Otto Mäkelä – Composer Waehnen

Path of a Composer Chapter VI: Discordia – Grip!

Welcome on a journey! I call it the Path of a Composer. The idea is to post key pieces of my music from along the years and hopefully put some light on how I have developed aesthetically, in my craftsmanship and of course also artistically — resulting in these days where I am finally ready to proudly launch myself as a composer of modern art music. It is time for Chapter VI.

Discordia: Grip! (Taken from the album Season Changes, 2014)

Chapter V was about me getting symphonic for the first time with the Strive or Warp album. The exhausting task of doing so much of the work all by myself left me valuing collaboration and seeing it in a new light.

I cannot remember how I joined Discordia again. At least I cannot remember whether they asked me or I asked them. All I know is that whoever suggested it, we all thought very fast it was a good idea. Discordia had gone through some changes and they had a second guitarist Timo “Sande” Sandholm; Liisa the keyboard player had also left the band — so it was a turning point anyway when I rejoined.

We all wanted to create another album. Everyone agreed that I would be the musical leader of the band and produce the new album. In return I would make sure the musical interests of every member would be taken into account. In addition to lead vocals, I also started to play the keyboards which I think was a role that suited me. After some time also Riikka joined the band to share the lead vocals and sing some choirs with me.

Compared to the Utopia Perfection lineup, this new Discordia was different. With the new guitarist Sande the new material had gotten much heavier with sound. The rock playing of the band was tight and excellent. I got great kicks from the playing right away. With Sande there were all of a sudden 3 composing members in the band. Like before, it was fascinating to collaborate on the compositions. Most often I took the riffs of the guitarists, put them into some structure and created the vocal melodies and rhythms, along with new textures and polyphonic lines. The album Season Changes ended up having 7 songs: I collaborated on 3 songs with Antti Tolkki and 3 songs with Sande and 1 song was purely mine: Grip!

I remember starting to compose Grip! — which ended up being arguably my longest and greatest progressive rock piece. Yes, I was very thrilled with playing of the band and the idea of having two excellent guitarists was very inspiring. I already knew the playing of Petri and Otto (and the singing of Riikka and myself) so Grip! was all about creating something challenging, rewarding and awe-inspiring specifically for this very band.

So my starting point for the song was the dialogue of the two heavy guitars, separated in the stereo picture. I perceived them kind of the same way as two antiphonal string sections of the symphony orchestra. Add to the picture the melodic bass playing and my keyboards which included rock organ, strings and piano, and the vocal harmonies, and Otto´s versatile and high energy drum playing, there we had the basic ingredients. I felt that here was a band that could execute my wildest rock and roll and progressive rock dreams. So I went for it!

For Strive or Warp my focus and ambition was strongly related and attached to classical music. Season Changes album was my return to rock. So is the 13 minutes long Grip!. It was all about the pure enjoyment of rock playing, energy and sound. Think about the repeated build-up chord progression of the finale part: E minor, G major, B major and C major. No classical note leading, oh no! Just the pure enjoyment of lifting the chords up and up like blocks with raw distorted guitar arpeggios. And to have choirs on top of it eventually, mixed with trills… I love it!

Then again it is also obvious that the long form was heavily influenced by classical music. The work is set in a kind of mixture of the sonata and variation form — plus also the Sibelian “rotation form” introduced by James Hepokoski comes to mind. I perceive traits of all the 3 forms in the work. There are multiple elements I rotate into focus time and time again in a different light along the 13 minutes of the work. For example the main theme is first introduced on the guitars and later reintroduced as a choral canon for the middle section and in the end sung by the lead vocalists.

Another important element of Grip! is the lyrics. When I started to compose and write the piece, I had some health issues. At first it was not clear for me or the doctors what caused these strange sensations of the nervous system but it felt like I was loosing physical control of my body. It felt like sinking into sometimes total physical insecurity where I doubted the functioning of my body. The lyrics are about me trying to get a grip and also for the first time having to face my own mortality and trying to deal with it.

In the end a benign tumour was found and operated. I haven´t had a single panic attack or strange sensation since the operation. But the experience of the sensations in my nervous system was absolutely awful and I cannot really explain what it felt like. Something about the panic and the experience can indeed be heard in Grip!. I think these lyrics are amongst my best. I feel like I have expressed something existential both musically and lyrically.

Like in many of my works there are strongly contrasting elements and ambitions juxtaposed in Grip!. The pure joy and energy of rock is set against the anxiety and expression of the lyrics. It is a strange combination. It is creates a picture of an individual doing his absolute best in trying to figure out what is happening and to regain a control of his life.

