To compose

You put this with this, like this, one thing next to the other, and something happens; or perhaps one in front, foreshortened, and the other lying down, and something different happens; or you add a third thing, and a theme appears, and a tension is generated and we look for a way to develop it to resolve it.

A letter next to a different letter that makes an article, we leave a space and add another small group of letters that make up a noun, another space, another small group of letters conjugated in a verb that causes the action, another space, and a last small group ittells us how the action is performed. The girl jumps happily.Suddenly, a sentence appears, and with it a scene.

A sound next to another different sound, and another and another and another, and a melody appears. If two sounds or more sound at the same time, they make a chord, and it sounds fuller, more beautiful, as if that line were padded.

You flex your head to the side as your right shoulder leans forward and from the fingertips of your right hand you draw a circle, flexing your elbow and moving your left hip back, causing you to step with your left foot. A sequence of movements, one after the other, sometimes simultaneously, like a chord, producing a choreographic phrase. If two people in unison, in chord, dance, the phrasemagic is produced: synchrony, or the sequence of movements is highlighted, as if we were to put it in bold.

After more than ten years teaching (choreographic) composition, for some years interested in the practice of writing and for some others linked to the language of music (with the violin as a child and now with the piano), I have begun to connect the dots. The parameters of the composition and its tools are similar, if not the same, in the different languages. Or let’s say that I find a great help in playing to transfer strategies from one language to another. And this game is the one I’m developing for the new creation I’m working on and that will be premieredin February of next year at Mercat de les Flors .

To help me think about these links, and accepting the invitation from A* desk to be the guest editor for this month of May, I have decided to invite people close to me who have other compositional practices to reflect on it. Blanca Pujals from her practice of thinking about space as an architect and space researcher; Pol Guasch from his incredible way of putting words together and making magic; Meritxell Neddermann from her admirable ability to juggle sounds; and Carolina Campos from her sensibility accompanying scenic creation processes. All of them talk about composing, with space, words, sounds or movements. And all of them, somehow, talk about the same thing but in different ways. And it is these differences in naming the common that seems to me a gift and an impulse to run to the studio and start playing with all these materials, tools, parameters and strategies. I hope that reading these articles encourages you to run away to compose with words, sounds or movements, or all at once.

(Cover photo: Collage: Rosa Galí. Photo: Shadha Agliata)