You never know what is going to happen next, even if you do become a major league "rock-star". Ask any of them, and some will tell you it isn't what they thought it was going to be...   more »

Inspired by some players who seem to already be doing this successfully, I’ve recently been doing quite a lot of research into giving webcam lessons. I’ve been looking at committing quite a bit of time doing this, exploring costs, potential, feasibility, and practicality. The number of potential students I could reach internationally is an incredible statistic.

 

I'm looking at investing in a quite an extensive multi-media work station which not only facilitates webcam lessons, but also has access to my own pre-recorded video and online PDF files to support lessons.

 

If anyone would be interested in these lessons, or has any ideas, comments, or suggestions, they would all be most welcome.

Finished one track for the Aliens and Lasers recording, I'll see if I can post it on my myspace page before the end of the day.

As ever, any and all constructive criticism most welcome and sincerely appreciated.

www.myspace.com/nikharrisonmusic

 

I've neglected this blog recently because I've been focussing my attention on getting some more music produced and out into the world. It's been a strange balance to strike though, because without an online presence, or any exposure to a potential market, the music may as well be confined to my studio! I concluded that I shouldn't have neglected this so much though because this blog has actually been a valuable outlet for documenting the progress that I've been making, and for sharing my ideas.

The comments I've received by email have been sincerely appreciated. To the people who seem to have had problems leaving comments on here, sorry about that. I had a look at it and everything should be working fine if you click on 'leave comment' and follow the instructions.  

I'm still out and about working with the usual people and teaching (which takes up a considerable amount of my time), but I'm trying to break out of the patterns which I've sometimes found myself in which are not conducive to achieving as much as I could. I'm not always very good at prioritising things and I tend to work very hard on 5 or 6 projects at a time and make slow, steady progress with them all rather than to focus my attention on one thing at a time and complete it before moving on to the next. I'm trying to change this, and be more directional with my work but because the nature of creativity is that it is a completely untamable beast which requires a permanently adaptive aproach, time scales for completing work sometimes seem to be very artificial and even destructive! I've tried to work to them though because I could very feasibly work on a project for 5 or 6 years and the outcome would not really be any 'better' than the outcome I could reach within a few months. 'Different' perhaps, but I'm not convinced that within a subjective artistic field that the concept of 'better' actually applys.

I would welcome peoples thoughts on this.

Nik

I've given 'Aliens and Lasers' some serious consideration over the last week. This has seemed to be a terminal back burner project which actually began life as a joke! It was initailly meant to be an instrumental rock/fusion album which was serious compositions, but a parody of the instrumental rock albums which have been made by certain players! I've held out on making it for a long time in favour of my ensemble based projects Turquoise Noise and Ensemble Craft (I much prefer the idea of being part of a band than being a lone wolf soloist with assistance from other players). The incentive I've had to actually make this has been in the form of a lot of positive comments and questions from the good folk who frequent the Northern Guitar Shows about certain riffs, or melodic lines which have been within the compositions for 'Aliens and Lasers'. That 'unofficial' critical feedback gave me a push to complete it and get it out into the world.  

This album shouldn't take me too long to complete at all. All demos for the compositions have been completed for some years, and any minor tweaks should be done with minimal time consumption with todays level of technology. I'm targetting getting this completed by the end of January 2009. At this stage, I'm going to give myself the incentive to work hard on this album by declaring in black and white that if this album isn't complete by the end of January 2009, I will have either had a serious amount of unforseen circumstnces to contend with, or I've been slacking off! 

Spiritual Atrophy still going strong, and on schedule! I'm going to be making some videos of performances of some of the Spiritual Atrophy tunes which should be online by early November. I'll post notification on here when they're online.

