It’s called “A Joyful Adventure.” I wrote it after listening to this enlightened set of variations by Makoto Ozone:
This is Yoshi, a Japanese pianist, performing Ozone’s funky arrangement of Chopin’s Waltz no.7. What Ozone did to this waltz was brilliant, such a lovely mix of jazz with romantic.
Ozone’s treatment of Chopin put me in a jazzy mood, and helped free my mind from the rut of writer’s block that creeps up on me from time to time. After listening to this a number of times, I felt very creative. I wanted to play around with these jazzy colors, so I wrote the music above as an homage to Ozone. And by homage, I mean I totally stole his mojo.
Play the video starting at 3:17, and you will hear the rhythm I lifted from Ozone. I wanted to take that exact soundscape and make it my own, to write something as tasty as possible.
Of course, once I started down that road my project quickly morphed into something new, something that doesn’t feel like stealing at all. The music packs its own flavor of punch. It’s got something new to say.
By the way, I was also listening to some Gershwin while writing this music, and wouldn’t you know it, some of his mojo got sponged up into my music as well.
Who will I steal from tomorrow?… Only time will tell.
By the way, this music is based very loosely on Mazurek Dobrowskiego, the Polish national anthem. It is also the final section of my 2nd piano sonata, which you can listen to in its entirety here.
A while back, before Charlie was born, back when I first started this website, I was working on some variations on Poland’s national anthem. This started as a challenge from Polish pianist Joanna Różewska to do something with Polish folk music.
I worked diligently on it for a while, but got too in my own head about it. I couldn’t figure out what direction to take the music. Should it be variations? Also do I have any kind of connection to this music, to Poland? What am I trying to say with this?
I wrote the main body of the first variation, and never got further than that. After chasing my own tail for a while, I put this project down and walked away, thinking wrongly that what I had written so far wasn’t all that good. What also happened around that time was I quit teaching, went to Rome with Erica and Jack for a month, then came back and started a totally new career. I wasn’t writing much music during that crazy time…. When I finally came back to composing a few months later, I was rediscovering the magic of writing Quiquern, which became my musical obsession going forward. The Poland music was suspended indefinitely.
Over the next year or so I began to spin out the plan for my second sonata. I wanted the sonata to end with a redemptive quality, with a strong overtone of love and hope. As I’ve said before, so much of my music reaches for this same sentiment. Maybe I’ve just got love and hope on the brain.
What better way to express that sentiment than with the idea that something that once seemed lost may yet still be recoverable. The title “Not Yet Lost” stood out in my mind as the right way to express these feelings. Suddenly the Polish music had a meaning I could relate to, something I would enjoy exploring and playing around with. Though I am no Polish patriot, and the the nationalistic thrust behind the Polish anthem has no historical significance to me personally, the sentiment behind the music suddenly struck a chord inside me. It clicked! I dove back into the music and started sketching out ideas.
This is hard to describe in words: I wanted to take the hope contained in Mazurek Dąbrowskiego, and create variations on that. In other words, the variations are not so much variations on the musical theme (melody) itself, but instead on the theme of the music: the idea that something that seems lost is actually not yet lost, a hope for the future, a hope that we can build something worth building. That’s what Mazurek Dąbrowskiego expresses, and that’s why I chose it, not because of the melody. I took the melody in the theme and dismantled it, and sprinkled the component parts throughout my variations, but the variations don’t sound like the theme. But they do express love, hope, excitement, eagerness, etc. That’s the reason why, in the end, I call them “reinventions” instead of variations.
Here is the main theme:
From the get-go this music establishes a gentle, gliding, loving vibe. Though the original lyrics to Mazurek Dąbrowskiego are all about marching off to victory, I’ve dropped all of that militarism and allowed the simple clarity of the melody to linger in the air for a minute. I’ve also dropped the original 3/4 time. This meter switch has deprived it of any recognizable Mazurka sound, and instead given the tune a more spacious 4/4 runway.
The first reinvention goes like this:
This reinvention was largely already completed from my work on this piece over a year ago. I went back in and tightened up the form, took all the puzzle pieces I had struggled to connect and re-sculpted them so they fit together just fine. Turns out the puzzle pieces were all made of clay anyhow.
I originally thought that first reinvention sounded like Nordstrom’s piano noodling, but now I don’t think so anymore. Now I just hear a love theme. If the original theme is a reserved and sweet little love, this first variation is more of a gushy, open-armed love. This music is plush and at times unabashed in its amorous sentimentality. That suits me well for my current frame of mind.
