Sunday 1 December 2013

Isurus - Methods of Composition Pt.3

Current Compositional Process Summary
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Evolution and Refinement of Our Compositional Method

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this 3 Part series I covered the end to end process that we currently follow when writing our music. In this 3rd and last post, I will summarize our current process as previously explained in Part 1 and 2 and also explain how this process developed and evolved over time. Firstly, here's a quick overview of the steps we currently take when writing in roughly chronological order:

Current Compositional Process Summary
Note - Many of these steps continue throughout the entire process. I will mark these with * 
  • Communal Improvisation *  -  Guitar + Drum Jam sessions
  • Individual Improvisation *  -  Writing alone
  • Improvising in the box *  -  Writing using MIDI within the computer
  • Organising the Chaos  -  Organising our improvised and recorded parts into work in progress tracks
  • Structuring in the box -  Experimenting with song structure within the computer
  • Structuring outside the box  -  Learning/Playing and Refining the tracks live
  • Adding the Vocals  -  Writing the vocal lines and lyrics + restructuring the tracks if necessary
  • Adding the Bass  -  Writing the bass over the existing and almost complete tracks
One further point to note is the differentiation that we make with regard to Improvising and Structuring whilst playing live. Our improvisation sessions tend to be completely free and without any specific goal in mind whereas our live structuring sessions tend to be very focussed with the goal of structuring our tracks as well as possible. By separating these we can stay in the same mindset throughout whichever type of session we're engaged in.

Evolution and Refinement of Our Compositional Method
There is a definite distinction to be made between our writing running all the way up to Telos and everything written thereafter. I'll call these the pre Telos and post Telos phases. Everything outlined above and in the previous 2 parts of this series of blog posts covers our post Telos phase of writing. This differs to the approach that we took when writing Telos quite dramatically and is largely responsible for the big difference between the albums. 

  • Pre Telos Phase
When writing Telos and at all other times prior to mid 2011, we worked far more by gradually piecing tracks together live. The Improvisation stages of our current process were much the same although we did very little refinement or experimentation within the computer following this. We would record parts but would very rarely work on song structure within the computer and would instead move directly to the Structuring Outside the Box phase of our current process. Our live writing sessions often became a back and forth between Improvising and Structuring and as such, they tended to be far less focussed and productive. 
 
As a result of this, our tracks often ended up not returning to variations on previous sections or they simply would not return to previous sections at all. This is in part due to the fact that we were storing all the tracks in our minds and did not have the freedom to remove ourselves from the playing of the track in order to focus on the structure alone without needing to remember the next section that was approaching. 

One of the main reasons for this was the difficulty involved in recording a live drum kit and guitar to click and being able to reliably manipulate the recordings made. As such, whilst we were trying to work out the best structure for a given track and due to completing this process in a live setting, we were always in the position of being required to play the parts, remember the upcoming changes and end to end song structure as well as attempt to focus as much as possible on the structural variation that we were trying at the time.

  • Moving to the Post Telos Phase
The main enabling factor which led to us moving away from the limited pre Telos compositional approach was my decision to move solely to an electronic drum kit. This allowed us to quickly and easily record our parts into the computer and to lay down any stand out parts within an improvisation session as well as experiment with different structural arrangements within the computer whilst not having 50% of our brains dedicated to playing the parts themselves. 

In the post Telos phase of writing (mid 2011 onward), following a complete overhaul of our recording equipment, we moved to rehearsing live through our computer at all times. This meant that we could very quickly hit record at any time, could play to a click easily, could reference previously recorded parts quickly and could work individually within the same Work In Progress track projects as when playing together. None of these things were possible with our previous (pre Telos) method of writing.

We quickly learned that the benefits of working in this way were well beyond our expectations. The move from the pre Telos phase to the post Telos phase was a truly dramatic shift that opened up our ability to write effectively and to better fulfil our potential. 

The results of the changes within our overall method of writing music will be heard in our next album which we're currently hard at work on and is due to be released in mid 2014. 

This marks the end of this 3 Part Series of blog posts in which I've provided an overview of our previous and current methods of composition. I may go into more detail on some aspects of our current process in future but for now, I hope these posts have been informative and enjoyable.