Composing like Juan Serrano
The benefits of composing through practice
Hey folks!
Quick update on my current creative projects. My current focus is creating a “major” solo guitar work in the form of a sonata, which has the traditional four large movements as typified by the old piano masters. I feel compelled to do this for a few reasons:
1) A dearth of good, large-scale music for solo/classical guitar in the standard repertoire.
2) My desire to think beyond the form of the Spanish guitar for what can be classical guitar music
3) It’s really engaging and fun.
That last point is the most important. It feels good to be energized about a project, even if not many people are paying attention, or will in the future.
To that end, I’ve been trying out a new method of composition, one that was used by my teacher, flamenco master Juan Serrano.
Juan composed music by performing and practicing. His pieces began with the guitar in his hands, not with a piece of staff paper. He performed many concerts with those forms under his fingers, exploring many variations and adding baroque touches before the music was formally published. Even years after recording and publishing the sheet music for a given form, he would do variations when performing them live. He would encourage me to do the same when I was performing his music – making it my own.
This gave his music not only a living vitality to it in live performance but also gave it a very revised feel that only comes through many iterations in the physical realm.
Juan was not alone in this approach. Beethoven was a master improviser and used his live performances as a way to create and revise his legendary piano music.
To that end, my current approach has been to work the entire piece out aurally, rather than to “compose” it in a score-writing program or (as many modern pop artists do) work on it in a DAW.
I’ve already noticed some benefits. I notice when there are too many repetitions and where to add variations. I can add in ornaments and other touches that I would normally reserve for a jazz performance during practice and hear exactly what their effect is (and discard them if I don’t like them).
The current form of my first movement (which is compositionally just about done) is the result of many iterations and experiments to arrive at something that is really exciting to hear and to play. I’ve been delaying recording the demo because every time I work on it, I find some small touch to add, but I will share the initial recordings as soon as I am able to.
In the meantime, I am still releasing improvisational pieces on my Zul YouTube channel (the best of which are then rounded up and published to streaming services at the end of the year). I am always appreciative of listeners, and especially supporters, on this particular journey and approach to composition.
Oh yes, and I am still working out the technical details on the “improv symphony.” If you are one of the five people who care about that avant-garde gesture, I thank you for your patience.
In this robotic age, live performance and the live experience will be essential to maintaining our humanity as artists.
Thank you, and have a Merry Christmas season.
I am an independent artist and musician. You can get my books by joining my Patreon, and you can listen to my current music on YouTube or buy my albums at BandCamp.
