Creation of Versions for a Pre-composed Tune Utilizing Procedures of Folk Music
Original version
Guzmán A., L. A. Creation of Versions for a Pre-composed Tune Utilizing Procedures of Folk Music. Master thesis, Telemark University College, 2013Abstract
When I was studying composition we had many subjects and techniques to learn about, and we needed to apply them under different circumstances to create music. At that point, I was always wondering, how was I supposed to create music? How was I supposed to use all of this information? One day, during my composition lesson, I asked my very old and classically formed teacher these questions, to be honest I was expecting some kind of technical oriented answer, but he surprised me saying something like: ??ou know? Composing is the same as improvising, but you write it down?? That thought has been in my mind ever since, and it has helped me realize that musical creativity can be exercised in multiple ways? When I started to get familiar with the study of traditional music I saw that creativity was not an issue that gathered much attention. Instead, it was the concept of variation what I felt was regarded as more adequate to name changes in the constituent musical parameters of a tune. Furthermore, I saw that the efforts were put mostly in conservation of the musical material, rather than in the creation of new items for it. The concept of having an array of tunes that are related to each other became an issue that deeply took my attention. I thought it was a rather sophisticated way of displaying creativity, not only because of the production of different musical pieces, but also because of the ability to maintain a level of constancy that supported the idea of them being related. I thought it would be an exiting experience to try and elaborate a creative experience pointed in that direction? Departing from the hypothesis that the process of aurally transmitting a tune to an individual would produce difference between the structure of the model tune and its reproduction. And trying to utilize the characteristics and potentialities that individual musicians have, as a musical filter, where the pitch and rhythm differences between the input musical data and the output musical data could be considered as new traits. I commenced the process of elaborating a method to somehow utilize these variations in order to create different versions of the same tune.