Roots Music Composition - Canadian Fiddler Gordon Stobbe and Mandolinist Matt Flinner on Writing A Tune A Day

I've always had to have a creative outlet.  Most of the time this pursuit has been in the form of writing.  I suppose this blog is one of them.  But, over the last few years my "artistic" focus has transitioned more into the learning of music.  Up until now, music playing has consisted of fairly rote tunebook versions of fiddle tunes, like the kind found in the Portland Collection books; sticking to the notes as someone else predetermined they should be...not really playing by ear, from the heart or improvising.

Simultaneous to the memorization of tunes I've also been cultivating a study of music theory.  Actually, way more music theory than most players of Irish and Appalachian tunes ever delve into.  I just find it interesting.  Sprinkle in a little bit of ear training and the lightbulb moments associated with learning how to learn, and voilà I'm ready to take the next step toward "writing" music.

Well, not really writing in the most original sense; I plan to start by attempting to transcribe snippets of melody from the bands that had a big impact on my life before I ever picked up an instrument, and/or bands that I want to be inspired by now.  Bands like Phish, Dr. Dog, STS9, Medeski Martin and Wood, Amiina, Bill Frisell, Tortoise, Tom Waits, Ween, Uakti, Laika and the Cosmonauts, and Cowboy Junkies to name a few.  Plus styles and rhythms like the music of South America, Latin America, France, the Caribbean, Africa, as well as more urban beats.

In addition, I want to formalize this process by setting a goal of "writing" at least one new piece of music every week for a year.  Perhaps a melody inspired by Dr. Dog, mixed with a lick from an STS9 song, then tweaked by being played over a Biguine rhythm from Martinique.  The painter Chuck Close said, "Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work."

So, to get to the point of this post, I've found some information on a couple unrelated musicians who have experience with writing a tune per day - Canadian Fiddler Gordon Stobbe and Mandolinist Matt Flinner.

In the current (Fall 2014) issue of Fiddler Magazine, Editor & Publisher Mary Larsen has an interview Gordon Stobbe where he mentions this:

Gordon Stobbe

"Maybe six years ago, I set myself a task of writing a tune a day.  From January 1 to the end of April I was able to stick to that.  There were about a hundred tunes that came out of that.  Out of those tunes, there were probably fifty good ideas; there were probably thirty well-developed and fulfilled ideas; and there are probably twelve or fifteen really good tunes.  I don't think it's really the right thing to sit around and wait for inspiration to strike.  I think there's a lot more perspiration involved in this than inspiration. There are a lot of ways to get into that.  Sometimes a rhythmic groove will really inspire - whether that comes from a drum patch on Garage Band that kind of kicks you into some start, or you hear some kind of a rhythmic groove somewhere, that's a good way to start.  And once in a while little scraps of melody will pop into your head." (Gordon Stobbe, fiddler)

Matt Flinner

Matt Flinner does it a little bit differently.  Since 2006 the Matt Flinner Trio (Matt Flinner, mandolin; Ross Martin, guitar and Eric Thorin, bass) has been performing "Music du Jour" shows, where each member of the trio writes a new tune the day of the show, and all three new tunes are debuted as part of that night's concert.  They are writing these tunes on the road, often while driving between gigs, fine-tuning them right up until it is time to debut them on stage.

Imposing such a quick turnaround time definitely changes the way the tunes turn out, adding pressure that wouldn't otherwise be there.  In an interview Flinner mentions that the landscape can also have an effect.  For example, he said the wide open spaces of the West give songs written while on tour out there "an expansive, spacious" feel.

Flinner also said, "I've noticed that the overall style does seem to evolve over the course of the week.  All three of us seem to be writing partly in response to the previous night's show - or the last few nights'.  So we try not to get ourselves stuck in any stylistic rut, and we try to keep the variety flowing. Sometimes two of us will have tunes that are somewhat similar in character. We just separate those in the set list."

After reading about Flinner and Stobbe, I can only imagine how fun it must be to attempt to write a new tune per day (or week) on a self-imposed deadline.  Flinner even teaches workshops on Roots Music Composition.  That would be fun to attend, because even though I'm looking outside of roots music for inspiration, I still anticipate these tunes being roots-music oriented in structure, such as AA/BB melodies.

