Thematic growth, part 1

I see I have not posted anything in about 2 weeks, so I'd better get busy!

I mentioned in yesterday's class that many in-progress compositions I hear have opening ideas that are immediately captivating, but the material often feels to me as if it is truncated before having reached some sort of completion or fulfillment, and other ideas introduced. This is a relatively-common occurrence when learning compositional craft, and I suspect that even experienced composers find themselves struggling with this on occasion. I do, anyway.

I think it arises in part because of the extreme disproportion between the length of time it takes to compose a work and the length of time it takes to hear the finished composition; you often spend days working on a musical idea that may take only 30 seconds to play.

Because of this, it is often useful to just write a single line at great length, maybe 32 bars or longer, without concerning yourself with harmony, counterpoint, or orchestration. You develop a better sense of the theme as a complete entity, which in turn gives you a better sense of how to construct a composition whose proportions 'feel' right.

For ideas that are colour based — the principal interest is harmonic, textural, or the orchestration — this technique works less well, but you may be be able to adapt it by writing your harmonic progression on one or two staves which continue for as long as the progression needs to last. You could also insert indications such as, "flutes and oboes here," "only use bass-register instruments," or "light, transparent texture," to guide you when you come back to orchestrate or otherwise expand your short score to its fuller form.

Do all musical materials need to be worked out to their full potential? Absolutely not! But a sense that none of the ideas has reached some kind of musical maturity may lead to a feeling of dissatisfaction about the composition in general for listeners.

Incidentally, just because you work out an idea to achieve its full potential beforehand doesn't mean you have to use the idea in its entirety the first (or any) time the listener hears it. You could introduce it in snippets, interrupted by a contrasting idea, gradually working its way to the full presentation of the idea.

Don't buy it? I have a theory that all composers are contrarians to varying degrees. When a teacher says, "avoid parallel fifths," an aspiring composer may say, "oh yeah? We'll just see about that!" and decide to write a piece using nothing but parallel fifths, and ditto for any other musical 'rule' or 'guideline.' So, even as I write this, a part of my brain is saying, "but wouldn't it be cool to write a piece with absolutely no sense of thematic growth or fulfillment whatsoever?

My answer would be, sure; absolutely! It's certainly worth a try. But centuries of classical music practice suggest it is important to learn how to 'grow' your musical materials in a natural and organic way, which is why composition teachers often encourage their students to develop the skill and patience to work on this.