Hello,

First of all, sorry this hasn't been updated as regularly as I initially planned it to be, I've had to expand the bandwidth on here because of popularity. Fantastic in one sense, although irritating in another! Thank you very much indeed to the 'regulars' who visit here frequently. The popularity of this blog has grown rapidly and it's been very inspirational and encouraging to find so many people taking an interest here. I've been working hard on a website recently and currently got a temporary offering online which can be found at http://www.nikharrisonprojects.moonfruit.com/ 

Full scale website with some decent videos, pictures, and more articles is on it's way, as promised. Thank you to the 'hardcore' amongst my students who have been so patient. I'm working on it, and it's on it's way.

Current projects update:

Spiritual Atrophy under way and going strong. Should be complete and available soon. Videos to be sorted properly and online shortly.

Turquoise Noise "Remedial Kinetic Assertion" under way and going strong also. Should be complete and available soon

Videos for Turquoise Noise track 'Digital Woodshed part 1' and the Ensemble Craft track 'Toadstool People' currently in production.

For those who may be interested, next time I'm out and playing some of the more technical demonstration/exhibition type stuff will be at the Leeds guitar show on the Bulldog Pickups stand (currently the worlds finest sounding pickups, in all my electric guitars, and steadily gathering an international reputation). This show:

Pudsey Civic Hall, Pudsey, Leeds, LS28 5TA

on Sunday 7th September 2008

This blog serves to answer another widely asked question about Modes. What are modes?

 

I define them as “The use of a scale through the displacement of its tonal centre to another note within the scale”

 

The historic use of the word “mode” has referred to different things dependant on times, places, interpretations, and the meaning of the word “mode” has actually changed and evolved throughout the development of what can now be identified as established, modern-day music theory. Historically, they were originally applied to Church (or “sacred”) music and as such can sometimes be found actually pre-fixed with additional adjectives such as “Church Modes”, “Ecclesiastical Modes”, “Plagal modes” and some other names. Throughout history, some of these names have been used to refer to different aspects of a modes usage more than an actual difference in the mode itself. Currently they are considered as the use of a scale through the displacement of its tonal centre to another note within the scale, and this is the way in which I’ve defined them at the beginning of this article. Any seven note scale has seven potential tonal centres. Where each of these notes of a scale can be used in this way, music which utilises this idea is commonly referred to as a “modal”.

 

Modes only apply to “asymmetric” scales. Symmetrical scales do not have modes because of the manner in which they are obtained and identified. An example of this would be the whole tone scale which can only be displaced once because of the symmetry of the interval pattern which is used to generate it. The whole tone scale interval pattern is simply a succession of tones which completes itself across 6 notes. Because of this symmetry, both of the Whole Tone Scale’s “modes” are invervallically identical and as such, there is no necessity to identify them separately.

 

Major Scale Modes:

 

Scale Degree Name	Mode
1, Tonic	Ionian (Major scale)
2, Supertonic	Dorian
3, Mediant	Phrygian
4, SubDominant	Lydian
5, Dominant	Mixolydian
6, SubMediant	Aeolian (Natural Minor)
7, Leading Note	Locrian

 

A good article going into the modes of the major scale can be found here:

 

http://paul-clark.com/pages/tutorial/9-diatonics-modes.pdf

 

Harmonic Major Scale Modes:

 

1, Harmonic Major

2, Dorian b5 (“Dorian Diminished”)

3, Phrygian b4

4, Lydian Minor

5, Mixolydian b9 (or b2)

6, (Currently, I’ve not devised a “proper” name for this one – It’s a kind of “strange altered Phrygian/ Locrian hybrid thing”)

7, Locrian b7

 

Melodic Minor Scale Modes:

 

In this case, the Melodic Minor Scale that I’ve used is built from a consistent interval pattern (which can be considered as the major scale using minor 3rd instead of major 3^rd). This is not the traditional "classical" melodic minor scale which is different in its ascending form from its descending form.