Mining the Melody Part 2 - Transcription as a means of Composition

Yesterday I shared some information about Melody Mining - using things such as speech, rhythms and bird calls as sources for composing your own melodies.  Now that I'm starting to experiment with ear training, there's a long list of bands, styles and sounds that I'd like to utilize in this way.

For my first five or six years of playing music nothing was "by ear".  Everything I played was a melody straight from mandolin tab and/or sheet music (the "dots").  Ironically, since it was so easy to find the tab/dots to Appalachian fiddle tunes and Irish tunes - music traditionally played by ear - that this was the music I played.

But now I'm ready to try something completely different by attempting to write a new tune or short melodic piece every week for a year, which I plan on starting in late November.  I've been kicking around some ideas on how to do this, with the main idea being to simply transcribe melodies or take ideas from music that I like or find influential.

If I perfectly transcribe something, then great, I'm developing an important skill and I'll then use some formula or technique to purposely veer from that transcription in some way.  What is more likely, at least initially, is that my transcription will be very inaccurate so that I'll then have an "original" piece of music by default.  Either way, this will be great musical practice.

Here are some of the bands, sounds, styles and techniques I anticipate using as inspiration.  In any given week I will probably mix and match two or three of these ideas in an effort to meet the goal of writing a new tune every week for a year.

Phish - the music deep in their jams and in some compositions
Medeski, Martin and Wood - grooves
Laika and the Cosmonauts - surf rock melodies
Bill Frisell - jazzy original compositions
Amiina - dreamy, earthy Icelandic music
Uakti - dreamy, earthy Brazilian music
Chapinlandia - Marimba Music of Guatemala
Camper Van Beethoven - they have some catchy instrumentals
Bela Fleck's Throwdown Your Heart Africa Sessions
Sound Tribe Sector Nine - I love some of their hooks
Tommy Guerrero's Lifeboats and Follies CD - funky
AfroCubism - merger of music from Mali and Cuba
Raymond Scott - early electronic music, cartoon-like
Moondog - avante-garde composer
Newband/Harry Partch - more avante-garde
Arvo Pärt - Tintinnabuli technique
Carlos Chavez: Xochipilli - An Imagined Aztec Music - "native" Aztec music
Elena Moon Park "Rabbit Days and Dumplings" - folk and children's songs from China, Tibet, Taiwan, Japan and Korea
Ratatat - electronic music
The Dr. No soundtrack - 1960's islandy music
Augustus Pablo - melodica reggae
Tin Hat Trio - eclectic chamber jazz
Tortoise - sections of their compositions
West African Highlife music
Biguines from Martinique (Eugene Delouche, Alphonso Et Son Orchestre)
Field Recordings from the Seychelles (Anse Boileau Kamtole Band)
Illy B eats - drummer Billy Martin's series of dance-hall beat CDs
Peruvian psychedelic music - cumbias and chicas like the ones played by Juaneco Y Su Combo
Haitian Voodoo rhythms and melodies
Dutch Immigrant songbook - using melody lines in book
Japanese flute music and scales
Klezmer music scales
Writing a "mixolydian rag"
Ice cream truck music
The solo from song So Much Blood by The Sadies
"How to play like Jerry Garcia" style YouTube videos
High Country Guitar blog
Field Book of Wild Birds and their music - sheet music transcriptions of bird calls
French phrase book - making melodies from the sounds of these phrases
Caribbean drumming styles CD - rhythms
Adding music to song lyrics I wrote many years ago
Melody mining from abstract "poems" also written many years ago

That last reference to poems alludes to an abstract writing exercise I sometimes do where I fill up an entire page with a cryptic flow of words (see linguistic photo examples).  This writing exercise calls upon my language vocabulary and is all about the act of creation with little or no concern for the quality or coherence of the result.  I intend to call upon this writing experience as I extend it to the realm of a musical vocabulary.

Linguistic improv example 1

Linguistic improv example 2

You might have noticed that there's little or no Oldtime, bluegrass or Celtic type music on the above list of potential tune sources.  I want to break free of such form and structure by pursuing melodies that have no ties to a predetermined genre, style or "tradition".  However, the Irish/Oldtime foundation will still be there because I really dig the AA/BB melodic (not chord based) nature of traditional tunes and will probably (loosely) work out of that format as part of this experiment.

