playing with music

I've admitted that I cannot compose music, though it's a passion of mine to do so. Instead, I play with music.

Without seeming too eager, I volunteered to put together the sound for a dance concert. Yesterday I met with the choreographers and we listened to the music they had chosen, and talked about where they wanted the songs cut, how they should fade in and out, and in some cases, bits and pieces spliced together to form a shorter piece. It was this last part that was euphoric for me.

With some tremendous, FREE software, I was able to pick a song apart and rearrange the composition so that it still flowed, flawlessly from note to note, beat to beat, and still with a (now new) musical subtext. I even managed to lengthen the final note of my new creation, to give the dancers a half second more to finish their final leap.

Is this not musical composition? No, I suppose it is more a musical 're-creation.' A Frankensteining of sound. At its worst, I suppose it is a perversion of someone else's work of art. At it's best it's ... what? ... a unique work, not quite mine, and not quite that of the original composer.

But what the hell...I had fun and the choreographer absolutely loved hearing the song that she'd been envisioning all along.