The Final Score
Intro.
Almost everyone enjoys listening to music in one form or another and it is clear that music can have a great effect on our lives. Embarking on a project to discover more about this powerful effect, I immediately realised that I would have to delve not only into how people listen to music today but also into how they have perceived music in the distant past. For example, the ancient Greeks developed theories about music not as entertainment but as a means for describing how the universe works. My approach to this project was a holistic one, so I put myself right into the picture by examining my own attitude and responses to music. I then wrote a piece of music to express and integrate my discoveries.
What I hadn't reckoned on was how widely and diversely my explorations would take me. The journey goes via amateur orchestras, rambling in the countryside, rock festivals, quantum theory, astrological charts, singing bowls, onion fayres, alchemical experiments and string quartets to name but some of the stops along the way.
The result is an account of how the music is conceived and of everything that goes into it, both personal experiences and musical ideas, as it evolves and becomes ready for performance. As soon as the book was completed, the music was written and the conclusion is a “Final Score” which the reader can listen to, if they will. It isn't just a “music book” as I write about feelings and experiences, about communication, culture, imagination.
When I began writing, I had no idea what the music to be written would be like, so when you read it, you'll be coming on a journey with me through the whole process. Writing a piece of music, as with any work of art, is not an academic exercise. It is the end result of life experiences and a great deal of thinking and imagining. In addition it is molded within and by a social and cultural environment. All this and more goes into a composer’s melting pot. What comes out is music.
I like to think of myself as a musician. I'm neither a Beethoven nor a Mozart (of course). I'm not an unusual person, not even particularly talented. I could be anybody really. I speak as an ordinary person and I speak knowing that there is music in everyone. With that conviction, what I have to offer may just be worth the writing, the reading and the listening.
Each chapter is based around a particular event or experience driving the book forward and introducing some relevant musical topics (Musical Notes). This gives each chapter some distinct layers and the progression of chapters leads to a finalé and the “The Final Score”.
As I was in the course of writing, I realised an important element of the book that I hadn't noticed at the outset. It emerged that, although some passages are not written specifically about music, every sentence has music hovering in the background. Music is in its fabric, if not always visible. Church goers are often accused of being religious only on Sundays and if music is my religion, I cannot be accused of that for it is an ever present voice. The times of listening to and playing music, or just thinking about it, intersperse the events of my daily working life but more than this, music seems to be the foundation for it all. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here we will sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Anthea and Emily:
Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
(Merchant of Venice, Act V)
Bill Anderton, January, 2012
What I hadn't reckoned on was how widely and diversely my explorations would take me. The journey goes via amateur orchestras, rambling in the countryside, rock festivals, quantum theory, astrological charts, singing bowls, onion fayres, alchemical experiments and string quartets to name but some of the stops along the way.
The result is an account of how the music is conceived and of everything that goes into it, both personal experiences and musical ideas, as it evolves and becomes ready for performance. As soon as the book was completed, the music was written and the conclusion is a “Final Score” which the reader can listen to, if they will. It isn't just a “music book” as I write about feelings and experiences, about communication, culture, imagination.
When I began writing, I had no idea what the music to be written would be like, so when you read it, you'll be coming on a journey with me through the whole process. Writing a piece of music, as with any work of art, is not an academic exercise. It is the end result of life experiences and a great deal of thinking and imagining. In addition it is molded within and by a social and cultural environment. All this and more goes into a composer’s melting pot. What comes out is music.
I like to think of myself as a musician. I'm neither a Beethoven nor a Mozart (of course). I'm not an unusual person, not even particularly talented. I could be anybody really. I speak as an ordinary person and I speak knowing that there is music in everyone. With that conviction, what I have to offer may just be worth the writing, the reading and the listening.
Each chapter is based around a particular event or experience driving the book forward and introducing some relevant musical topics (Musical Notes). This gives each chapter some distinct layers and the progression of chapters leads to a finalé and the “The Final Score”.
As I was in the course of writing, I realised an important element of the book that I hadn't noticed at the outset. It emerged that, although some passages are not written specifically about music, every sentence has music hovering in the background. Music is in its fabric, if not always visible. Church goers are often accused of being religious only on Sundays and if music is my religion, I cannot be accused of that for it is an ever present voice. The times of listening to and playing music, or just thinking about it, intersperse the events of my daily working life but more than this, music seems to be the foundation for it all. How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here we will sit and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness and the night
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Anthea and Emily:
Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold;
There's not the smallest orb which thou behold'st
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;
But, whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
(Merchant of Venice, Act V)
Bill Anderton, January, 2012
