Enigma エニグマ
Where does the first idea for a piece come from? Usually, I am unable to write music unless there is a story that can be told in music. To me, there are no tunes that simply arrive out of thin air. Every note needs to represent something within a story or musical structure. But having an overall vision is one thing. What actual notes and melodies can I use to create a narrative that makes sense to me, the players, and the audience?
One technique I have long used is to convert words and numbers into melodies using musical code. I first did this in Bitter Suite, which established the leitmotif S-E-A-Ton (E flat, E natural, A, up a tone) as my musical signature. Of course, this is not an original idea. The BACH motif is so well known it has its own Wikipedia page. However, I was more of a Shostakovich fan than a Bach fan in my twenties, so it was the DSCH signature idea that I borrowed.
The more I have used the technique, the more I have seen two great advantages to it. The first is that I can find leitmotifs that genuinely hold the meaning of the story that I am trying to tell. I quickly feel, “yes, that’s it, … it can only be that”, as a set of notes comes to represent a particular part of the story. Once the leitmotif has been found, it is then a matter of the applying the Beethoven/Brahms technique: take a simple idea (da-da-da-dan) and turn it into a piece. That is far easier said than done, of course, but it is what makes composing an interesting challenge or puzzle that I can get lost in for hours.
The second advantage of this technique that I have come to appreciate more and more over the years is the protection it provides against accusations of plagiarism or copyright violation. With tens of thousands of songs being uploaded to music streaming sites every day, and the world of classical music being vast decades before anybody even knew what streaming was, the chance of your note cluster or melody having been used somewhere before is high. But, if you can turn around and say, “This piece is about me, so it contains my leitmotif here, here and here”, it is easier it is to convince people that this is indeed one’s own work. It’s like having a PIN or a password to one’s own music that will prevent other people from stealing it.
Having dabbled with this technique for a number of years, I have now taken the idea to its logical extreme. I have an “Enigma code”, which allows every letter in the alphabet and number to be converted into music. Any name, place, sentiment, birthday or other use of words/numbers can become the starting point for a piece. Of course, it still requires converting something that can sound quite random into something musical. The code is only a starting point, and never a rigid formula to be followed religiously.
I have used this technique consciously in the two pieces completed since the unforgettable experience of hearing Sinfonia Concertante for the first time last year on 17 May. Three Vignettes is a short suite for flute, violin and piano commissioned by academic colleagues also working in Japanese Studies. Not surprisingly, their piece uses Japanese words … and a hint regarding what the piece is about is in the photo for that piece’s webpage. Songs Without Words for solo piano, meanwhile, takes us beyond words=leitmotifs. We are in the territory of sentences=melodies. As for the subject matter, I look at the world around us in 2026 and see clearly troubled times. The meanings of the pieces are self-explanatory. The poems might seem a little forced at times, but they were written in conjunction with the music. Sometimes musical sense took priority over poetic sense.
Both pieces will be receiving their first performances this summer: there’s a recording session planned for Songs Without Words in June, and a small concert in August for Three Vignettes. In the programme notes for these pieces, I will provide just enough information about the composing technique for people to get the basic principle, but the code will remain secret. It’s my Enigma machine. Where is the fun in telling everyone exactly what has been done? It’s much more interesting if people work it out for themselves … or to just let it remain an enigma, like Elgar’s famous variations. If someone cracks the code, maybe I will just develop a completely new one and change my musical voice. Even better, I hope people will forget there is a code, and just enjoy the music!
20 May 2026