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- Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Create the next big pop hit, bang out a catchy jingle, or write an iconic film score, with music composition skills
Today's composers create music for television, film, commercials, and even video games. Music Composition For Dummies brings you up to speed with the theory and technicality of composing music. With easy-to-understand content that tracks to a typical music composition intro course, this book will teach you how to use music theory to write music in a variety of forms. You'll discover the latest tech tools for composers, including composing software and online streaming services where you can publish your musical creations. And you'll get a rundown on the world of intellectual property, so you can collab and remix fairly, while retaining all the rights to your own creations.
- Get a clear introduction to music theory and songwriting concepts
- Learn about composition best practices for movies, TV, video games, and beyond
- Explore sample music to help you understand both artistic and commercial composition
- Launch into the latest technologies to mix and share your creations
Great for music students and aspiring artists, Music Composition For Dummies, is an easy-to-read guide to writing and producing all kinds of tunes.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
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Music Composition For Dummies®
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Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Introduction
About This Book
Foolish Assumptions
Icons Used in This Book
Beyond the Book
Where to Go from Here
Part 1: Basics and Rhythm
Chapter 1: Thinking Like a Composer
Structuring Freedom
Composing as an Extension of Listening
Using Rules as Inspiration
Following Your Music Instincts
Chapter 2: Tools of the Trade
Composing with Pencil and Paper or a Tablet
Using Your Performance Skills to Compose
Accessing Composition Software
Having a Pair of Moderately Well-Trained Ears
Knowing Music Theory
Reflecting on Space, Time, and Ideas
Adopting a Pack-Rat Mentality
Chapter 3: Musical Scrapbooks: Writing on Paper and Screen
Writing Down the Music in Your Head
Using Software to Transcribe Your Compositions
Using a Computer versus Paper and Pencil
Managing Your Composition Files
Chapter 4: Rhythm and Mood
Sculpting Time into Music
Feeling Different Rhythms
Using Speed Bumps and Rhythmic Phrases
Mixing It Up: Back Phrasing, Front Phrasing, and Syncopation
Finding Your Own Rhythmic Phrases
Exercises for Rhythm and Mood
Part 2: Melody and Development
Chapter 5: Finding Melodies Where You Least Expect Them
Examining What Makes a Musical Framework
Identifying Melody in Language
Finding Melody in the World Around You
Helping Your Muse Help You
Finding Melody in Your Instrument
Exercises for Creating Melodies
Chapter 6: Scales and Modes, Moods and Melodies
Reviewing Major and Minor Modes and the Circle of Fifths
Getting Moody
Expressing Moods à la Modes
Using the Pentatonic Scale
Recognizing Harmonic and Melodic Minor
Exercises that Play with Modes
Chapter 7: Building Melodies Using Motifs and Phrases
Developing Musical Themes: Motifs
Building a Melodic Phrase
Spicing It Up by Varying the Phrase
Exercises for Melodies
Chapter 8: Developing Your Melodies
Reducing to Structural Tones
Applying Step-wise or Skip-wise Motion
Filling in the Cracks with Passing Tones
Neighboring Tones and Appoggiatura
Using Other Melodic Techniques
Exercises to Write Bridges and Solos
Part 3: Harmony and Structure
Chapter 9: Harmonizing with Melodies
Discovering Consonance and Dissonance
Using the Circle of Fifths
Choosing the Pivot Notes
Exercises that Play Around with Keys and Chords
Chapter 10: Putting the Chords Together
Understanding Chords and Their Moods
Composing with Chords and Chord Voicings
Varying the Rhythmic Movement of Chord Changes
Identifying Chord Progressions
Returning Home with Cadences
Fitting Chords and Melodies Together
Exercises for Building Harmonies
Chapter 11: Composing from the Void
Using the Movement Around You
Understanding Musical Gestures and “Gestural Space”
Introducing Effort Shapes
Composing Using Effort Shapes
Combining Effort Shapes for Story and Mood
Exercises in Effort Shapes
Chapter 12: Songwriting Structure
Writing in Form
Beginnings: Intro and Letter A
Middles: Letters B and C
Return to the Chorus, B again
Exercises in Storytelling
Chapter 13: Understanding Musical Forms
Combining Parts into Forms
Composing in Classical Forms