The second reinvention goes like this:
This one was largely influenced by Bach, specifically this Gavotte from English Suite #3:
I heard that little nugget on the radio a few weeks ago and couldn’t get it out of my head. I wanted to create something of my own with that same snappy Gavotte feeling. I also wanted to make sure that this music had something to say about love. This love music is at times brooding and stormy, other times playful and jolly, and sometimes it’s reaching for something inspirational. It fits in with the other music, even if it sounds unique. I’d also like to note that the jolly bits have a certain dance-like quality, which stems from the Gavotte that originally inspired it.
Took me about two weeks to write that 2nd reinvention, though I should note that the only time I really get to work on any of this stuff is like 10pm to 11pm. So two weeks is pretty decent turn-around time for me.
As you listen, you’ll hear fragments of the Polish melody shining through, though it gets warped by the motion of the music around it. I do not take a vert strict view of Theme and Variations. I don’t want to write a set of ten perfect little variations, the way Mozart did for example:
That’s too clean for my taste. And dare I say it, maybe even a bit boring by the time the 5th or 6th variation rolls in. My variations are much more difficult to put into clean little boxes. Instead they wander and play and do pretty much whatever I want them to do. They do not conform to the original structure of the initial theme. Of course this means I have to be careful to make sure the source material still comes through to the listener and not just the musicologist. This is a tricky tightrope to walk.
That initial Polish theme, in my opinion, is too simple for straight variations. It has wonderful expressive potential, especially for writing inspirational, loving, or even glorious music, music that reaches for a higher ideal. But if I stick to that initial structure for 10 variations, I’d get bored….
I don’t think I’ll write 10 reinventions or variations or whatever any ways. Maybe I’ll just do 3 or 4, not sure yet. It’s not about coming up with as many variations as I can. It’s about crafting a larger piece of music, with a grander story arc that takes the listener where I want them to go. In other words, this form is a vehicle to express my overall point: that hope and love are not lost, that something which at one point might have seemed unreachable can in fact be reached. I think for that reason, each variation will reach for something. This music will be riddled with hope and grand gestures, bold statements.
That’s not to say the theme isn’t in there. This entire variation is built out of the theme. Just look at the first melody line:
Those notes are the same notes as the main melody of the Polish tune, though now woven into a quicker kind of Baroque-y thing that is also minor. But even if it is hard to pick out that original melody by ear, the structure is right there on paper. I like variations like this. I want to write a Bach-inspired romp with a few metal-esque riffs in there, music that makes you want to hear it again, makes you think. It can sound new but still have deep roots to the past. It’s a fun challenge. Above all else, I want this music to say what I need it to say, even if that means I have to cast aside any sort of intense loyalty to the original melody. This is my art, so I control the form.
When all is said and done, I’m writing far too much music to squeeze into one sonata. I’ll probably have to “cull the herd” a bit, and only keep the music that truly speaks the way I need it to speak. A lot of this other material will end up in the rubbish heap (“bonus tracks”).
So I’m working on “Not Yet Lost“, trying to finish this first variation, but I’m feeling a bit stuck in the weeds. I keep generating ideas that I like, but I’m not sure how to use them, how they are supposed to connect. I’m pretty good at generating these little nuggets, but then I end up surrounded by fragments, unable to fit them all together. Not to mention that the more varietals I develop, the more I start to lose sight of the main theme I am supposed to be developing.
In the previous post, I laid out the main theme:
Followed by variation #1, now with some additional material:
So that’s the little forest I’ve wandered into. Where is it going? Is it building toward a climax? Maybe it just wants to wander further afield. Or perhaps it’s time to steer it back to a place that feels like home. Where are you going little baby of mine?
New ideas are popping into my brain, even as I write this. I’m going to go work more on this project, try to find the way out. Stabbing blindly with my sabre through the elephant grass…
Sometimes composing music feels like painting a jigsaw puzzle that is already disassembled. I’m not even sure how the pieces are supposed to fit together, yet I’m supposed to paint the completed picture onto the disassembled pieces. It can be a frustratingly slow adventure. Perhaps I need to learn another way to visualize this process. Schoenberg probably would not be impressed with my approach. As he put it,”A composer does not, of course, add bit by bit, as a child does with blocks. He conceives an entire composition as a spontaneous vision. Then he proceeds, like Michelangelo who chiselled his Moses out of marble without sketches, complete in every detail…” Well la dee da. I guess I’m not quite up to that level yet. Better keep practicing until I can chisel a perfect symphony out of marble without sketching first.
