Finding out that my artistic project got approved was some of the most exciting news I’ve ever gotten. It was a great affirmation for me that my idea for this program wasn’t just something interesting to only me but something that an audience might intrigued by. It gave me a great deal of confidence in my creativity. It also gave my practice a new sense of purpose. I now have a specific goal (and a deadline) to work towards every single day rather than just playing guitar because I know I should. I also have unique obstacles that I can enjoy overcoming while I acquire new skills and perspectives that will make me a better artist.
I gave myself several new challenges with this project. The most interesting will be arranging popular songs in a baroque style. I’ve arranged things before, but usually just for fun and not for a concert. And my arrangements have never taken pieces out of their original style and completely re-imagined them. My project is about using electric and classical guitar to let music from all time periods and styles exist on the same program. These arrangements take that concept to the next level. Not only will music from distant genres and time periods exist on the same program, they’ll exist at the same time! Seeing the potential in a pop song to be arranged in this way is not easy. With the help of my mentor I decided that “In the Ghetto” by Elvis ought to work really well, but I’m still searching for one more song that lends itself to lots of counterpoint.
Finding this ideal second song, considering its purpose in the context of this concert, is a programming challenge like I’ve never faced before. This whole concert, really, has been a big exercise in effective programming. I haven’t ever heard a concert where pop songs in a new style are sandwiched between music by classical guitar composers from the Renaissance and modern composers of vocal music. As I assess my program order I can’t think, “Does this piece flow into the next?” because the answer will almost unwaveringly be, “No.” But the fact that every piece is so radically different from the piece before it and that all of it is somehow being brought to life on the guitar is where this concert finds its strength. What I think instead is, “Are there too many pieces in this particular key?”, “How long has it been since the audience has heard me play a piece in this style?”, “How long has it been since I used the electric guitar?” They’re all questions that are supposed to facilitate diversity rather than the sort of natural flow from piece to piece that you’d expect in a regular concert.
And then, of course, there are the challenges of getting the music under my fingers. I feel especially ready for this one. For about a month now I have aimed to only play very easy music or to play hard music very slowly so that I can absolutely nail everything. I’ve treated the difficult sections in the music from my program as if they were exercises and spent the rest of my time with etudes. No matter how hard or easy a piece is, it is an incredibly transcendent experience to feel yourself doing everything perfectly; to be 100% in control of tone, rhythm, phrasing, and dynamics. When the technical challenges are minimized, your brain has this huge amount of room to focus on shaping every aspect of the piece into high art. As I have learned new music for this concert and relearned older pieces that fit my concept, I’ve taken special care to only play them in the sort of way that allows for maximum art and minimal difficulty. Even as I increase tempos I try to retain that transcendent feeling. Having a concert to prepare for and learning all of the music in this way is going to be an excellent experience. I think this new level of preparation that I’m challenging myself with will be what causes me to grow the most by the time this is all over with.
Nothing about this process is going to be very easy. Arranging takes time, programing well means second-guessing myself a lot, and learning hard music is... well... hard. But for all of the difficulty, there has already been a huge amount of fun. It’s going to be great to give myself to the development of this project for the next few months, and when I’m finally sharing it with an audience, I will know for sure that it has all been worthwhile.
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