Do you remember choosing your own adventure books?
Maybe you have no clue what I am taking about. Perhaps I am showing my age. I used to love them. Short and easy to read books for kids that takes some character or a few on an adventure, and at the end of the chapter you, the reader, choose what they do next or where they go. You felt in control. There was a sense of excitement…..what will happen next? And then you could always go back later and read it again, choosing a different direction to go at the fork in the road.
Sometimes musicians may need to cut a piece they have been working on short. It could be because they are slated to play their piece for an event, but it is too long for their allotted timeslot. Maybe they are working on an accompaniment piece to accompany a vocalist or a group, and the vocalist or group has decided not to play the whole piece for whatever reason.
Other times it may be a more frustrating reason. Sometimes no matter how hard you work on your music; you just might not be ready to present the whole thing. This can and has happened to some of the best and most disciplined musicians. Don’t hate yourself for it. Don’t punish yourself. By all means, do not throw the piece out as a waste or whatever. Look at this as an opportunity to practice how you might handle one of the scenarios above.
Let’s say we have a beautiful and lengthy piece and we have worked really hard on the first 80% of it or so, but just haven’t gotten the last section down. Is there a point where you could end it either as written, or with some slight changes or additions and make it sound great? There probably is. And that might just be an opportunity to learn how to make your own ending, be creative, and accomplish an important musical task.
Some possibilities for new musical learning and opportunity that may help bring the piece to a beautiful finish:
- A tag ending
- A cadenza
- A final cadence
- Constant structure moving chords to bring the music back to the tonic and resolve
If you learn to do one of these things and pull it off, you have successfully learned an important music and life skill. There are many occasions when we just can’t finish something completely the way we would have hoped. But if you can end the task, book, speech, whatever, or music well, intentionally, and with beauty and finality; you didn’t fail to finish—you succeeded at choosing your own ending.