Greg's Gazebo

[ibanezmonster]

Thank you, Karl. I'll try. 

[ibanezmonster]

Well, having absolutely no time all week to even write anything sure helps. Not. Hopefully, Monday morning it will feel fresh and easier to think of something from having been away from it for so long.

[ibanezmonster]

Well, there goes my hour for the entire week. I developed an idea, but no time to write it into notes. What amazing productivity.

[ibanezmonster]

Okay, just want to make a note.

This might be potentially very good news: even though I'm at the beginning, I'm not stuck at the 3rd bar any more. I think I realized that to break out of being stuck, I just have to concentrate intensely- and I mean extremely intensely. Not sure how to word it, but after 2 or 3 weeks at being stuck there (and it was starting to look like the problem of being stuck I had for 2 years), I did that, and the next few bars sound great. If I get stuck again, I'll try this again.

I also have been trying the intense concentration thing when playing basketball, and my shooting percentage actually has gone up. If I do this, I hit half of my 3-pointers and 80% of my free throws, after several tests the last few times of playing. Before this, I'd average about 50% from the free throw line and 30% from the 3-point line.

The sound file is an approximation, because the volume is way off (sorry about all the silence at the end), and the score of course, won't look anything like that, because it will be a semi-cutout and have big number time signatures at the top.


score:
http://s833.photobucket.com/albums/zz257/ibanezmonsterg/?action=view&current=op8sketch.jpg

music:
http://www.mediafire.com/?4bd1tpb99q93244

[Lisztianwagner]

op.1 Piano Sonata

Wow, a Piano Sonata? Sounds very interesting, I have just to take a look at it!

[ibanezmonster]

Wow, a Piano Sonata? Sounds very interesting, I have just to take a look at it!

Hehe, yep, that one was from quite a while ago. I was just starting to write back then.
Good thing you reminded me of my first post, because now I've updated the opus list with the new works.

[Lisztianwagner]

Hehe, yep, that one was from quite a while ago. I was just starting to write back then.
Good thing you reminded me of my first post, because now I've updated the opus list with the new works.

Was that the old one? Ah, I didn't know it, I'm always used to look at the first page to see what a thread is about.
Anyway, that's great! Being a pianist and a huge piano lover, I hope to find many piano pieces in your opus list!

[ibanezmonster]

I wish they would make the Sibelius Sound Essentials for Sibelius 6 diminuendo and crescendo work correctly, because I'm wasting countless hours not being able hear what I need to write next, because every time I play back the music, it doesn't play back correctly.   

[Ataraxia]

I wish they would make the Sibelius Sound Essentials for Sibelius 6 diminuendo and crescendo work correctly, because I'm wasting countless hours not being able hear what I need to write next, because every time I play back the music, it doesn't play back correctly.   

Can't you play it in your head like Beethoven did? I'm serious.

[ibanezmonster]

Can't you play it in your head like Beethoven did? I'm serious.

That's what I'll have to do... the problem is for some reason when I play it in my head, it gets a little confused and nothing sounds right at that "point." I might as well use the word "point" to specifically describe the point that I leave my work to work on it another day... it's the same problem I've had for the last several years, and why I've hardly written anything. Hard to explain.

[ibanezmonster]

Okay, this is exactly what happens. I'd appreciate it if anyone could offer a thought.

I'm writing. Everything goes smoothly, as if I'm simply improvising. Then, at some point in the middle or ending of a "phrase", I either run out of steam, or I write something, listen to it and delete it. I go back to rewrite the portion I deleted. It doesn't sound quite right. I rewrite it again. That doesn't sound quite right, either. (I don't mean "not good," because often it does sound good. I mean, "not logically connected with what came before.")

The more I try to correct it, the worse the situation gets. Every time I replay the music, what I just deleted gets stuck in my head. I try to imagine something better, but I can't, because the only thing that comes to mind is what I just deleted. There is no room for any thought.

I've recently gone back to the pieces that were never completed because of this problem over the last several years. The orchestral work called "Night" (see the beginning of the thread from 4 1/2 years ago) and another one (a duo for clarinet and flute, called "Prelude to Everything and Nothing") I can easily pick up where I left off, each well over a year or two ago. (There are others like this, but I don't bother, because they suck). I'm assuming this is because it's been so long since I've listened to them that all of the deleted stuff I've forgotten over time and can't cloud my mind any more.

