Ignorance is Bliss

I keep a notebook of chord progressions that "work". They all sound good and have a classical feel. They are also easy. They are 4 or 8 measures upon which I can build pieces in a flash. They are like floor-plans for a building. They are not compositions because until you string them up with the appropriate furnishings you can't abide in them. Furthermore, each represents just a segment of a piece. But upon any given segment, I can compose a theme that sets the direction of the piece.

What's surprising is how little I use the notebook. It's just not stimulating if I am not discovering or rediscovering. So it's more engaging to sit at the piano and craft new progressions (that ultimately, I know are old progressions). In essence, I veer away from progressions that are "perfected" to create those that are imperfect.

My notebook includes dozens of major progressions and dozens of minor progressions, all in the key of C. I needed a fixed anchor point so I don't recreate a progression, just transposed, and think it was new. This is the crux of my observation today. It is when we diverge from the known and the comfortable that we grow.

So I'm working on a sonata in E minor. Not a big stretch, this key. Em traditionally has one sharp if your scale uses a dominant 7th. So it would seem to fit under the hands well. Or does it? Not my hands. And really, since I have begun stringing everything together with diminished chords the idea of just a few flats and sharps goes out the window. But there is a bigger issue. Namely competence.

Every key has its strengths and weaknesses for the piano player. As we modulate through a piece we may go from comfort to discomfort. Sometimes this is a positive vex. It troubles us but we like the trouble. It becomes a challenge and an opportunity to witness our increasing dexterity as we practice the akward passage or run. As a composer, though, I am creating not performing. I am looking to get ideas out in as fluid a way as possible. When I encounter a hurdle of my own incompetence it shuts the process down.

In the Sound of Music, the mother superior tells the young novice, Maria: "whenever God closes a door he opens a window." This is true also of composing. When we encounter a block, our attempts to cope with it can sometimes make for creative solutions we would not have thought of had we not been so incompetent.

The Key of Em (which is oh so nice on my guitar), has this silly little B major as the V chord. Sure, probably comfortable for many, but not for me. The chord is easy enough, but when I want to arpeggiate down through the 3 inversions of the chord I have to stop and think. That is my shut down. I am no longer fluid, and my composing tempo has been dealt a blow.

So what window opens as this door shuts? Picture this: You are reaching a traditional I V I turn around. Here, that would be a E minor, B major, E minor. Not inventive, but comfortably traditional. So I am arppegiatting the turn around and finding that I can easily run through the inversions of the E minor chord as arppeggiated, but the B major-- a little more troublesome. So I freeze a bit and just arppeggiate on a single position of the B. Ultimately, I find this quite satisfying in its diversity. Two inversions working downward on the E minor and a single position on the B. The accident of my incompetence makes for richer complexity.























MP3 Sample

So in the end my incompetence is working for me. Rather than a more predictable arppeggio down 2 positions of Em and 2 positions of B, I get 2 of Em and 1 of B for each octave the arppeggio descends.

Stupidity rules!