Schoenberg, unimpressed
In the spirit of Schoenberg’s method, I am trying to visualize as much of the Polish piece as possible BEFORE actually writing it. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
The piece will no longer be called “Polish Piece”, but will from now on be known as “Not Yet Lost”.
For form, I’d like it to be Theme and Variations. However I don’t necessarily want the variations to be obvious restatements of the main theme. I’d like to play around with motifs and create something entirely new, even if it at times wanders deep into the woods, far away from the original theme.
I think I will start with a calm statement of the theme in 4/4 time. That theme might look something like this:
Main Theme
The next part uses pentatonic melodies over an almost R&B style rhythm. To me, it kind of sounds like if a Nordstrom’s pianist started noodling around with this material, but that’s just me:
Variation 1
Here’s what that whole introduction sounds like:
I still have more music to write to complete that Nordstrom’s section. Perhaps I will weave in the ascending motif from measure 15 and mix it with the syncopated vibe. Not sure yet.
After this section is completed, I think I want something minor. I haven’t written anything yet, but maybe this could be the foundation:
Following that, I’d like to introduce a version of the theme in 3/4 time, maybe something kinda funky. To be honest, this is where things get fuzzy. I’ve got a bunch of ideas, but I’m not really sure how they fit together.
You see, though I’m trying to picture the piece in its entirety, I still can’t help but visualize these sections as puzzle pieces waiting to be assembled into a complete picture. I seem to generate little islands of music, then try to string them together into an archipelago.
Well, that’s where I’m at for now. I’ll let you know if I miraculously generate a fully-formed piece in the next hour or so.
I’ve generated enough ideas for this Polish piece, that now I can no longer hide behind the old “I’m still sketching” excuse. I could, if I let myself, just sketch new ideas forever. But then I would never finish anything. Rule number two of Robert Heinlein’s Rules for Writers is “Finish what you start.” It’s time to develop these ideas, flesh them out into a completed thought. That kind of work is the real work of composing, and it’s hard.
I am searching for a suitable beginning to this piece. I like a number of the ideas I have developed, but I’m having trouble deciding which one to start the piece with. I don’t think I want to start the piece with a simple statement of the theme…. I don’t know, it just feels a bit dated to me. Plus the theme has a nice patriotic punch to it, and I’d rather save that punch for later in the piece. I am leaning toward using this iteration of the theme as the beginning:
It’s got a nice vibe to it, mixing major and minor modes. It also states the main theme of the anthem without being too obvious about it. However I don’t know if the timing is quite right yet… More space, less space? So hard to decide. It also feels a bit repetitive to me. But I think it’s in my nature to imagine my music is more annoyingly repetitive than it actually is. My wife Erica recently reminded me that people enjoy a bit of repetition, especially when it comes to the main theme. Music does not need to be a collection of thirty random ideas one after the other in order to be enjoyable. I want to create “art,” but I also want the average listener to enjoy my work. I do not intend to write music solely for musicologists to enjoy (at least not at the moment). I want to write catchy but deep, varied and creative but cleverly organized, modernesque but rooted in solid classical harmony.
I’ve realized I am not a fast composer. I have to turn an idea over and over in my head until I am finally satisfied with it (or resigned to using it). I figure if it’s catchy enough to stick in my brain, then it’s good enough to work with. I have never been one to just churn out perfect, completed music. I take my sweet time. Maybe one day I will learn how to be prolific, but for now I am still studying the art of completing a piece. Sometimes I want to quit. It’s hard to be creative. It’s easier to go watch tv or cruise Facebook… or write a blog post. But if I wish to call myself an artist, I have to make art!
Back to work. I need to decide if this beginning is actually the beginning, or just something I’ve gotten stuck in my head.
Sometimes I feel like my composition process is a bit stilted, as if I have two separate processes running at the same time.
The first is my left brain process. That process involves sitting down at my computer, away from the piano, and sketching out ideas right onto the sheet music. These ideas are based on chord progressions that I assume will sound nice together, and melodies built around those chords (or based on shapes that I assume will sound pleasing). It’s a somewhat mathematical process; less about passion pouring from my fingertips, and more about a system I have learned to manipulate. I use trial and error to compile ideas into coherent musical thoughts, create variations of themes, and tinker with various types of accompaniment. I try various ideas until something sounds right, almost like experimenting with a recipe. This is where most of my seedlings originate.