1, Melodic minor
2, Dorian b9 (b2) or (Phrygian with a natural 6th)
3, Lydian Augmented (Lydian #5)
4, Lydian Dominant (Lydian b7) (overtone scale)
5, Mixolydian b6 (also sometimes called the "Hindu scale")
6, Aeolian b5 (or Locrian #2/ Locrian #9)
7, Superlocrian (altered scale)

 

Harmonic Minor Scale Modes:

1, Harmonic minor
2, Dorian b9 b13 (or b2 b6) or Locrian (with major 6^th/  natural 6^th
3, Ionian #5 (Ionian augmented) or Major with augmented 5th (not "Harmonic Major")
4, Dorian #11 (or #4)
5, Mixolydian b9 b13 (or b2 b6) “Phrygian Major” (sometimes called “Phrygian Dominant”)
6, Lydian #9 (#2)
7, Superlocrian b7 (Altered Diminished)

I'm not too convinced by "Phrygian Dominant", but I've sometimes seen it labelled as such so I've included it here.

 

Modes, named with “altered” intervals relative to the major scale (which is the manner in which they are presented here for simplicity in presentation) I'm not 100% keen on. This system of labelling implies too much alteration from a hypothetical “default” position, which isn’t necessarily a clear, accurate, or appropriate reflection of these interval patterns. Once learned, I feel that they are much better understood (from a practical application point of view) on their own merits, without thinking too much in terms of raised or lowered intervals (or sharpened or flattened intervals), relative to a scale which is essential just being used as a reference point, and exclusively for labelling purposes. What causes problems (discussing music theory in this way) is the manner in which truth can actually generate confusion. It's the difference between truth and fact which is the basis of many misconceptions in music theory. Major, harmonic major, harmonic minor, and melodic minor scales are all built from interval patterns (although the "classical" melodic minor scale introduces a new level of complication, in that it has a different interval pattern in it's descending form from the retrograde of the ascending version, simultaneously compromising any static, reliable, or hard and fast "rules" regarding it's harmonisation). Where these interval patterns (for the respective scales) may be used to build chords on each of these scale tones extending beyond the triad into extensions of the 7th, 9th etc, to describe them all in relativity to the major scale is where a lot of misunderstanding and misconceptions about harmony are generated. This is worth being aware of when studying scales, modes, and harmony. See the article on my website www.nikharrison.com under lessons and articles called: “A Consideration of the Theoretical Language of Music”.

I’m sure a lot of professional musicians find themselves in the situation whereby they are making a living, and working with music (playing or teaching), but where this also feels like it may as well be any other job, and very removed from the ideals which made a career as a professional musician appealing in the first place!

 

I’ve been working on a lot of other people’s projects recently. They have been a wide and varied mixture of musical styles, from structured and intensive reading for independent album projects, to teaching and performing student compositions for submission to exam boards. This is becoming a seemingly terminal dilemma whereby funding an existence (which is costing time which I want to be using to create, record, and achieve my own goals) is a matter of performing, recording, sharing skills, and serving to assist others achieve their goals.

 

I’m putting this in a blog primarily for my students because recently I’ve found that I have had to do something that I frequently tell my students they need to do when they complain that where they want the skills, they have no time to practice because of other commitments. I’ve practicing what I preach and “made time” for my own practice, and work. If I didn’t do this, my own creative work would be on back burners and on hold forever, because (as I’ve found) there is always someone who wants me to teach or play something somewhere! Comfortable as this situation may be, and reassuring from the point of view of being “employed” (within an increasingly fragile employment and credit climate), in the end, spending time doing what people actually want to do with their lives is very important.

