Scott Henderson Discussion

[Matt]

Hi Scott, sorry to go over 'old' ground again but I'd love to read what you remember about putting together 'Nomad'. It's such an incredible, almost through-composed tune and I always discover something new each time I listen to it - I guess your starting point was that four-chord melody but how did you go about 'building' the composition from there? Did it involve a lot of sitting at the piano/synth?
Thank you,
Matt from London
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[Scott Henderson]

Sorry to be no help at all, but I have no idea how I came up with that tune, and I'd have the same answer if you asked me about a tune from People Mover, which was last year.

Composing is more art than science, and I don't use much traditional music theory when I write. I basically sit there for hours and experiment until I come up with something I like. I think most composers would tell you the same thing. If I wanted to figure out what I did in one of my own tunes, I'd have to get the chart and analyze it, and consider the usual parameters - How much of the material is repeated, and when? When is new material introduced? How much of the chord progression is diatonic? What and when are the modulations? It's a scientific analysis which could help a student, but experienced composers don't spend much thought on it, just like when you talk, you don't think about verbs, nouns and adjectives - you just talk.

I could probably figure out some of the tools I used to write Nomad, but it would be the same as trying to figure out someone else's tunes, which I've done a lot. Transcription is the best teacher - it takes time, but it's worth it.