The Process(es) of Music Creation

Creating software is an art. It is also an engineering discipline. Much has been written about the engineering side of software creation. Not so much has been written about the artistic side. I'd like to try to fill in some of that space by talking about music creation. Why talk about music creation? There's not much question that music is an art. It's an art that has been around for a long time. Focusing on software creation as an art is relatively recent. So talking about software as art would be largely speculative and opinionated. Hopefully by looking at the process(es) of music creation first we can apply what we find there to the realm of software creation. Also, I'm not thinking about aesthetics - either in art or software. I'm thinking about the creation processes.

The picture at the top of this blog attempts to diagram my thoughts on the processes of music creation. While I think I can pass myself off as a musician, this picture should remove any questions about me being an artist 😏. For the purposes of this blog, the process of music creation is what happens between the time the musician has a new idea for a composition and a performance of the composition occurs. I'm leaving out a lot of detail to focus on the higher-level flow between idea and performance.

When an idea strikes, many musicians go right to their instrument and start working out the idea. They may just 'learn' what they work out and perform it without ever writing anything down.  They might play it immediately to some friends to get their feedback. Maybe they take it to an open mic night and get more feedback. This is one end of the music creation process spectrum indicated by the lower arrow in the picture. This is the 'by ear' process of music creation. With this process, even if there is a group of musicians learning a new composition, they sit together and listen to what's happening, then add their part. Or someone may say 'play this' and plays a part for someone else. But nothing is written down. If the next performance is a little different, or parts shift, it doesn't matter. To some in this camp, not being able to read music notation is a badge of honor. 'I just play by ear' is a boast. In fact, a lot of the musicians that I work with don't know anyone that does music any other way. Expressing yourself with an instrument and your voice becomes second nature. Everything else just gets in the way of the muse. A lot of good music has been created this way.

Let's talk about the other end of the music creation process spectrum. What if you are creating music for an orchestra? With this music creation process, you will need to write something down. I'm calling this the 'notational' process. It is shown as the upper arrow flow in the picture.  To be successful with this process you will need to understand how what you write will be interpreted by other musicians who you may never meet. When your music is performed, you may not even be acknowledged directly. The conductor and the orchestra will be the focus of what the audience experiences. Whether the performance is successful may have nothing to do with the person that created the music.

What you write down during the notational process becomes 'the music'.  It's called the 'score'. If you're lucky, people will look at your score for years after you're dead and debate what you meant by a particular sequence of notes. Or how to play one instrument's melody against that of another instruments melody. Or how loud the 'forte' marking should be. Or if you ever changed your mind about how fast the piece should be played. Even if you conduct the piece yourself, that performance will be discounted in the future - since you're a composer not a conductor. 

I've studied with maestros that could look at the score directly and 'hear' what's there.  In the past, those that couldn't do that (or wanted other folks to hear a preview of the composition) might write a two-piano reduction of the  composition.  Thankfully today, to hear a full rendition of what you create with the notational process doesn't require finding an orchestra. There is software that will play what you write down.  It also aids those that can't play an instrument. They can learn music notation and get the computer to do the performance. As a side note, this what happens in a lot of sample-based music. The composer (producer) may not use the traditional music notation, but there is something - maybe a graphic notation that is manipulated to get the computer to generate a performance.  In any case, the score-playing software bends the process of creating orchestral music closer to the process of creating more immediate art. But there is still the requirement to write something down in some notation. Good music is being created this way. Films have 'scores'. Twenty-first century orchestral (and chamber) music is amazing. DJs are amazing!

Jazz sits in the middle of these two processes. Most jazz (big) band music has a score. Other jazz has a 'lead sheet' which includes notations for the melody, a shorthand for the harmonic material, and probably some hints for the drummer. The lead sheet is enough to sketch out how the song should go but doesn't tie you to specific notes like the score. To do a good performance, the performer probably knows the composition, or knows another composition by the same composer or at least knows the musical idioms hinted at by the lead sheet. It would be hard for someone without that background to take a lead sheet and do a satisfying performance.

The process for creating jazz could begin with the 'by ear' process and move towards the notational process. Or not. Sometimes it begins with the notational process and ends up back at the lead sheet. Arguably, a jazz composition may never really be complete. The creation process extends into the performance. In free jazz, the performance is the composition. 

Even in the creation of art we can find processes. And just like in the engineering space, sometimes 'doing something right' can get in the way of 'doing something good'. I know it took me about 2 years to recover from studying music theory. On the other hand, it ultimately made me a better musician.

In future blogs, I plan to formalize these process descriptions and marry the ideas from the music creation to those of software creation.