This blog is in response to question I’m asked regularly. I’m not usually too keen on the “magazine feature” style of these things but where it works, I don’t mind so much. This is what I currently consider to be the best books for developing an understanding of general music concepts, notation reading, approaches, creativity, and musicianship (focussed on guitar players needs). This doesn’t include books (or online resources) which serve to build technical skills, or have a specific technical purpose:

 

1. Elementary Training for Musicians – Paul Hindemith
2. Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns – Nicolas Slonimski
3. The Advancing Guitarist – Mick Goodrich
4. Musicianship and Sight Reading for Guitarists – Oliver Hunt
5. Music Reading for Guitar (The Complete Method) – David Oakes
6. For Guitar Players Only – Tommy Tedesco
7. William Leavett – Modern reading guitar method 1, 2, 3

Recently, I've been spending a lot of time practicing, playing and preparing pieces for recording. I've also been working on some other projects, and tracked some guitar parts for Simon Goulding's new album:

 

http://www.gouldingblakeley.co.uk/

http://www.myspace.com/simongouldingmusic

 

Whilst playing the guitar a lot, I’ve reached the conclusion that Morgan Custom Guitars shouldn’t need advertising. Aside from the classical and acoustic guitar tracking, all electric work that I've recorded has been almost exclusively been using a Morgan Griffin. As a customer, Neil's website and other promotional material look to me very much more like a straightforward "announcement" that his guitars are available more than an advertisement. Also, as far as I can tell, Neil's customers are looking for him, not the other way around. When I first met Neil, I was handed one of his guitars which simply demonstrated to me how good guitarists could really have it! There was no considered or contrived sales technique at work. The instrument I was handed lived and breathed under my fingers, telling it’s own story beyond any conversation that I could have had with the man who made it (which I had as well). What happened next was possibly the single most straightforward purchase decision I’ve ever made on a guitar, and some very good conversations discussing ideas for more guitars have taken place ever since. The test of time, and some real road wear and tear later, and my experiences have comfortably reinforced everything I previously believed about these guitars. They are truly awesome instruments.

 

http://www.morgancustomguitars.com

From the outset, one of the purposes of the blog was to keep a diary of sorts as to how I was progressing with my own project work. Since I’ve posted nothing regarding this so far, I felt it would help if I outlined what I’m currently working on and when I hope to get these projects finished and available.

 

For my own creative music work, I record within three separate projects. These are “Ensemble Craft”, “Turquoise Noise”, and NHP (or Nik Harrison Project). They all have respective myspace pages which have more information on them than I could write here:

 

www.myspace.com/ensemblecraft

www.myspace.com/turquoisenoise

www.myspace.com/nikharrisonmusic

 

I’m also currently working on developing my website, making some videos of performances of my music, and video lessons online soon.

 

My current project work focus is on the NHP “Spiritual Atrophy” recording, and the Turquoise Noise “Remedial Kinetic Assertion” recording which I hope to have finished and available before the end of this year.

 

Any and all comments most welcome.

Recently, I got into a conversation (again) about one of the most contentious and divided musical subjects, "Perfect Pitch", and felt that it merited a mention here.

 

Where it’s no secret that I can pick out notes and name them, frequently I’m asked to demonstrate this skill and “prove it” far more than I’m asked how it works with a view to devising an approach which would serve to effectively develop it. There are courses available which can assist in the development of perfect pitch but frequently these courses are misunderstood as the “answer” to the perfect pitch “question”. Some people seem to want these courses to actually supply the skill of perfect pitch for them, and don’t often realise that these courses only actually provide means by which an end may be met. Often, these courses are criticised but in truth, there is nothing really “wrong” with any of them. They all point people in the direction that they want to go, but don’t always clearly explain that developing perfect pitch is no different from learning any other skill. Some people don’t have the patience or the discipline to dedicate sufficient time to the development of this skill, and cruelly interpret this situation as a matter of being “fooled”, and declare “These perfect pitch courses just don’t work”.

 

Where there a lot of quite amusing definitions of perfect pitch, like “the ability to hit a skip with a clarinet at 50 yards” (and other such variations), how perfect pitch has been defined (seriously) is a varied mixture of ideas. Essentially, perfect pitch is an ability which can be identified as “a level on which one perceives musical notes”, and I would go on to define perfect pitch as: “The ability to recognise and recall notes, independent of their relativity to other notes”.

