right Atcha process diary, 2002 page 11 of 11
instruments, the ability of a performer to create subtleties of rhythm and timbre can more than
make up for this.
The very end of the work came quite easily. I intended that the work be given a bit of a
‘bang’ at its conclusion, to counterweight its 11 minutes duration. An increase in tempo
would help to create this, as would a modulation to a slightly higher key (for a few bars), aswell as a sudden closing gesture.
4. Revision and Re-Entering
The next stage of the compositional process was that of polishing and refining the piece
within the sequencing application. This involved again moving sections of music around and
testing out whether they were indeed in the correct context.
After this, the process was to print out each little section of music from within the sequencing
application. There are two reasons for this: firstly, because the output from sequencing
applications such as Logic or Cubase is not of a high enough standard for ensembles of a
professional calibre. Secondly, it gives me a chance to go through the piece very carefully
and re-evaluate each particular section of music with regards to the instruments that are
playing it, especially when it comes to writing music that is:
1. unplayable from a technical point of view (e.g. accidentally putting chords into a
clarinet part and forgetting to take them out);
2. out of an instrument’s range (due to a transposition that may have gone awry);
3. unidiomatic
The final process is proofreading the score that has been printed out from Finale, and when
the appropriate corrections have been applied, printing out the parts for each individual
performer.
It indeed is quite a long process to write a 10-12 minute piece for an ensemble such as the
Absolute Ensemble. However, I’m sure that it is going to be worth it when I hear themperform it!