Darcy James Argue's Secret Composition Lessons

I had a composition lesson yesterday with Darcy James Argue, best known for his grammy-nominated Secret Society steampunk-inspired big band. The lesson was my selected Kickstarter reward for donating to Adam Schatz's Search & Restore project. I'm very grateful to DJA for generously sharing his time and knowledge, so I figured I'd post here about the lesson and his music.

Darcy James Argue – photo by Ben AnamanI've been motivated to start writing music again. I'd like to develop an album's worth of new sextet music and record it, but feel that I need to find a fresh approach composition. It's part of a larger creative exploration I began a few years ago. So when I signed in to donate to Search & Restore, this was a serendipitous opportunity that actually made me laugh out loud.

The lesson was a bit of a whirlwind, but DJA quickly assessed where I was at based on a few of my tunes. We discussed several methods for developing themes, whether melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, or all of the above. Familiar concepts involving diminution, expansion, inversion, and retrograde, but he carries these a lot farther than I ever imagined, and freely converts melody to harmony to rhythm in fascinating ways. DJA pointed to Messiaen as a rich theoretical source. He also pointed out several concepts in action as we followed along to the condensed score to his Secret Society composition "Zeno".

I felt that DJA shared his ideas freely and without any reservation. This is the mark of a good teacher. There are no secrets in his Secret Society. You can actually download a PDF of the study score here on his website, and stream "Zeno" here by clicking the title.

Which leads me to comment on the Infernal Machines album... This is big band music like you've never heard it. In an age of one-by-one MP3 singles, this is a true and cohesive album worth listening in its entirety. And the steampunk label is not just a gimmick — this music somehow encapsulates all the science-fantasy Victorian/futuristic you can wrap your mind around. To me, "Zeno" is every experiment with mercury gone blissfully awry, "Jacobin Club" is Sherlock Holmes sleepwalking through a London dusk, and "Obsidian Flow" is a choreographed ballet of Morlocks. This music stirs your imagination as if Nikola Tesla built a lab in your head.

Find out about performances, lessons, and contact Darcy James Argue at http://www.secretsocietymusic.org/.

Full disclosure: I have no monetary gain in promoting Secret Society, but Mark Small is on the Infernal Machines. Mark has nothing to do with this post, but it seems prudent to mention for the sake of disclosure.