 

This frequently leads to a lot of “What about this? What about that? What about melodic movement and relative pitch? What about recognising intervals and notes placed within chords? What about chord movement? What about notes on different instruments? What about notes in different registers? Etc although these questions are almost always regarding the context within which these notes appear. This introduces the idea of “levels” on which perfect pitch can work. As people begin to develop perfect pitch, they develop the ability to recognise notes in certain circumstances but not others. This is sometimes where people actually “stop listening”, and consider that they have gone as far as they can go with perfect pitch but the ability to recognise notes in almost all circumstances can be developed.

 

Developing Perfect Pitch

 

The underpinning principle on which perfect pitch works for me is that the notes actually sound different from each other. This is independent of their relative position to other notes. I believe that how these notes sound different from each other to me (whilst not a secret) wouldn’t actually be of any practical use for anyone who wishes to develop this skill, This is because throughout history, musicians who have had this skill have offered very different interpretations and descriptions of what they hear when they are recognising or recalling notes. Each person seems to develop this skill in their own way. To develop this skill, you will need to listen for these differences. Frequently at this point I’m asked: “What am I listening for?” (Not in the sense “Why are we listening?”, but in the sense “What, within this sound, am I trying to develop the ability to detect?”). At this stage I frequently make the analogy with sight. If you ask someone to look for something, they may ask “What am I looking for?”, but even if you don’t know what you’re looking for, it doesn’t compromise your ability to see it when it appears. For now, this analogy with sight is the best expression of “the way in which you have to listen to develop perfect pitch” that I can find.

 

Where perfect pitch can be developed, some people who have not developed this skill within a timeframe that they have set for themselves will often take a very strange view of perfect pitch, and will criticise those who don't share it. This is one reason I avoid talking about it so much. I frequently ask; “how long did it take you to learn a few simple chords?” However long that may have been, I usually find out that they wanted to develop the entire skill of perfect pitch in less time! Realistically, that’s just not going to happen.

 

Nik Harrison

I’ve found that an incredible part of my mind seems to be accessed by repeatedly doing the same thing over and over again. Where I’m aware that repeated patterns are used for hypnotic induction, and I’ve considered that I’ve most probably ‘mesmerised’ myself here with the repeated patterns within reinforcement exercises whilst practicing, they have certainly opened up a part of my mind today which offers consideration to many things that I’m sure would have been filtered out within “normal” consciousness. Today’s excessively philosophical pondering has led me to consider that it’s not in our nature to destroy ourselves. It is in our nature to squander the responsibilities that we have in the form of choices that are born of consciousness, and that this is the result of a tragic misunderstanding of the actual importance the ability make decisions has. Where the presence of power needs to be met with the ability to control, a very simple lack of understanding of our actual circumstances and nature is where we fail. I’m hoping that this thought passes the test of time, and that when I return to it in a few months it will remain valid and have the same profound effect on me as it has done today. This is because where I can’t see any practical application of these thoughts, I’m convinced that they will have a value over time, and (subsequent to passing the time test) prove to be significantly beneficial to my perspective on life beyond music. 

I post quite a bit of stuff on the music radar forum, and not too long ago someone expressed the purpose of a scale to reflect “the assonance of tones” which I thought was quite poetic and a nice description of it. The thread went on to discuss this descriptive “mistake” but I took a step back and gave this “mistake” some thought and realised that some quite interesting things surfaced when the vantage point of objective consideration is used. We have a whole range of terms in music theory to identify intervals in different contexts, but we only use 2 words to describe what they are all like from a perceptive point of view. These are “Consonance” and “Dissonance”. They are also expanded upon (and prefixed) with more adjectives such as “strong”, “weak”, or “mild”. Surely the perceptive vantage point on intervals has greater importance than the theoretical expressions which are used to describe them? This being the case, it seems strange that this situation is accepted so blindly when intervals sound so different? We don’t describe the weather using two words prefixed like this, and it’s just as complex! It occurred to me that this situation (through the natural evolution of the language of music) will change over time, but also that it is people who influence this change (albeit inadvertently). Maybe we can actually take control of this evolution, based on considered analysis of these situations? Really, the only way that “what can be done” has been made apparent historically, is where it’s been recorded that somebody somewhere has actually done it! As far as I can tell, it’s usually only a lack of perspective that will determine whether or not you, or anyone else, can be that someone.

