Music by Jean King

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How I wrote Music ... Then

I relied on the instructions of my pop teacher, writing the melody line in the treble clef and accompanying chord symbols. But when the music came to me fast I just scribbled letters instead of notes. (I still have notebooks containing those first efforts.) The first “real” music came to me one day while I was sitting on a rock at Old Garden Beach in Rockport, Massachusetts. Words from a poem I hadn’t thought about in years (ee cummings’ I thank you god for most this amazing) suddenly came to me, and with them--music. I raced home to write down the music spilling out of me. The piece, which I consider my signature work, is for chorus and orchestra and has yet to be performed.

In time, my eyes healed and I set out to study composition and, ultimately, orchestration. I  realized that if I wanted people to perform my music, I had to be able to write it. And as I gradually heard music for instruments other than piano, I had to learn to write for all instruments. Just as I had been tutored in music as a young girl at home, so as an adult my learning came from private instruction. I studied composition with Steven Savage from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, and orchestration with Randall Woolf from Harvard University. When Randy first took me on, he said, “You’ve got the gift (to compose). What you need are the tools.” During the next four years, he opened the world of orchestral sound to me for he had a great command of the instruments. Always, we worked from my own music. I hung in there, writing music notation which, for me, was a back-to-the-future experience!

How I Compose Music ... Today

I compose using state-of-the-art music technology, employing both my gift to play by ear and applying the knowledge derived from my study in orchestration. I am a creative artist, which for me means that music comes to me free-flowing without any plan on my part. I sit at the keyboard and give voice to a particular image or impression. At this initial stage of the creative process, the music comes from my emotions; it is not in the least cognitive. This stage is the most important part of the process because here the music makes itself known. My task is to patiently attend to the work manifesting itself to me.

Even at this early stage, the creative act is rarely the same. Sometimes melody comes in a rush from beginning to end. Other times a musical mood dominates (an introduction, for instance), setting the tone from which I eventually hear the melody. Occasionally, I just fool around on the keyboard, and when I get a sense that something is happening, stay with the music for as long as it takes to play itself out. In all instances, I leave the music alone at various intervals so that I can hear it anew. Sometimes I need to give the music time to germinate in me; other times I need to give myself time to hear the music that’s already there. This hearing can take minutes, hours, or over a long period of time. It requires a lot of discipline to hear the music as it is, not as I want it to be. Once I sense the music’s gone as far as I can hear, the second stage begins.

Now imagination and cognition, daring and skill--the nuts and bolts of arranging or orchestrating--take over. Where in the initial stage I am more passive than active to the music, in the second stage I enter in. In developing the piece, I have to take great care not to lose the original sense of the music. If I do, I can misshape, or worse, destroy the heart of a work by trying to “make it better.” Choice of instruments is crucial because instruments voice the identity of the music. So arranging or orchestrating music is hard work, and the choices I make are utterly essential to maintain the integrity of the work.

It’s hard to stay with a piece to completion, to resist the temptation to say it’s finished when I know in my heart it is not. So I step aside for a week or so, then listen again. Finally satisfied, I’m ready for the final stage: I mix the music internally (each instrument), burn the cd, and send it to a music production company for mastering, graphics, and duplication.

Technology has changed radically the way I compose music. While creating music remains, for me, first and foremost an inner hearing, I have become more adventurous, more daring in using the sounds so readily available at my fingertips. I hear the instruments all at once as I compose now, and can record them instantly. Still, music technology is not without tension. For instance, when I need to re-key a passage, I run the risk of losing the original feeling which, for me, nearly always is the best.

Technology also has helped me resolve my aversion to performing in public. By recording cds in my home studio, I can reach a limitless audience without ever going on stage.

Composing a song usually takes months for me, and a long work, years. I often work on several “collections” (potential cds) at a time. For instance, I began writing the songs for Jimmie K on Broadway while orchestrating the music for Clark Bridge Symphony . And I wrote the title piece in A Tribute to North American Indians  ten years before the other songs in Tribute came to me in 2003.

I compose on a Kurzweil PC88MX digital keyboard, using Digital Performer music software and the PowerMac G3 computer. I work solely with sound instead of notation because, as explained above, sight reading has never been my forte. Instead of notation, I work from the soundbytes I view on the monitor screen. Although I am not in the least “techy,” I have learned to respect technology because it is the tool which enables me to get my music heard.