Musically Season Changes is completely different from Utopia Perfection, I think. Utopia Perfection was more ironic and tongue in cheek 70´s glam prog rock. There was no glam in Season Changes, it was much heavier and it was way more serious. It is no wonder that some people highly prefer the first album and some people highly prefer the later album. I for one cannot decide and neither do I have to. But Grip! sure is my best rock song of all time. I am immensely proud of it. Also the band has always been proud of pulling it off and learning all the 107 pages of the complicated partiture — and they should be! It was a wonderful thing to achieve together and everybody´s work, skill and insight was needed and put to use.

Pretty much like the previous time, after finishing Season Changes I already had plans and material for the next album and I started to push for it. Musically I just couldn´t stop… Not everyone are hardwired that way. So inevitably after Season Changes the band rather soon disbanded all together. The recording was a great achievement and it was great fun but it was too much for people who eventually wanted more the fun and social part of it all (the others) than the musically immensely ambitious part of it (me). Nevertheless I continued the collaboration with Sande and Riikka for one more progressive rock album during which I already started to sense that maybe my times with progressive rock were about to be over. That is the subject of chapter VII.

Path of a Composer Chapter IV: fäänä pathétique

fäänä: pathétique (EP from 2008)

Chapter III was all about me finding progressive rock. It was wonderful to be the lead singer of a band and truly get to create the kind of rock I had always wanted to. It was a thrill! Nevertheless, like I wrote, great intensity tends to come with a price. In my case it meant that I got tired of the heavy democracy and constant negotiating and communication that surrounded the music making. Great rock intensity also resulted in me wanting a musical contrast.

No, I didn´t want to stop, I wanted to move forward and create more music to put out there but Discordia wasn´t ready to start creating another recording right after Utopia Perfection. That´s completely understandable — and so I quickly understood that I needed to create a solo EP.

My starting point for the EP was for the sound to be something completely different than the Discordia sound. First decisions: no electric guitars, no synthesizers, all vocals by myself and acoustic grand piano into every track! The second decision: I would do exactly what I wanted and not think for one second what other people wanted from the album!

I was very aware of the musical duality within me — the seemingly strong contrast between western (classical) art music and rock music. When I started to compose pathétique it was a given that the work would balance between the two worlds in a way that would be completely honest to myself. I thought it would even be likely that some if not most people would be surprised about at least some aspects of the music. Yet great contrasts within the musical material and expression while remaining coherent was a core value then and it remains a core value even to this day. I want to surprise even myself.

I Prelude is classical piano music in one of my favourite keys: C# minor. It sets the mood of the pathétique suite. In the very ending there are quotes of all the other 4 movements on top of the C# minor arpeggios — which of course indicates that the pieces are very closely related.

II Mist is a somewhat crazy piece! It has multiple dimensions to it. First of all I created my own samples. I recorded drum hits played by Otto from Discordia yet together with the sound engineer Harri Kentala we isolated the samples and put them where we wanted. I also sang samples for the repetitive type of sung gestures without words, inspired by “Leave it” by Yes. The saxophones were played by Henri Haapakoski without sampling and so were of course my lines that have lyrics to them, also longer melodic lines. There is no bass guitar or electric guitar but we put a grand piano through distortion and an amplifier. There is a lot of repetition in Mist which results in creating a rather impactful and majestic whole. I am particularly proud of my a cappella vocal polyphony in the middle section.

III Balloon is a classical influenced pop song with me playing the piano and singing on top of it, without vocal harmonies. Henri plays the flute. The middle section has him doing improvisation. Balloon obviously operates as the slow movement in the middle of the suite.

IV Pathos again features the grand piano put through distortion. I also sang glissandos and we created samples of those tracks and placed them around according to my score. The lyrics were so personal (I thought at the time) in this one that I decided not to print them out and have them whispered and obscured by reverb and delay instead. Well, it suits the movement well and people will get the anxiety even without any words.

V Via Delle Quattro Fontane has a funny story. We were in Rome in 2007. There were ambulances driving around and they had this crazy siren. I took the melody and rhythm of the siren sound and created a piece based on it! After all it was part of the soundtrack of Rome for us. The finale of pathétique is a peculiar piece in many ways: there is a 5 part rock canon in the middle, for example. 😉 It is a combination of classical music and progressive rock. It is indeed the only movement that actually features a drummer, a bass player and an acoustic guitar player (all from Discordia). Yet by discarding the piano distortion I aimed at getting rid of the “mist” that was put on top of everything earlier on. Henri plays the Bass Clarinet he bought from me after I decided I didn´t have enough time or energy to play it myself. The combination of acoustic guitar, bass clarinet and vocal harmonies is radiant just like the Roman sun.