I’ve recently been reading through some lessons and articles (devised over a long period of time), editing and updating them for publishing to my website. One of these articles is about (and titled) “Three Aspects of Performance Musicianship”. It currently appears on the Audio Design Workshop myspace page:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=147226874&blogID=374018957

I’ve been considering the content of this article a lot recently, since I engaged in a discussion about some aspects of theory (on the music radar forum http://www.musicradar.com/forum) not too long ago. I’ve become concerned that this article may be misunderstood as the “guitar perspective” on music, and I would wish to avoid using this point of view as a basis for establishing a balanced and overall outlook on playing. A reply to something I had posted made reference to “guitar theory” being different from “common practice”. I disagreed with this distinction at the time, although later in the discussion, it became clear what was actually meant by this. What was meant, was that that people who learn music in different ways (though learning to play different instruments) usually develop different perspectives on theory, unfortunately sometimes to the point where their knowledge can offer someone what they consider to be a “comprehensive outlook” on theory. In actual fact, they really just have a basic grasp of a small part of theory (from the point of view of studying an instrument on which certain things are easier to grasp than others). I occurred to me that where the old adage “a little knowledge is a dangerous thing”, didn’t quite apply, a modified and similar “little knowledge based on the study of one particular instrument, will lead you to have a totally different little knowledge of theory from someone who has studied a different instrument” probably did (to a certain extent). My contribution to the discussion was as follows:

“Theory is theory. How that is practically applied to any instrument (melodic/harmonic) is immaterial. Chords, keys, scales, modes, modulation, harmonic suspension and resolution, are all the same no matter what instrument you play. There are recognisable differences in the manner in which theory is sometimes expressed within different styles/ genres of music which is perfectly acceptable for practical reasons, but ultimately within the western system of equally tempered instruments (which modern classical and jazz theory relates to), theory is universal.”

From the practical viewpoint of studying “guitar playing” in general, these considerations raise some interesting questions regarding where and when one actually begins to learn theory, and where and when one perhaps should begin? Also, should we just accept, or reconsider the entire “natural approach” to learning theory as a guitarist, where an emphasis on the theory which makes most sense to guitar players (borne of the nature of the instrument) is learned first? Is this the best approach in the interest of developing a thorough and comprehensive understanding of theory? When it comes to learning, should we continue as we have done for a long time, or change? Perhaps learning theory as we learn to play the guitar (as and when theoretical questions arise regarding theoretical expressions and explanations of what is actually being played on the guitar) cannot be improved upon? Do we consider the practical aspects of guitar playing and the theoretical aspects to be separate subjects and study them independent of each other? I believe that the large space in between the extremes of theory being on one side of the table, with “practice” on the other, is where most guitarists will find their own experience of learning. Taking that into consideration, I would like to put the question to “accomplished” guitarists: Was this the “best” way you could have learned all this stuff? And if it wasn’t the “best” way, how could it be improved?

