There There - Moving from Analysis to Scaffolding with a Compositional Model
In my last post, I examined some of the compositional features that make Radiohead's 'There There' such a good song. Chief among the ideas was the concept of textural tension, but there were also other elements like the static drum groove, riff, and chord progression.
After using this work as a compositional model, I decided to create some resources to scaffold a composition for Year 10 students. I didn't want to go it alone, so I consulted some wise people before getting into it.
Thoughts from People with Degrees
At a really fundamental level, composition involves creativity. But what is creativity? Watson says that creativity is "the use of imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work" (2011, p. 28). At a more detailed level, he argues that producing an artistic work means engaging in creating the various parts that are needed in order to make a piece. So for me, I needed to think about how I was going to create a compositional model that didn't just deal with the song as a whole, but worked on creating small parts that would come together to form it.
Additionally, Watson (2011) emphasises that creativity means problem solving, and so I set about trying to solve a number of musical problems that I faced when trying to create compositional scaffolding. But I will return to that.
As I was reading various resources to do with composition, one article that really struck me was Challis's work centred on DJing for performance and composition (2007). He details a pedagogy that was actually entirely back to front, working from a finished performance back into the nuts and bolts and then working towards composing and performing again. Strangely enough, Challis's ideas led me to think about doing things back to front in my own composition scaffolding. Ironically, the back to front was actually opposite to what Challis did. But maybe that's how inspiration works sometimes.
Creating a Compositional Scaffold
So, taking Challis's ideas on board, I set about creating a compositional scaffold for students that would allow them to compose a song with many similar features to 'There There', while retaining their own creative individuality. At a fundamental level, I realised that, while the textural tension used in 'There There' was potentially its most important feature, that was not really something I could scaffold without all the necessary parts that came before it. So I decided to go backwards-backwards (in the sense of going backwards from Challis's idea of a finished product, which is backwards from the normal idea of building up elements) and scaffold building one element of the composition at a time.
There were a few important features that I tried to maintain throughout scaffolding:
1. Each new element relied on the one before it, showing how composition is a problem-solving experience at each level, but also demonstrating how the choices you make in one compositional task affect the direction the rest of your work may take.
2. Wherever possible, I tried to give students options, so that they were free to express their creativity in the parameters they set for themselves. Each option was designed to lead to the same goal, but there are many roads up one mountain.
3. This was not necessarily intentional, but I realised that working in 3s was a common feature of the scaffolding I used. Getting students to choose 3 sounds, or compose 3 options or patterns was an effective way to broaden students' thinking without leaving them completely adrift.
So, now let's have a look at each of the elements I worked with in the scaffolding process.
Composing Drum Grooves
The fundamental element that 'There There' is built upon is the static drum groove. Without it, it would be strange to begin composing a riff or chord progressions. It is the element of the piece that remains completely static before the 'drop' at 3 and a half minutes. But how exactly do you compose a drum groove? Well, I put in a couple of limitations to help students with that process.
1. The groove needed to be 2 bars long. It can be hard to know how long a drum groove should be, so I set that length as an amount that could lead to a little bit of variation without things getting out of hand.
2. The groove needed to use 3 different sounds.
With those limitations in mind, I still wanted to students to feel creative, and so I didn't specify a set of rhythms, a time signature, tempo or feel that they needed to use. In order to allow students to work at a level of drum programming that was relevant to them, I made three different videos, each of which grew progressively more challenging.
In the first video I took students through the Drumbot Sequencer, which uses grid notation and is quite easy to use. Students simply click beats on or off, but can set the tempo, number of beats, and the density of each beat (so whether there are quavers, semiquavers etc.).
In the second video, I created a template for students to make drum loops using GarageBand. In this option, students were able to make use of the looping function to keep their grooves exactly 2 bars long. They were also able to make use of the variety of sounds available on a single kit, either through using a MIDI keyboard or dragging sounds up and down on the piano roll.
In the third video, I went old school and pulled out a real drum kit in order to demonstrate that static drum grooves can be made just using a single drum. The idea with the single drum was to challenge students to think hard (by having to come up with 3 sounds from the one drum), but also not to overwhelm them by limiting their choices.
In all three videos, I was not explicit about what was needed in order to make a good drum groove. The idea was that I would lead them towards experimentation, and that their ears would help them get to a groove that they were happy with as the basis of their composition.
Composing A Riff
After the drum groove came the riff, and this proved to be a little bit more challenging. I worked from the premise that students would enjoy coming up with their riff more if their drum groove was already playing in the background, so I made sure that the drum groove was present already before students began part 2.
Working in 3s ended up being a good option here, and again I was not explicit about the exact musical features that make up a good riff, because honestly, there aren't any hard and fast rules. Instead, I demonstrated improvising and experimenting with one note, then building up to 2, and then 3. The notes were capped at 3 as a limiter, so that students weren't overwhelmed by choice. I made little comments along the way in the video to emphasise that it was a matter of finding something that the student liked, rather than meeting some exact pre-determined goal. I also included an extension activity for students that might feel that three notes is too limiting.
I ran some early tests on my wife in order to see whether this method of composing a riff would work, and one factor that I learnt from her was that I actually needed to be explicit about the riff fitting into the 2 bars exactly. It was not enough to say "compose a riff" or "come up with a 3 note idea". I actually needed to be much clearer than I had thought, because I had made assumptions that students wouldn't necessarily make.
Composing Chord Progressions
This was undoubtedly the hardest composition scaffolding section for me, and so the videos were separated into 3 parts. In the end, what I decided was that students didn't need to know what a triad was or what diatonic harmony was. Rather, by using their own ears as a guide for what sounds good, they could be in control of what chords they would use.
Given that their riffs formed a harmonic basis for their work, I thought to myself, why don't they use notes from the riff as the basis for chords. So I came up with a system of one on, one off, one on. The idea was that, while the loop with drums and the riff were playing, they would pick a note from the riff, then a note not from the riff, then a note from the riff. With their ears as their guide, these three notes would become their chord. Because they would have 3 or 4 notes in their riff, this was a process they could repeat a whole bunch of times in order to create more chords.
(I must admit that I probably should have been more explicit about there being no right or wrong answer to what makes a chord for their songs.)
The second video focused on creating progressions, and because students would be working in GarageBand, they had the luxury of being able to chop up and rearrange their chords once they were recorded.
The final video used Radiohead's method of only minor chords for a progression. Again I made use of GarageBand so that students could simply copy and drag parallel minor chords around in order to make sounds that they liked.
Where to From Here
The section that I would still need to work out is how to move from each of these micro sections to a larger sense of tension and release over a whole work. That would need to be some sort of structural scaffolding.
References
Challis, M. (2007). The DJ factor: Teaching performance and composition from back to front. In J. Finney, & P. Burnard, (Eds.), Music education with digital technology. New York, NY: Continuum.
Watson, S. (2011). Using technology to unlock musical creativity. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.