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 I.
Shistavich – Who Are We? (Demo from year 2001.)
Shistavich was a band formed by a bunch of students mostly at the Sibelius Academy. It was based on my art songs, the powerful vocals of Laura Miettinen and the excellent playing and arrangements of guitarist Harri Kentala, bass player Osmo Ikonen and drummer J Salonen.
When Shistavich was formed, I already had some experience in rock bands. It all started with a grunge band Jubilee Club (1993-1995) in which I sang vocals and played the bass guitar. My first real songs were composed for the band — although I had improvised on the piano and by singing basically my whole life until then. In high school I had a band ugFish and that´s when my compositions started to head to the direction of art rock. That was mostly due to me truly finding classical music and especially Sibelius and Beethoven in 1996 on my exchange year in Australia.
What do I recall about “Who Are We?” and how is it typical of my art rock? Well, from the very beginning my compositions were based on chord progressions with bass lines and vocals on top, put to strong rhythms. I did all of this on the piano, singing. “Who are we?” is representative of the same tradition. Also from the beginning until those days I communicated my songs with chord sheets, without writing the melodies in detail but rather singing them with the lyrics to the vocalist. I also communicated the rhythms and the basic beat to the band for a starting point by playing the piano. As far as I remember in this instance I wrote in notes only the background harmonies for the studio work.
The chord progressions of “Who are we?” are in fact rather complex. At that time I often occupied myself with harmonic progressions that made the song constantly transpose it´s key. This song is a prime example of that. The listener might not even be aware of that it starts in A minor after which it transposes regularly in minor thirds: A minor to C minor to Eb minor and finally to ending in F# minor.
What are the connections to classical music? Well I think my roots in classical music can be heard in my pianism. Also the chords chosen, the way I combine the chords to each other and the tone leading do reflect classical music. This song is not particularly polyphonic in texture but I hear polyphonic thinking behind the music: it is spread between all the instruments and the vocals and it makes the music smooth, despite the intensive harmonies. Could I have composed this music without playing the classical piano and having learned about the classical tone leading and chord progressions? Nope.
One key feature typical to me as a composer that is also present in “Who Are We?” is the importance of the melody. There were (somewhat naive) times when I even valued and ranked songs and even instrumental classical music primarily on their melodies — and that is the reason why I demanded a lot from my own melodies. The song is very melodic indeed. Another key feature of mine is the demand of expression and drama. The listeners must always feel that I have given them something of significance. I work on my music as long as it takes to achieve the status where I can convincingly say: “Yes, I have expressed something meaningful and other people can probably get something from this.”
Lyrics in English is something I have done ever since Jubilee Club. I consider myself a decent writer in Finnish as I have been writing short stories and am in the middle of writing my first novel. But I must be honest: I have no true ability of evaluating the quality of my lyrics in English to any objectivity. What I can say is that in the lyrics of “Who Are We?” I have expressed my deep love for nature and described my long walks in the ancient Finnish forests wondering about the human life and the occasional insanity of living in a busy city as part of the immensely complex society. The song is about the basic question of life as stated by a person in his early 20´s.
“Who are we?” was undoubtedly included in the top 5 songs of the Shistavich band. I also consider it one of my best art rock songs and even today I am perfectly happy with it. Nevertheless, quite soon after this song the band started to move towards more funk, blues, R&B and roots type of aesthetics. Coming from the dichotomy and union of Rock & Classical myself, I didn´t feel at home with the direction the band and the arrangements were taking although I of course liked everything the great band did. Yet I have joked that there is absolutely NO GROOVE in me as a composer and musician. 😉 So inevitably Shistavich disbanded rather soon after that — luckily there was no drama at all included.
By the way, I talked to all the members of Shistavich before this blog post! They listened to the song and liked it even today. Many of the members of Shistavich are prominent full time musicians in Finland today.
The end of Shistavich also coincided with the time that I for the first time thought that maybe I should start composing art music myself. Classical music had slowly become the most important genre of music in my life but it took a long time before it even crossed my mind that maybe I could start composing it myself. Looking back, without Shistavich and all the feedback I would not have found my strengths as a composer or my identity — at least not as quickly.
It is in fact fascinating to think that before “Who Are We?” I had never composed a single piece of western “classical” or modern art music. The Path of a Composer Chapter II will let you hear my first ever composition of western modern art music.
I hope you enjoy the song!