I’ve been criticised quite a lot over the years for various opinions and ideas that I’ve expressed about music. This applies to other things too, but there’s been a lot of “music controversy” that I’ve generated. In hindsight, some of the ideas that I’ve shared have actually faced some very cruel and disproportionate ridicule. I don’t usually talk about a lot of these things anymore to avoid a similar experience but in a conversation yesterday, I engaged in a discussion about one of these frequently criticised “crazy ideas”. This was an old favourite, referred to by a friend as simply “The Question”. This was a question that I used to ask guitar tutors as a method by which I could immediately assess what kind of level they were working on. The question itself is a very simple “What note is behind the eighth fret of the second string?” The responses I got to this question in general were disturbing. The number of people who I’ve met over the years who don’t know this, had to work it out slowly, or dismissed the question as irrelevant (who were actually offering guitar lessons) has been incredible! I’ve heard every excuse possible why you “don’t need to know this” to teach but my response to all of them has always been, “What if one of your students asked you this question?”, “Would you tell your students that they don’t need to know where a note is on the fingerboard of the guitar?”, “How would you explain to a parent of a pupil that this information isn’t necessary?”, and “What kind of message is that sending the next generation of players?”.

 

I’ve considered this question again and offered it much thought based around asking myself: “Is this excessively harsh?” I’ll admit that where knowing every note on the fingerboard isn’t knowledge which some of these guitar tutors have had, their students will have undoubtedly learned some things, and be empowered with an ability to play to a certain degree, and achieved a certain level of understanding about the guitar and theoretical concepts. However, with this “question” I can’t help feeling that the quality of the knowledge and understanding that the tutor has is an essential element within the ability to effectively teach. Where I’ve thought about this a lot, I can’t avoid returning to an old maxim that effective teaching is ultimately reliant of the quality of knowledge that a teacher has. Taking this into consideration, if anyone wants to teach guitar I would suggest that they adequetely prepare themselves to be able to answer this kind of question.

Hello, and welcome to my new blog. An idea for some time, a plan for some more time, and now (even more time later), a reality. As a first offering for this blog, I felt that I should really make sure I had a yardstick to measure subsequent blogs by, and set a standard that I will endeavour to maintain. I can’t imagine that I’ll be maintaining regular blogs of this length, although I will certainly ensure that I keep a measure of quality for the content which is of a consistent high standard, and of interest.

 

A Five Part Creative Process Model

 

Aside from website development (including this blog, and other ideas related to my work) I’ve been working on my own creative projects a lot recently. I’ve been doing a lot of practice, developing sounds, musical ideas, and building provisional structures for my music. At certain points, I have been consciously aware of my participation in the following five part creative process. I use this model a lot when I’m teaching composition because it offers a good framework for students to discuss their work (very helpful when it comes to assessing it). It occurred to me that the models for creative processes are not always as well known as they probably should be, so I’m sharing this here for anyone who may not have seen this before. The following is based on models which already exist and can be found in numerous places, but this is my own interpretation of the model (interpretation in itself being probably the most important part of understanding it before this can have any practical use). Musical examples have been given throughout, but this process can be considered for any creative process, musical or non-musical. Because evolution can be considered as a process of simplification, this model is presented in a very simple form here, although I’ve come to believe that most other models (which serve to represent the same process but are much more complicated) sometimes complicate this process much more than necessary, and are frequently full of extraneous tangents which often compromise the model’s clarity and purpose. The actual practical purpose of this model is to assist in the guidance of the decision making process which all creative work is ultimately dependant on.

 

The most important thing to be aware of when looking at this model is that it’s strictly non-linear. Where the five parts are presented here in what appears to be a linear format, it is important to be aware that four component parts within this model can appear in any position, and should be considered both on their own merits, and relative to the other parts of the model. The only part of this model which cannot appear in any position is “Finish/ End”:

 

Start/ Begin/ Idea

Experiment

Refine

Assess and Evaluate

Finish/ End

                                                                                                                       

The “Start” of a creative process (in practice) can be anywhere. Usually it’s a simple idea but it can also be considered as one of two other parts of the model, “Experiment”, or “Assess and Evaluate”. “Start” (or potential start point 1) is usually an idea which will be explored and developed as you move through the process. This could be a simple chord movement, melodic motif, or a phrase based on the idiomatic nature or engineering of the instrument you are working with. It could also be an idea in your mind, liberated from restriction which may be placed on it by technical considerations. Starting by experimenting (potential start point 2) with sounds, scales, keys, chords, or even non-musical ideas is a very common start point for me. I “play with” simple ideas a lot as a point of departure for developing my music. “Assessment and Evaluation” (potential start point 3) can be considered a starting point because this could be a formal interpretation of “inspiration”. If a piece of music has inspired you to go and create something of your own, then what has happened here is usually a sub-conscious “assessment and evaluation” of what it is that has inspired you, and that has supplied you with a starting point (usually experienced as a “reaction” to something):