I am waiting until around Thanksgiving to kick-off this project because I just started the free online Berklee College of Music MOOC on Jazz Improvisation, taught by Gary Burton.  I expect this class to be difficult and time consuming, so I'm going to wait until it ends five weeks from now.  Hopefully I'll have also learned some things in that class which can help me with this next project.

Melody Mining - Songwriter Tips (Archived Content)

A few weeks back I came across a Songwritertips.com blog post on Melody Mining.  I've been meaning to create my own entry on this topic, where I highlight some of the main points and then link to the actual article.  However, I just checked and it appears that the original post has been taken down.  I was able to find the cached content, so instead of writing a summary and to help preserve the actual info, which i found to be very interesting and helpful, I'll just re-blog it in-full here in the words of the original author, along with his video at the bottom.  See below. 

Melody Mining

I have this technique called Melody Mining, that’s just great for pulling melodies out of the air we breathe.  Basically what we’re going to do is look at the words we use for melodic inspiration. If you listen to the way you speak, there are notes and rhythms hiding inside of them. All you have to do is…Start listening and you’ll be Digging for gold!
If you know what you’re listening for, you’ll always have endless, endless sources for melodies.
So what’s so good about Melody Mining?

It's Natural

First of all, its extremely natural sounding. If you write your melodies based on the way that human beings speak, it's going to sound real; it's going to sound like someone talking.

It's Easier to Sing

It's a lot easier to sing melodies written from Melody Mining because generally you’re not going to be saying sentences in any way that your vocal chords aren’t used to. You’re not going to be throwing crazy Celine Dion notes into the way you speak. If you’re going to write melodies based on the way you talk, it's going to be very simple to sing.

It Resonates

Melody Mined Melodies resonate with people. The idea is that you’re speaking from your heart – you’re saying words that you actually use in your real life. When the listener hears a melody that sounds like something that someone actually says in real life it has a better chance to touch them deeper.

It Communicates

If you’re taking melodies from actual human speech, you’re going to be singing the listeners' language, and they’re going to be able to hear what you’re trying to say.

Melody is 90% Rhythm and 10% Notes

I have a theory (that maybe not everybody subscribes to) that really helps me as I write my melodies. I believe that what comprises a melody is 90% the rhythm and just 10% the notes.  The thought behind that is there are only 12 notes (and if you’re sticking to a chord, its going to be even fewer) so there are only a limited number of original combinations to choose from. You only have a defined number of patterns notes that you can create out of notes.

Rhythm is Infinite

But there are infinite combinations of rests and beats that you can use. Its easier to be original in a place where patterns are infinite. So, if you’re thinking about creating original melodies – the bulk of your effort is going to be spent focussed on creating original rhythms.  And that’s what’s so great about Melody Mining!  You’re pulling melodies from natural rhythms. If you listen to people speaking around you, there are tons and tons of natural rhythms to base your melodies on.

When to use Melody Mining?

Melody Mining is great for when you’re stuck. When you have no idea where to go with your rhythm – go have a conversation with someone, go hit up Youtube (see video for examples) – and just listen to the natural melodies.

This is also very useful if you write your lyrics before your melodies. If you have a giant page of lyrics, this is a great way to write your melodies. If you can say the words out loud and listen to the way you’re saying them – the melodies will just write themselves.

It's also really good for beginners starting to learn to write melodies. When you’re first starting out with songwriting, it's all about just getting something on the paper – throwing something out there. This is a really great way to just get started.

How To Do It

Lets say you don’t have any lyrics written.  You’ve got your chord progression, but you are totally at a loss for melodies….
1. Hit up YouTube for some natural inspiration.
Search for professional speakers, rappers, baby videos, or bird calls. You can hear melodies anywhere if you’re looking for them.  (I particularly love getting inspired by hip hop. All a rapper has to work with is rhythms – they’re not really hitting any notes. All the creativity in rap is in the rhythm.)
2. Pick a small phrase to focus on.
It doesn’t matter what you pick. Just pick the first thing that sticks out.
3. Repeat it over and over.
Try to crank up the emotion in your voice, over enunciate the words.
4. Try to mimic the phrase musically.
Play along with your words with your piano or guitar. Try follow the phrase – if it goes up, pick a higher note. Just do you best color the phrase with notes.

Check out the video to see me doing it live and try it right now for yourself!

I particularly like his suggestion of listening to bird calls for inspiration!