This process is how I took the original theme of the Polish national anthem “Mazurek Dąbrowskiego” (which can be heard here) and morphed it into this new theme:
It has the same melodic contour as the original, but with a different vibe. It mixes major and minor with a touch of syncopation, keeping your ear a bit off balance. This theme was created without hearing what it sounded like until it was already notated, built entirely on theory and logic.
The right brain process is all feeling, no math. I sit at the piano and just play what feels right. I hum melodies out loud until they begin to morph into new ideas, until my brain naturally settles on something. This process is always based on what “feels” right to my ear, on whatever musical idea happens to come out when I sit down to play. It’s improvising! But the intention is not to produce fleeting music that is only enjoyed in the moment. Instead it is to use this process to create a lasting piece; allow the musical idea to begin as an improvisation, but make sure it ends up on sheet music. This looser method is how I came up with this rock-infused version of the theme in 4/4 time:
I thought of that theme while lying in bed about to fall asleep. I was too tired to get up and write it down, so I forced myself to hum it like 10 or 15 times so I would remember it in the morning. It’s amazing how a memorable musical idea can fade from your mind if you’re not careful. Once it’s gone, there may not be any retrieving it. Luckily this one stuck. This new theme was born only after I had hummed the original one so many times that I could do it without thinking, so many times that it began to run on loop in the back of my head as I went about my day. I ate my cereal to the tune of the Polish national anthem, at work I marched triumphantly down the hall as images of victorious Polish armies paraded through my mind, and while lying in bed I had to chase the theme away so I could finally rest. After days of this treatment, the theme takes on a mind of its own. It begins to transform, perhaps into a bossa nova theme, or reggae, or gospel, or whatever catches my fancy. The point is that this method is based on singing and feeling, and therefore the result tends to be more singable, and sometimes more passionate.
I wish I could combine my right and left brain processes into one smooth machine, with all the gears working at the same time. Today, while playing around with 3/4 time, I improvised this little progression:
It’s simple and repetitive, more like the accompaniment to a rock song than a classical piece, but I like it. This was generated with right brain, so it just came out. However I would love to be able to activate my left brain on the spot and manipulate the theme into improvised variations. The way my current process works, in order to really manipulate the music in a complex way I have to return to my computer and tweak the music on paper. I still end up with music I am proud of, but the process is not quite fluid enough. This is something I would like to improve. Perhaps one method is to try and force myself to sit at the piano and use my left brain knowledge to create whatever variations I can, using my hands to play rather than a computer to notate it. If practice is the mother of skill, then it would seem that I just need to sit down and practice. It’s difficult to break out of a well-established pattern, even if it’s an inefficient one.
This Polish piece is moving along. I haven’t really started constructing yet, just sketching (I posted more sketches on the previous post as well). Soon I feel like I need to transition out of sketching and work on developing these themes. That is a tough job too… If I endlessly sketch, then I can avoid this difficult, mentally taxing labor. But if I sketch forever, I will never finish anything. Time to get to work.
My new project has now come into focus: I will write a piece based on the Polish national anthem, “Mazurek Dobrowskiego”. Here’s what that sounds like in full patriotic glory. Pretty heroic right? This piece was an immediate hit in Poland when it was first composed in 1797, a time when Poland was reeling from a series of military defeats and humiliating partition by foreign powers. Also known as “Poland Is Not Yet Lost,” the piece has served as the unofficial (and later official) anthem for Poland ever since.
It’s a compact little ditty with lots of flair, nice energy. It’s got some fun suspensions too, though it is also completely diatonic. It feels a bit limited by it’s simple structure and use of only three chords, but despite the simplicity it has lots of potential, if I can figure out how to unlock it. My general plan at the moment is to aim for “theme and variations,” but I don’t want it to sound too classical. I’m not even sure I want to open with the main theme. It packs a punch, so maybe it’s better to save it for later in the piece. I suppose that would make this piece more like “variations and maybe the theme later if I feel like it.”
One would think that this music would have already been used for a set of variations at some point in the past, especially since one of the most famous classical composers was a patriotic Pole. I’ve heard rumors that, indeed, Chopin did play around with this piece, perhaps even creating a Chopin-y sounding piano transcription along the way. However I am not able to locate a score, and it is not included in his set of 57 mazurkas. That, at least, is a relief. I don’t really want to be in direct competition with Chopin when it comes to writing variations on the Polish national anthem, for cryin’ out loud.