Now, how am I going to, say, work on my piece for 8 hours on Fridays if I get stuck? I simply don't have time to write a minute, wait 3 months, write another minute, etc. when this is a 15-minute piece I want done before September? (and honestly, I want to put all of my other personal projects on hold until I can get this done- no games, no anime, no languages, no programming projects, etc.)

[ibanezmonster]

Well, looked up a couple of sites...
seems like it could simply be categorized as writer's block. Probably obvious, but apparently writer's block is more dynamic than I thought.

most likely the cause and solution:
http://ollinmorales.wordpress.com/2011/07/15/productivity/

In summary:
cause: being worried about the outcome.
solution: detach yourself from the outcome.
Worrying about the outcome hinders creative flow of thought...

Now how do I go about achieving this? If I submit this to the competition and win 3rd place or greater, I will accomplish the two things I need more than anything at the same time (other than winning the lotto):
1) a trip to Tokyo (if I had one wish before I died, this would be it)
2) $6,000+ this would get me out of my job of the last 4 years which has given me depression for the last 4 years, into a job I like which will eventually be higher-paying.


How is it possible to detach oneself from something this important? If I simply didn't care that much, then why not jump off a bridge?

[ibanezmonster]

I got past it. 

Should have tried this again and stuck with it intensely.

This might be potentially very good news: even though I'm at the beginning, I'm not stuck at the 3rd bar any more. I think I realized that to break out of being stuck, I just have to concentrate intensely- and I mean extremely intensely. Not sure how to word it, but after 2 or 3 weeks at being stuck there (and it was starting to look like the problem of being stuck I had for 2 years), I did that, and the next few bars sound great. If I get stuck again, I'll try this again.

This is what I did... however, first time, nothing materialized. Second time, I had a vague sense. Third time, I started writing. The trick I learned here is that it might not come all at once, but to simply keep trying at this special concentration over and over again to understand what musical path works best logically after the point of being stuck. Now, although I'm still messing with the notes a bit, it's in a direction that makes sense.

I'm sure anyone reading this is wondering "what?..." You weren't concentrating before?
The best explanation I can give is that, since I'm trying to make it as best as I can, I tend to erase anything that doesn't sound great, and like I said, this forms a endless loop because I can't get rid of the fragments I just erased out of my head while I'm playing back the music and trying to envision something good musically progress from that point. This creates the writer's block.

Using special concentration I think somehow shifts brain processes back to the creative parts of the mind rather than, say (I'm guessing, though could be wrong) the amygdala. It's a completely uphill battle, but if this works, I should be able to finish the piece in a timely manner.

[ibanezmonster]

1 minute down, ~14 minutes to go!

[Karl Henning]

Progress!

[Cato]

1 minute down, ~14 minutes to go!

Today's (March 10, 2012) Wall Street Journal has an article called How To Be Creative.

See if it helps!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203370604577265632205015846.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_6

[DavidW]

That was an interesting article.

[ibanezmonster]

Today's (March 10, 2012) Wall Street Journal has an article called How To Be Creative.

See if it helps!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203370604577265632205015846.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_6

I sort of agree with this.

Music-wise, I think creativity comes about using one's own ideas up to a point where it becomes their new musical vocabulary. This is something I'm already doing, since my new piece is influenced by the last guitar piece I wrote, and none of them sound like anything I know of. If I keep on writing with this new language, it could easily become a new style if some other composers picked it up.

[ibanezmonster]

I think I'm going to start over again. The difference will be that I'll try to follow a different method of composing, because my current method really isn't working.

The direct input into Sibelius is great, but I simply cannot write a little bit of a large work, work on it again a little, stop, work on it a little again, stop, etc. Listening to it, I just feel no inspiration to continue it at all, even though it sounds great. In fact, I actually had this problem when I was composing years ago, except that I just didn't care as much about how "logical" it sounded, and they were kind of all over the place. The only exceptions were when I could write the music in one sitting.

What I should do is somehow imitate the style of composing of Under Lucid Skies. What I did was have preconceived ideas, and in a flash, I just put them all together. It almost felt like I composed it all within a few minutes. Everything is logical and sounds good- no problems at all with being stuck during the writing process.

The difficulty while be figuring out how to arrange a 15-ish minute orchestral piece in the same ease as Under Lucid Skies, which is 4 minutes of often repeated material for solo guitar which I can just pick up and play.  The only way I'll be able to succeed in writing this is to have fun with it, I can say that for sure...

[Karl Henning]

Sometimes, starting over is the only path to progress. Good on you for enduring!