I picked up my guitar, and I though I’d write a song.
I picked up my guitar, and I though I’d write a song.
I thought I’d write a melody, but it came out sounding wrong.
I have been working on my impersonation of someone who can play guitar, and there are a few blues songs I would like to learn to play. I had heard that many blues songs are fairly simple in their basic forms, but I couldn’t get anything that sounded even remotely close. Finally, I broke down and did some research.
By “some research,” I mean that I went and looked at the Wikipedia article. They have a nice write-up on 12-bar blues and some other forms. Of course, there are a lot of great blues guitarists who have played a lot of great music, and I would not expect to approach that level in only a few years. I just wanted to bang out something on the level of Mary Had a Little Lamb.
Mary had a little lamb. It’s fleece was white as snow.
Mary had a little lamb. It’s fleece was white as snow.
And everywhere that Mary went, that lamb was sure to go.
Eventually, I began to hear the basic structure.
Emboldened by my success, I figured that surely if there were any formula by which I could compose original music, this was it. There are only a few choices for embellishment of the chord progression, and you can get away with only 3-5 bars of original melody. For the lyrics, I figured I couldn’t go wrong. Whenever I try to rhyme anything at all, I come out with nothing but couplets. Perfect. The melody would be the hard part.
I barely know enough about music theory to be dangerous, but getting started with a simple melody isn’t hard. All you have to do is wind up your metronome and stick mostly to the white keys. Unfortunately, I did not realize I had a metronome with me on the airplane. Nevertheless, as we drifted over the North Atlantic, I set a fresh couplet to music, humming quietly and discordantly to myself. In the end, I found I had only used the tonic, dominant and subdominant notes. It sounded uninteresting, but given that I could only contrive to use three notes, at least I picked the right three. Good enough.
I wrote myself a melody. I want to hear it played.
I wrote myself a little tune that I want to try to play.
Can’t bring guitars on aeroplanes. I’ve got to find some other way.
Fortunately for me, the MacBook Pro shipped with GarageBand installed. Cynical consumer that I am, I figured it was only there to harvest my credit card number, so that icon went right in the trash, along with anything that started with “i,” “e” or “x.” It turns out that in addition to harvesting credit card numbers, it can also record and mix audio tracks and edit MIDI sequences.
With a little bit of effort, I got my chords and melody all sequenced up, and I was ready to go. I opened up my lyrics, hit play on GarageBand and prepared to revel in the splendor of my musical composition. It was no good. Terrible. I felt a little like a man who was digging through a pile of manure, thinking there must be a pony in there somewhere.
I’m looking for a pony. I want a pony I can ride.
I’ve been digging through this pile of crap. I want a pony I can ride.
But maybe I already found it; never seen one from inside.
Music, like software, like all art, like life, is a labor. To the composer, at least to me, songs cannot be good or bad. They are simply unfinished. Give it a little touch here or there, maybe a different voicing, maybe a whole new structure, and it will be different, better. My own composition may never show me the world in a new way (as the act of creating it has). It cannot surprise me. I will never get lost in it. I carefully laid down each note. Hearing each note, I criticize my work, my self.
I will never finish it. Eventually, like this post, it will just end.
If you want to hear my story, then come back another day.
Oh, you want to hear my story? Best come back some other day.
‘Till I figure out the ending, there’s not much that I can say.
