Peer Art Review

Peer Review

Ethan Honeywell

I have chosen an arrangement by David Ko of the piece “Girl with the Flaxen Hair” by Claude Debussy. This piece is depicting a story of a girl with flaxen hair and was inspired by a poem written by Leconte de Lisle. David has written many pieces in the past but I chose this one because of him arranging instead of composing it. Arrangements are always more interesting because they are a direct interpretation of a piece of art already in existence. One can only arrange someone elses work once they have have completely understood the material.  I love what he did with it. He used his ideas and musicianship and implemented them upon an impressionists composer’s piece of a story.  Comparing my creative process to his, I would say that usually my way of thinking is taking some of my own ideas and mashing them together to make a story, but in David’s case, he started with someone elses work and made his own creative version. I would not call this copying. You see this in many remixes of popular music these days.  The people who are taking other peoples work and altering it ever so slightly can be seen as copies of someone else's material, but really it is seen as a different interpretation of that one particular piece.  This happens many times in jazz music.  Many times there are “standards” books that are in front of people at a gig. These books are just kind of a road map for the musicians who are playing. No body is going to sue these musicians for playing someone else”s music because everybody in the jazz world has been playing other peoples music since the beginning of Jazz. David Ko was able to take the story of a melody, round up all of the ideas and re-organize them into a completely different song.  Even though he did this, the audience could still understand exactly what the song was and how it was related to the actual song by Debussy. I enjoyed listening to it because it was slightly different take on the original which was amazing.  Sitting in the chair listening to the instrumentalists play the arrangement was very interesting to hear. I knew that some of the artists were playing the original by Debussy and were having an interesting time with the piece. Arrangements are always very hard to do. To do an arrangement very well has to be carefully planned. No one can simply sit and write an arrangement, because there is a relationship between the original piece of music to the arrangement that the non original artist is composing or painting or dancing. There is a special bond that goes on between the arranger and the composer. First the arranger must get inside the composer’s mind and really expose what they were trying to get at in the piece of music. Once their mind is understood, the arranger has to carefully expand on the story and the ideas that the composer was writing about.  Once the story is grasped by the arranger, they can then start piecing together an interpretation of the song. Now this interpretation can be either direct link to the song or it can be a remaster of the sounds and story. Either way it is going to be an interpretation.  But sometimes an arrangement can be a reflection. In David’s case, he wrote an interpretation of the story line. But sometimes, people will write arrangements that are really reflection where bits of melody are exposed throughout the song but is really not the main idea.  I have always wanted to do something like what David does but do it in writing. All of the interpretations and arrangements of music are never planned and are always performed live in front of people. No preparations are ever held before the show. This in a way is more exhilarating than a normal planned show.  In these unplanned shows, anything can happen. The creative process is also ramped up a lot because you are always trying to figure out ways to get out of your normal way of thinking. Playing a live show increases the creative capability that one has and forces them to think outside of the normal realm of improvisation. With an arrangement, it is something that is carefully planned which I can respect and enjoy. David did a very good job of sticking to the original and going only slightly off of the path of the main story.