On composing walks, instinct and possibility

As this year’s Composers, the brief we were given for our pieces was open to pretty much anything: we could pick any text, on any theme. The only limitations we were given were for writing up to 8 parts, and to meet the deadline. With so much choice, you have to start making decisions to narrow down the infinitely wide field of possibility – otherwise you end up wallowing in thoughts of ‘what could be’ indefinitely.

For inspiration, I started flicking through a BBC Radio 4 poetry compilation that had been a Christmas present years ago. Two poems caught my eye. More than that – they caught my gut in what I can only describe as an instinctual nod of recognition, a feeling of potential and of curiosity. One depicted an argument between a nymph and a goblin over some green glass beads; the other, poles apart, about the experience of riding downhill on a bicycle.

I find instinct fascinating: knowing something, irrevocably, without knowing how you know it. For me, learning to trust my instinct has been a big part of my personal and professional development over the last few years, and whenever I have free rein over a text to set I always pass that free rein over to instinct. Sometimes this means spending days looking until something hits the spot: poring over poetry books and websites of poem suggestions, asking my Mum for recommendations and despairing over my own lack of talent for writing poetry. But when something does hit the spot, the satisfaction is all the more for having waited, and for not having settled on something else in the meantime.

With this in mind, discovering two options that had caught my attention so quickly felt like an early win. The difficulty was in deciding which text to set; being so different, the music I would end up writing would be completely different depending on which I chose. First. I decided to ignore my dilemma for several days, allowing my sub-conscious to do its miraculous thing in working out pros and cons without any help from my prone-to-overthinking brain. Then I went on a composing walk: my answer to composer’s block. I took both texts with me, written out by hand and tucked safely into my pocket, alongside a trusty pencil.

When I reached the fields near my home I withdrew one text and read it out loud (to the bemusement of the local sheep). With the movement of walking taking away my tendency to overthink, I allowed ideas to rise up from my sub-conscious, unrushed, to take root in my acknowledged and conscious thoughts. What followed revealed more than a week’s worth of active (over)thinking: the first text, which at first had seemed to me full of possibility and ideas just waiting to be released, now no longer felt right. Any musical ideas I was trying to attach to the text now seemed mediocre, forced and lacking in integrity; now was evidently not the time to set this text.

Slightly disheartened, I put that piece of paper away and reached for the second. Praying that this would be a more positive experience, I unfolded it, cleared my head and honoured the sheep with a second reading. This time, ideas were far more forthcoming, and the pencil was soon in action: a rising phrase there, a rhythmic explosion here, a golden sense of elevating and heart-bursting joy there.

By the end of the walk, I was proud of myself for not only having decided on a text, but having formed a blueprint. I now had an over-arching sense of the piece which would, in due course, need fleshing out with detail, but which provided a strong basis from which the minutiae could spring.

Composing walks also formed a large part of the development of my second piece, The Mock Turtle’s Song, written for the Fellowship Ensemble. I had arrived for the composing retreat in Aldeburgh armed with two texts, but no leaning towards one or the other; this time I decided to just start both and see where they took me. The first I stuck with for a day, but the second… as soon as I started working on it I knew – instinctively – that it would be The One. The poem is taken from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, and centres around a fish trying to persuade a snail to join a dance. I wanted to capture the sense of fun, the enjoyment, and the slightly preposterous nature of the text – all elements of our wonderful experience of Aldeburgh. Composing walks, allowing free rein to thoughts of text and notes and big-picture impressions, extended into composing swims. Sunny August days enticed me in (I didn’t need much persuading!) every day we were there. The fact that the dance in the poem takes place by and in the sea meant that the melodies and harmonies were going round and round my head with even more meaning.

With one of the pieces, we were lucky enough to have a workshop day where we could try ideas out with a group of singers from the choir. This was really useful in highlighting what worked – and what didn’t. When composing, instinct is by no means limited to the choice of text. It crops up in the feeling that something isn’t quite right – even if what you’ve written sounds good and looks problem-free on the page. The frustration can be immense, particularly when the answer doesn’t present itself straight away; but when the elusive note, chord or rhythm has been unearthed, the satisfaction is correspondingly prodigious. Sometimes, exasperatingly, the answer never appears: and then it might be a case of rewinding a few decisions in order to take a slightly – or very – different path. As a composer, I have found it challenging but necessary to learn the value of this rewinding process. Occasionally this means throwing away hours’ or even days’ worth of work and going back to square one (or maybe square two or three). But, however immediately disheartening, it is worth doing in the long run because the end result will invariably be better. This situation is highlighted by instinct – but it takes a deep breath and a significant amount of bravery to do.

I began this post by musing on composers’ wideness of choice and the necessity of narrowing down the field of possibility. I have two opposing reactions to this: one is of relief – when a decision closes off certain options, you can move forward with the chosen pathway and see where it takes you. The other reaction is a fear of being limited, of closing down avenues that would be fruitful and deserve exploration in their own right. There is a fear – mirrored in day-to-day life – of missing something because of a decision you made previously. However, I find it comforting to compare the composer’s plight with the image of a sculptor faced with an untouched block of stone, ready to chisel away to reveal one option in sharp focus. You could do anything, but you can’t do everything – not now, immediately, with only one block of stone. Similarly, you could do anything – but not everything – with only one text. You can only create one finished product.

I’ve also come to view this process as a way of attaining a finished product – not the finished product. The score may be completed, submitted, published even, but there will always be more to explore. Handing the score over for the first time, to a group of musicians who are eager to bring the music to life, is both terrifying and hugely exciting. My finished product is taken and worked on, keeping it moving and developing; the concert, or recording, is then the performers’ finished product. Subsequent performances will provide different interpretations, finding new meaning or creating new emphasis. When no longer in the creator’s hands, music can flourish in unexpected ways and be given life in its own right.