04b / Musical Instruments: A Ballet commissioned from Gordon Mackay 2013/2014
Gordon Mackay
After the success and positive reviews of Amy Gould’s Gemstones Ballet from 2012/2013, I was called in once again (last year) for a meeting to discuss the ideas and music for the next project.
Amy wanted to showcase some of the instruments of the orchestra in dance form. I hesitate to say `ballet form’ as this is not always the case.
When people ask what I’m doing musically these days, I tell them that as well as performing at various gigs, I am writing music; and especially ballet music. When I’ve finally managed to explain that the music is not all `Swan Lake’, they seem to relax a little!
Don’t get me wrong – I love `Swan Lake’ and all the other classical works, but I do not write that way. When we discuss the forthcoming works I take notes as regards tempo (speed), duration (length), subject and most importantly, the feel of the dance.
Getting back to last year’s meeting (the first of quite a few!)
The choreographer wanted to be able to reflect the majesty of the Cathedral Organ but not as a religious instrument. A bit tricky, as virtually all Cathedral Organs are used in churches! Next she wanted Percussion – just drums and a few other percussion instruments. Violins were needed for an entire dance to be followed by a full brass section.
In addition to this work an addition was the `Circus’ for the younger members of the audience that would need: Fairies, Ponies, Clowns and a Ring Master.
With regards to the `Circus’, I borrowed two pieces from previous works I had written for her, with a little modification here and there, and subsequently two new pieces were written - Fairies and The Ring Master.
When Amy described the Fairies, I could see them immediately; the only problem was I didn’t have the sounds I needed. I was looking for a shimmering, swish bell effect, and I didn’t have it.
Not so long ago a composer would have to book a session musician who could play (we would hope), the required instrument. These days we have these wonderful things called computers. There are web sites dedicated to what is known as VST – that is an acronym for Virtual Studio Technology. What is happening now is that companies/studios are producing the sounds of just about any instrument and making them available to musicians/composers. The quality of some of these sounds is absolutely amazing. I eventually found the sounds I was looking for: A Bell tree, Victorian Music Box, etc. and the piece developed from there.
The Ring Master for some reason seemed to be French! – I saw a large version of Hercule Poirot sorting out the Circus! As a result we have this very French sounding Accordion as a refrain in the middle.
My musical composition is not like an ordinary job where you sit down in front of the piano and say, “Right I am now going to compose a piece of music”! Another occupation I have which helps to pay the bills, involves an enormous amount of driving. Often I have a musical idea whilst on the road – in the past I would pull over, find a scrap of paper and a pen and write it down. These days, thanks to technology, I can switch on my cell phone voice recorder, hum the melody into the unit and when I’m home, sort it out on the piano – I love it!
Shortly after our first meeting, I was at home in the studio and had just discovered this stunning sounding synthesizer – another VST instrument. I was playing around with some of the sounds and played a chord progression that sounded fairly “Cathedral-ish”. I recorded that into the computer and began adding other organ sounds that I already had. Before I realized what was happening, I had put together a combination of instruments resulting in this enormous sounding Cathedral Organ.
I always play my compositions firstly to Laverne, `The Missus’. She is my sounding board and will tell me whether the piece works for her. So far this arrangement has worked very well!
I played the Organ piece to Amy and at the end there was this silence and I thought `She doesn’t like it’, then she burst into tears and told me it was wonderful! `Where did the emotion come from to write that?’ she asked me, `and how are you going to top that?’
After I’d left, she later told me, she had played it again and cried again! Fortunately we can now listen to the piece and work with it dry-eyed!
`How can you top that?’ played on me for a while and I came up with a blank regarding the pieces I still had to compose. Then I decided to forget about the Organ and go back to some earlier works that had not left the studio. Those hadnot happened apart from one piece that was very experimental. No real melody, but just sounds floating around. I thought that could work with a percussion rhythm, so I began programming a rhythm track.
The thing about a rhythm track (for me, anyway), is that it needs to build as it goes along, but not too much so that by the end there are hundreds of drums, shakers, tambourines etc. So I wrote this rhythm track and then added the floating sounds to it and it worked.
Often a melody comes to me first and then I write the chord structure around that. With the Strings, I had this chord progression going around in my head and luckily was at the piano, so I recorded that first. Added some Pizzicato Cellos for a Bass line, a few other bits here and there and `voila!’, I had this complete piece but with no melody! It sat there for a while with no melody and I was driving home a few days later wandering how was I going to finish this ballet when this tune came into my head. That tune was added as a Violin section to my incomplete composition.
Writing the music for Amy is always a challenge as I interpret her dance ideas into music. The other thing is I never know what she’s going to come up with next! We seem to have a, certain chemistry between us where she will suggest the ideas, I will write the pieces, she then choreographs and before long another work is complete. It is so rewarding for me to see the dancers performing to the music I have composed.