 

Start/ Begin/ Idea (Potential Start point 1)

Experiment (Potential Start point 2)          

Refine

Assess and Evaluate (Potential Start point 3)

Finish/ End

 

“Experiment” is an interesting part of the model because of its inherent versatility, and the multiple options and directions that it provides. Before experimenting, it is sometimes worth establishing “experimental purpose”. This is so that your creative work can be developed within a framework which provides some clear direction for your work. “To see what happens next” is fine, so long as you have the resolve to “assess and evaluate” what happens next and take responsibility for making a decision as to where the results of your experimentation is taken after that. There is a loop that it’s possible to become trapped in that is worth avoiding here. This is “experiment – assess – experiment – assess etc”, and usually the result of indecisiveness (the single biggest cause of the death of many creative processes which fail to reach a satisfactory “Finish/ End”). Another “experimental purpose” could be to “refine” your ideas (experimental point 3). Similar to the way in which the start point can be considered to be experimentation in its own right (or experimental point 2 as the start), “Experimentation” needs a basis before it can start. You will need something to experiment with. This could be a chord, a scale, a sound (or noise), none of which would actually qualify as an “idea” because these things are just pure “raw material” for music. Once the results of experimentation begin to take your work out of the “noise” bracket and into “music”, then a new musical idea can be identified, establishing a new “start” point (experimental point 2 in this instance being the result of “assessment and evaluation”):

 

Start/ Begin/ Idea (Experimental point 2)

Experiment (Experimental point 1)

Refine (Experimental point 3)

Assess and Evaluate

Finish/ End

 

To “Refine” your idea is a decision that is taken as a result of “assessment and evaluation”. Where “refinement” in itself isn’t actually necessary, and this model can work well without it, it is included here because I consider “Refinement” to be important within the creative process because it serves to establish a measure of “quality control” over your work. Refinement can sometimes be a matter of using tried and tested methods to develop and improve your idea such as developing melodic phrasing, or using tried and tested recording methods, instrumentation, or production techniques. “Refine” can also include elements of “experimentation” before your developed idea requires further “assessment and evaluation”:

 

Start/ Begin/ Idea

Experiment (Refinement point 2)

Refine (Refinement point 1)

Assess and Evaluate

Finish/ End

 

“Assessment and Evaluation” is the most important part of the model, and should follow every other part of the process after “Start”. The conclusions of “assessment and evaluation” serve to direct your work to any of the other parts. These decisions actually generate a unique creative pathway in the process. Regarding the start: It can actually be the start in itself (by assessing and evaluating an idea or “inspiration”), or direct the process back to the start if you need to start again ( by exploring a new idea, or through experimentation). Regarding “Experimentation”, “Refinement”, and the “Finish/ End”, these are the other parts of the model which the conclusions of “assessment and evaluation” can direct your work to. Where one may start, experiment, and refine in perpetuity, “assessment and evaluation” is the only part of the model which can serve to establish (by directing the process to) the “Finish/ End”:

 

Start/ Begin/ Idea (Potential conclusion 1)

Experiment (Potential conclusion 2)

Refine (Potential conclusion 3)

Assess and Evaluate (where does my music need to go?)

Finish/ End (Potential conclusion 4)

 

The “Finish/ End” is simply the end of the process, established through “Assessment and Evaluation”:

 

Start/ Begin/ Idea

Experiment

Refine

Assess and Evaluate

Finish/ End

 

Nik Harrison