April (Will): Recomposing Classical Music by Ear

Our rehearsal process is quite an interesting one! I don't know whether it's unique, but it's definitely a different way of working to how either of us have ever made music before. 

When we decided to set up Stevens & Pound, we wanted to find a mutual world that represented our two musical trainings; classical and trad folk (although both of us would definitely say we have since strayed far outside the lines like the mad scribbles of a 3-year old in terms of those two boxes!). 

We decided to root the duo in the folk music which inspired classical composers, to represent both of our backgrounds. This led to us recomposing firstly The Lark Ascending by Vaughan Williams after we mined a historic call-out on my Facebook page: 

I was at first doubtful I would ever play classical music because I don’t read notated music (like, at all…I am very dyslexic!), but I’m pretty chuffed to say we have now gone from zero all the way to a full symphonic adaptation of Holst’s Planets Suite which we ended up premiering with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra last Summer. 

NB: Holst also actually originally wrote the work for 4-hands at the piano, but I would say it has now found itself back in four very different Stevens & Pound-shaped hands, and also Delia’s double bass-drummed feet!.

The Creative Process - how we Recompose Classical Music and Recreate an Orchestral Score

1. Delia analyses the scores and figures out “the essential ingredients”; she names them (so we can navigate rehearsals easily) and records them in digestible chunks (sometimes with a little explanation of e.g. how a chord sequence is working) which I memorise.  

2. At the same time, I’m listening to the originals like a dog with a bone and getting the original version in my head - the sequence and the repeated patterns and all the rest.

3.  We go through the whole score in the rehearsal room, painstakingly! Now, I don't read music, but it was still useful going through it all day, usually, tiny weeny bit by bit, and learning the structure. It’s a lot to hold in your head (bearing in mind most folk tunes are about 32 or 48 bars long). 

4. We take one idea out of that structure, e.g. the opening of Jupiter, and work on that for sometimes a few hours to get it really, really good and start experimenting with the memorised materials - anything goes!

5. Then we build up our own movement.  So our planets, for example, actually ended up longer than the original planets. And that's a result of focusing in on each idea, and expanding that out. We eventually recreate a recomposed version of the movement with a tight structure - this is recorded as a demo and sent to our orchestrator - Ian Gardiner (aka our hero).

6. Ian transcribes our parts from the demo (approximately) and creates an orchestration around the solo parts (sometimes adding orchestral only sections or reintroducing original Holst orchestral material).

7. Ian sends us back a score, a demo and our "parts" 1. As a “score” I am actually given a "structural roadmap" which is essentially a cue sheet which corresponds to the score the conductor is using, so that I know where I am in orchestral rehearsals. Love Ian's descriptions!

Playing Classical Music on Folk Instruments

I might learn phrases slightly differently, partly because of the instrument. The instruments that I play - harmonica and melodeon (or diatonic accordion) - are quite difficult instruments to use for something like the planets where, for example, Mercury is bi-tonal (in two keys at the same time!). For example, every harmonica I own is in a key - e.g. G major. I actually had to have a new whole-tone harmonica commissioned especially for Mercury!

For some of the notes Delia is asking me to play - I might not even have them on my instrument; for example Dbs are quite hard to come by in some octaves of the melodeon and chromatic scales are a nightmare on the harmonica because you literally have to bend the pitch to find them if the music isn’t in the key of that particular harmonica. We have to avoid notes, or put them in Delia’s part or find another note that might work harmonically or still be recognisable as the original composer’s idea. It’s interesting! 

Learning Classical Music by Ear

At the start of the duo, when we learnt Lark Ascending (which was the first piece we worked on) it was a lot of stereo processing. At that point, we didn't know how to rehearse it as such because we'd never worked together in that capacity and realised sometimes we were literally speaking different languages. For example, a lot of classical music jargon is actually in Italian so I didn’t know what on earth Delia was on it when she started chatting and had to interrupt…”Delia…what even is a crescendo/concerto/crotchet/accelerando?!”

Finding the Formula

…But now, it's great because now we invented this process, we can get through material a lot quicker!

Everyone has different ways of rehearsing and learning material so this is a great learning curve for both of us, and a unique way of composing, but a great way all the same!

Will