This one takes a minute, or two to digest. Not because of length but because of content.
There's one obvious narrative of sorts that the composer has in his palette. And that's first hand the music, but that's not all. Music can be so many things and have different shades and colors. Much like a painting, and if one writes for many instruments the palette becomes even more extensive.
But that makes it also harder to decide on what instruments to score together, as a composer, or arranger, that's a next-level hurdle to conquer.
Right now I work in parallels on a lot of different compositions, it's not by choice, it's by design in a way. I see my time as very precious and fragile, and I can't spend too much time sitting (stiffening due to Parkinson's), or for that matter standing by the computer for hours and hours in length.
So I have one rule for how I can spend my time as a composer/creator: I get two hours in the morning, and about one hour during CreativeWorkHour to create every day.
Let's take a look under the hood of my catalog of unfinished compositions in progress:
Symphony No. 2, is scored for a large orchestra. I published the first(?) movement as a movie score on YouTube and as you can see the large score.
String Quartet No. 7 - In Dulci Jubilo. The first movement is finished, and the second is under work. Usually, my string quartets have four movements and a length between 12 and 25 minutes.
Wintermusic No. VI - Litany, for Violin solo and strings. Started and about four minutes in of twelve to fifteen?
Etudes for Piano. Short etudes for piano, and there are three out of four to six finished.
Mass for Mezzo-soprano solo, choir, brass and harp., the kyrie is already performed last October. And I'm working on the other movements. Plan to have it finished by the end of next year.
Piano trio no. II, for Bb clarinet, basson and piano. Two of the three movements are finished. Hope to have the third finished by the end of February.
Sonata No. II for Viola and piano. I have started to work on this, and I am not sure when it will be finished.
Piano Sonata No. II, another sompåosition that is under work.
Duo Dolorosa, for Violin and Viola. Two of four movements are finished.
Dorothy Parker Project, it's a composition for a Mezzo-soprano solo and choir that's under planning.
Concertinos: for flute and strings, for horn and strings, for organ, timpani and strings, for Basson and strings. They all have the first movement finished.
Plus a lot of small started compositions, like notes in note taking. I got more than 50 of those. Sometimes a theme or a part of them comes to use in another composition, and sometimes they stay unused.
They all have one thing in common besides not being finished, the narrative is different in every composition. But the language or dialect of my compositions have a tonality that makes it easy to say: Yes, this is a Sporring composition.
In many ways, it's like the different dialects from all the parts of Sweden I have lived in during my life. You can hear some remains of them in my spoken Swedish if you are a language coach, but maybe so much if you're not.
This is my legacy, my heritage I leave behind me. And since I already have a lot of compositions on streaming services, that's a massive thing to leave behind.
A massive narrative, of one person. I pray that I will reach my destination as composer, what and when that is only God knows.
Here are the links to my profiles on Spotify and YouTube Music.
That's a lot of music and it can't be easy keeping track of it all. Do you have some notes on each to remind you of what you wanted to do? My music writing is very simple where I come up with some words and figure out some chords to go with them. I do not notate it as it would just be me performing the song. Mind you I am looking at getting some friends to play on some in future and I may let them come up with their own parts.
Hi Steve!
No I have tried diffrent models but all seem to fall short. However I have been able to keep track of them but sorting them in a folder structure on Dropbox, where I both share and store finished and work-in-progress. I also do and back of the whole shabang on both G-drive and an external harddrive.
Always good to have backups. I've lost files on a bad drive.
In 2008, the same year I had to stop playing my Viola and violin due to shaking, my computer's hard drive broke and I lost 6 years worth of composing. Among them my first full-length symphony (37 mins long for a large orchestra, which took me almost 3 years to finish!), three stringquartets, other chamber music, and choir pieces. About 35 hours of music lost... So I'm not taking any chances now!
That's terrible, but you learnt a lesson.