I have composed only 2 love songs in my life — as far as I remember. Via Delle Quattro Fontane is the first one! It was our first trip abroad together. The lyrics of pathétique are more personal than those on my other albums and the finale, Via Delle Quattro Fontane, still manages to fill me with cathartic joy when the mist (echoed or distorted piano) finally vanishes and the sun begins to shine. Yes, we are still together — next year it will be 20 years! I let the lyrics and the music speak for themselves.

To be honest, despite the fact that I tend to be very critical of my own music, I was positively surprised when visiting pathétique again. There is something very honest and genuine about the 20+ minutes. Also, if I may say so, my vocals have never sounded better, as I did not have the pressure of doing it ROCK in this one. When I started this blog series I thought all of it would kind of lead to the symphony where I would be at my most authentic and finally freed myself. But I must say I seem to be artistically just as free in pathétique as I am in the symphony.

The questions I am asking now: why couldn´t a composer of art music be a singer-songwriter? Pathétique reminded me that I should not forget about my own musicianship. It is also pushing me to the direction of preferring acoustic instruments in the studio in the future.

My first solo album was liked by most who got to know it yet I do remember that it alienated many friends of Discordia music. I have considered myself an underground indie art musician ever since. Due to fäänä: pathétique many people in Finland still call me “fäänä”!

The next chapter (V) will feature a piece that was my first step into truly symphonic music — a piece I am still immensely proud of, one of my best ever. Yet it will also tell a story of a failure — biting more than I could chew while producing my next solo album, all 50+ minutes (too much!) of it. It is my only recording I have withdrawn and refuse to sell. Luckily a few tracks are amongst the best I have ever created.

Path of a Composer Chapter III: Discordia

Discordia: Foreseen — Interlude — Slave Planet II

Three songs from the progressive rock album Utopia Perfection (2007)

Like I wrote in Chapter II, eventually I dropped out of Sibelius Academy and changed to The University of Helsinki. That was also the time when I decided I do not want to be a professional musician. The idea of constantly trying to sell my work to everyone or applying for scholarships or stipends was just something that did not suit my temperament. Very crucial was also to realise that indeed I wanted to be a composer more than anything — not a pianist, not a singer, not a teacher… But a composer. And not just whatever composer but a truly independent and uncompromising composer who would be able to do what ever he wanted without the compulsive need to please other people. So I was on that road I had chosen for myself (I still am).

After Kilpilaulu I managed to in a small scale launch myself as a composer of western art music. In addition to student works, I had a few commissions and my works were performed in Finland. For example I composed a cantata for the 90th Year Celebration of The Library of Kallio (2002) to the also commissioned text by the Finnish poet Ilpo Tiihonen. I will also mention the song “Näin unta kesästä kerran” (2004) for soprano and alto which two famous Finnish singers Piia and Anu Komsi performed a couple of times in their concerts. (While I write this it is still possible that a recording of one of those performances could be found in the archives of Piia or Anu.)

Anyway, it just so happened that on the musicology mail list a progressive rock band announced they were looking for a new lead singer. I got interested and listened to the demos of the band and liked what I heard. The idea of getting to really hang out with musicians and create music together with other people appealed to me at the time. Also, I had been told before that some of my music was progressive rock. So I decided to audition for the band. I craved for powerful rock music as a contrast to the art music I was studying.

I got in Discordia. It was peculiar for me at first not the play the bass or the piano. I would have to be the lead singer. It certainly was a challenge. First I learned the old songs of Discordia and after a while I started to introduce my own ideas for the band. They seemed to like my music so they welcomed that I would be one of the new main composers of the ensemble. I also took my Bass Clarinet with a microphone to the studio a few times.

We did a 3 piece EP in 2005 where one of my songs were included. The EP got great feedback. It was a strange experience to really read reviews of my music. Encouraged, the band rather quickly started to plan a long play album. I contacted my friend and former fellow student from Sibelius academy, Riikka Hänninen, and asked her to become the other singer for the album, as vocal harmonies have always been very important to me. She came to a few rehearsals and finally agreed. There were also a couple of other changes in the band but eventually the core group was formed.