Modern composer Sy Brandon did in fact write a set of variations for this very piece, a version for alto sax and piano. I recommend giving it a listen. It’s a fascinating blending of the anthem with some American vibes. It’s got hints of klezmer, and a dash of the modern. I like the ambiance he creates, and the colors of the sax hit a real sweet spot for me. But I also feel it’s more literal than I would have written, and leaves a lot of room for further variation. I personally want to take this theme off the deep end a bit. I am willing to lose the basic contour of the melody in exchange for evocative music and new art. Since a straightforward set of variations that continually returns to the main theme has already been done, I feel that I must do something different.
Right now I am in the brainstorming phase, which means sketching and sketching and sketching some more. The point is to save every new idea, but don’t linger on anything too long until I find something that is catchy enough to get stuck in my head. At that point I will turn it over in my brain for a day or two, go for a long walk, and see what I end up humming when I’m not thinking about it too hard. It’s just a start, but I’ve found it’s good way to generate something memorable.
Right now I’m just playing around with various ideas. This is what a typical section of my sketchbook might look like:
There is no form yet, just bits and pieces that could one day become something. Or maybe these tidbits will spend their lives in storage, waiting for their moments to shine, waiting perhaps forever. That bit starting at measure 77 could serve as a sequence, just as a similar chord progression served as one in Chopin’s Mazurka no. 1 ( see measures 4-8). Or maybe I will discard the idea altogether and use another instead. For now I am off to sleep, to see if I hum anything in my dreams.
Here is my game plan for the moment: reach out to local pianists and offer to host Groupmuses, in exchange for them performing one of my pieces. This has worked exactly one time, and it was a thrill! Three pieces performed by an actual human being (pianist Jun Cai) in front of a real, live audience, and a set of recordings that I can actually show to people! This was a special day for me. It was officially the first time a non-me musician performed my music. My parents were there! Here’s one of the pieces:
Jack’s Song
So now I desperately want to do this again, only bigger. My current goal is to book a church or community center and put on a real concert. I contacted a pianist named Joanna Różewska, and she told me she would be interested in playing some new music… if I write her a piece based on Polish folk music. So that’s my current project I suppose! I have been researching Polish folk tunes for a couple days, trying to wrap my head around how to write something new and original based on Polish music, without losing the flavor of the folk songs, but also without just copying Chopin’s style. I found this set of folk songs, so maybe I could use one as a theme, perhaps theme and variations? I don’t really know yet. My general plan is to sketch out various ideas using some of the Polish themes and see if anything grabs me. I started tonight by playing around with this theme: Pretty cheerful, perhaps too much so? But maybe as a triumphant theme in the middle of a piece? That doesn’t fit with the theme and variations idea, but maybe this could be more of a medley. A medley of dances perhaps, woven together into a tapestry where different themes come and go. As you can see, I’m in brainstorm mode. That first idea led to this totally new idea, but same tempo and key. It could easily fit with the first bit:I like this one better, it feels more like my style. In fact, it makes me want to take these Polish themes and make them sound all “American-y”. Infuse in some bluesy stuff, jazzy stuff, strange colors. Is that destructive to the “Polish-ness”? Maybe so, maybe not. Chopin’s mazurkas weren’t reeeally all that traditional. They were infused with classical techniques, chromaticism, Chopin’s own flavors. So maybe I’ll take this old music and make it new again in my own way. After all, that’s the point of all this right? Here’s a minor one I might play with:
I think 3/4 time and minor key is the way to go with this piece. I have a lot of sketching to do, but at least I feel some momentum. I’ll keep you posted!
Followed by variation #1, now with some additional material:
Pretty cheerful, perhaps too much so? But maybe as a triumphant theme in the middle of a piece? That doesn’t fit with the theme and variations idea, but maybe this could be more of a medley. A medley of dances perhaps, woven together into a tapestry where different themes come and go. As you can see, I’m in brainstorm mode. That first idea led to this totally new idea, but same tempo and key. It could easily fit with the first bit:
I like this one better, it feels more like my style. In fact, it makes me want to take these Polish themes and make them sound all “American-y”. Infuse in some bluesy stuff, jazzy stuff, strange colors. Is that destructive to the “Polish-ness”? Maybe so, maybe not. Chopin’s mazurkas weren’t reeeally all that traditional. They were infused with classical techniques, chromaticism, Chopin’s own flavors. So maybe I’ll take this old music and make it new again in my own way. After all, that’s the point of all this right? Here’s a minor one I might play with:
I think 3/4 time and minor key is the way to go with this piece. I have a lot of sketching to do, but at least I feel some momentum. I’ll keep you posted!