Sprints

Published: Fri, 05/06/22

Sometime soon after I'd moved to New York, I went to a workshop on the creative process led by a composer named Robert Fritz. What I was doing at something like that, at an age when I should have been – I'm led to believe – getting wasted and going clubbing at Limelight, I'm not entirely sure. But there I was, and the thing I remember most from the entire weekend was an exercise we did involving human sculptures. It's not as grisly as it sounds. Basically, we got put in a group of six people, and were each given a two-minute turn to make a "sculpture" by arranging the other five people into some sort of tableau.

I'm not sure what we were supposed to get out of it, but what I got out of it was the buzz of making something out of nothing, and in an extremely small amount of time as well. These human sculptures only lasted for thirty seconds, if that, but there was a moment when you could stand back and look at it with everyone else and say "Hey! I made that!" This tangible quality is what I also found appealing early on about songwriting, composing and recording – unlike a performance, which vaporizes as you create it, a song or a tune or a demo is something you can hold up, walk around, look at from all angles, tweak and revise and complete and put into an ever-growing pile of similar such objects. (Of course, there's something transcendent about the emphemerality of live music, and that is another kind of quick and immediate creation which is also thrilling to either take part in or to witness from the audience. But, to quote Arlo Guthrie, that's not what I came to talk about.)

The first recording software I got came bundled with a bunch of virtual instruments – various kinds of synth and drum machine software. I didn't know anything about how to use them, really, but I started doing these things I called "sprints:" seeing what kind of music I could come up with using a finite number of instruments in a finite amount of time. Most of it probably sounded terrible, but it was a game I really enjoyed playing, and I did start to find my way around the gear, at least. Having a weekly songwriting group and doing the annual February Album Writing Month challenge are similar kinds of games, and having constraints was what made writing ad music fun, too, in a messed-up kind of way – "Give us thirty seconds of The Black Keys that won't get us sued, do it in four hours, and we'll give you this check for three HUNNNNDRED dollars!" [cut to studio audience: "oooohhhh!"]

Working fast makes your internal editor take a hike. "You don't like that second chord? No time to fix it; we're on a deadline!" You can always go back later, right? The point is to get something made. It makes you focus on results. This past week, I've resurrected the sprints game to practice what I've been learning about harmony and orchestration. This time, the rules are: you get six instruments and thirty minutes, you have to start with the melody, and you have to write your ideas out on staff paper before you start putting them into the computer. You can use piano samples to work out your ideas, and a "complete" piece is one that lasts for at least four bars, repeated at least once, and uses all six instruments, plus (optional) upright bass. So far, none of it sounds amazing yet. But I'm having fun trying.

This month in the Fingerstyle Five, we're working on "House of the Rising Sun," so I've used that tune as the basis for today's Youtube lesson as well. I once took a lesson with alto saxophonist Lee Konitz because I'd read a Whitney Balliet essay in which Konitz talked about "Ten levels of improvisation." Today's lesson, more or less inspired by that idea, is about ten ways to play "House Of The Rising Sun;" you can find it here:

Ten Ways To Play "House Of The Rising Sun"

More soon,

David
 
For organized, ongoing weekly lessons that help you learn tunes, turn them into songs and start improvising, register for the Fingerstyle Five membership at www.fretboardconfidential.com