When it comes to the composition process, for the first time since my teenage grunge band, I took some riffs from the other members and forged them into complete songs. It has always been inspirational for me to do something like that. It was a great feeling to see and hear how the other members liked how I helped them forwards with their music. (Not that they always needed my help.) Anyway, the song Foreseen is the first song I co-wrote like that. The first two guitar riffs were by the guitarist Antti Tolkki and I created a song around them. With Foreseen I also for the first time abandoned chord sheets but put everything into the score. That has been my method ever since, allowing for more imaginative arrangements. Although some in the band didn´t read notes well, they had to learn — and learn they did!

The band was democratic. Every decision was made together. Nevertheless I practically became the executive branch — who lead the way and introduced the key points for the decision making. I was very serious about putting the 11 piece long play album together in a cohesive way. I wanted it to form a symphonic whole and have a logical and convincing arc to it. I think we succeeded in that. The three songs I selected for this chapter were part of the main dramatic narrative: Foreseen was the high energy first track, Interlude in the middle referred to both to the beginning and to the ending and Slave Planet II was the emotionally cathartic and story-wise high point of the album.

The sound of the Discordia band was very epic even before me. When Riikka joined, the music started to take the form of even operatic dimensions. The band never did love songs but their former lyrics were full of science fiction and philosophy instead. I have always read a lot of science fiction so as a lyricist I chose that path for the album. It is all high fantasy and science fiction, epic in character, out of this world. Just listen to Slave Planet II and hear for yourself just how intensively Riikka interprets her role as a psychic Queen.

As a visually impaired singer, Riikka´s perfect pitch and immensely powerful and present, here-and-now way of interpretation and stage presence became a crucial element of the Discordia experience. We called Riikka the Shaman. I was called The Visionary. Liisa (keyboards) who was a very eclectic educated musician was called The Sound Wizard. Otto (drums) with all his Rush influences was The Energy Generator. Petri (bass) in all his 70´s attitude was the Backbone of the Army. Antti (guitars) with his Marillion delays was The Hip. 😉

It was very interesting to have a look back at these songs musically. The influence of classical music can be heard everywhere, especially in my songs of course. For example the form of Foreseen is kind of like a huge development section, without clear verses or choruses. I have typically classical harmonies there. Also poly-rhythmics, some untypical scales and intervals. Interlude with all its repetition is obviously minimalist music, the middle section also highly polyphonic. Slave Planet II is in fact my first take on a longer progressive rock epos; it also has some harmonies, scales and intervals that some reviewers thought were out of tune! For example there is a minor 9th interval in the middle section. G# sharp on top of G major chord. Anyway, the influence of classical music is most obvious in the last section where I composed a somewhat baroque polyphonic section for the band. This recording is also the only testament to me playing the Bass Clarinet (Interlude and Slave Planet II). I also played some vibraphone for the first and last time in the beginning of Slave Planet II.

The album turned out to be a relatively great success in Finland — not so much commercially but critically as part of the progressive rock and rock scene. For some reason we also sold hundreds of copies to Japan! For me it was intoxicating to read reviews and get exciting feedback of our music. What is still mind-boggling to me is that in a major music magazine even I was said to be one of the best rock vocalists in Finland. I think that was an overstatement but I do agree that the vocals of Riikka and myself were a good match. Still it is a mystery to me why I wrote the higher part for myself in Interlude! That note is the absolute highest pitch I have ever reached, I think.

From my personal point of view, now that I am looking back, it is no wonder I got involved in progressive rock for many years. The feeling of performing such intensive, high energy and also sufficiently complicated music on stage was intoxicating. Also, the eclectic rock sound of Discordia still appeals to me. I really got to do in rock music what I had always wanted. Also, I really liked to get direct feedback. I liked the unformal contact with people. There is something about the formalities about classical music culture that has never appealed to me — but being in a progressive rock band had none of that.

It was so much fun to be in the band. We got along very well as people. But it needs to be admitted that I was a very ambitious band member. I was pushing forward all the time and I didn´t want to stop. In hindsight it´s clear it was too much for the band. I also found the democracy a very slow method. It took me years to understand and accept that if I want to execute my artistic vision to the maximum it needs to be stated out loud in the very beginning. The uncompromising attitude in itself is OK if made clear and it does not mean that I would be selfish as a person. For years I tried to balance between being a considerate fellow musician and at the same time uncompromising in my visions — and it didn´t work eventually through democracy at least. Yes, I cannot deny that I was a very strong-willed member of the band and it created quite a few clashes.

After Utopia Perfection and all the gigs we decided to take a break and I went to record my first solo EP ever. It balances between art music and rock music and is a great testament to the duality in me. Three Discordia members played on a few tracks, in fact. That will be the subject of Chapter IV.