Identifying Popular Forms
Playing Jazz
Identifying Atonal Music
Exercises with Forms
Part 4: Orchestration and Arrangement
Chapter 14: Composing for the Standard Orchestra
Navigating Concert Pitch and Pitch Transposition
Transposing Instruments and Pitch Ranges
Writing for Non-Transposing Instruments
Getting the Sounds That You Want
Chapter 15: Composing for Rhythm Sections and Small Ensembles
Beating the Drums
Thumping the Bass
Strumming the Guitar
Producing Sounds on Free Reed Instruments
Chapter 16: Composing for Multiple Voices
Working with Story Lines and Instrumentation
Writing Multiple Harmony Lines
Understanding Independent Voices
Using Counterpoint
Recognizing the Five Elements of a Musical Tone
Remembering a Few Rules
Exercises for Multiple Voices
Chapter 17: Composing Commercial Music and Songs
Getting into Movie Soundtracks
Creating Ambience with Video Game Music
Creating Music for TV and Radio Shows
Writing Music for Advertising
Composing for the Orchestra
Copyrighting Your Work
Using Helpful Organizations and Websites
Working with Agents
Songwriting for a Specific Project
Making a Great Demo
Chapter 18: Composing Electronic Music
Selecting Software and Hardware for Composition
Using a Computer to Compose
Chapter 19: Composing for Other Musicians
Creating Lead Sheets
Composing with Guitar Tablature
Understanding Drum Notations
Preparing the Score
Writing for Ensembles
Working with Foreign Scores and Ensembles
Composing and Playing Together: Online Platforms
Working in Composing Teams
Part 5: Behind the Scenes
Chapter 20: Utilizing AI to Help You Compose
Understanding AI Composition
Deciding Who Owns the Copyright
Checking Out AI Music Generators
Chapter 21: Using Samples, Standards, and Cover Songs
Identifying Fair Use versus Public Domain
Requesting Permissions
Sorting through Online Databases of Historic Sheet Music
Chapter 22: Designing a Pro-Level Music Studio
Developing Your Recording Skills
Finding the Space
Assembling Your Gear
Establishing the Workflow
Releasing a Final Product
Part 6: The Part of Tens
Chapter 23: Ten Career Opportunities for Composers
Composing for School Bands and Choirs
Providing Incidental Television Music
Writing for Musical Theater
Performing at Events or Concerts
Working as a Producer/Arranger
Advertising and Industrial Music
Scoring for Films
Composing for Video Games
Songwriting Projects
Teaching Students
Chapter 24: Ten Platforms for Selling Commercial Music
Artlist
Audio Network
Broadjam
Epidemic Sound
Jingle Punks
Music Vine
Musicbed
ReverbNation
TAXI
The Music Playground
Chapter 25: Ten Platforms for Promoting Your Independent Music
Amuse
Bandcamp
CD Baby
Distrokid
ReverbNation
Spotify
Symphonic
TuneCore
UnitedMasters
YouTube
Part 7: Appendixes
Appendix A: Modes and Chords Reference
Appendix B: Glossary
Index
About the Authors
Connect with Dummies
End User License Agreement
List of Tables
Chapter 9
TABLE 9-1 The Diatonic Triads and Their Tones
Chapter 10
TABLE 10-1 Rules for Major Chord Progressions
TABLE 10-2 Rules for Minor Chord Progressions
List of Illustrations
Chapter 4
FIGURE 4-1: A walking rhythm is steady and regular, loping along.
FIGURE 4-2: A skipping rhythm proceeds irregularly, in jerks and delays.
FIGURE 4-3: Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” clips along regularly until you get to the...
FIGURE 4-4: Taking another look at Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” — same notes, diffe...
FIGURE 4-5: Perhaps the most widely recognized rhythmic phrase in Western music...
FIGURE 4-6: Adding the familiar notes to the familiar rhythm.
FIGURE 4-7: “Shave and a Haircut” — back phrased.
FIGURE 4-8: “Shave and a Haircut” — front phrased.
FIGURE 4-9: Making “Shave and a Haircut” skip along.
FIGURE 4-10: “Shave and a Haircut” — syncopated and front phrased.
FIGURE 4-11: You can often find interesting rhythmic phrases imbedded in everyd...
Chapter 5
FIGURE 5-1: You can find rhythmic patterns everywhere in speech.
FIGURE 5-2: Adding natural melodic movement to the phrase, based on the way the...
FIGURE 5-3: Making the phrase sound wrong by adding unnatural melodic movement ...
FIGURE 5-4: Two possible melodies show different possibilities from one spoken ...
FIGURE 5-5: This is more a case of “Run, Grandma, run!”
FIGURE 5-6: We translated this landscape into a melody that generally follows i...
FIGURE 5-7: A landscape that lends itself to a simple melody.
FIGURE 5-8: This landscape features a prominent central feature.
FIGURE 5-9: Scattered elements make up this landscape.
FIGURE 5-10: “Joy to the World” uses the entire descending major scale in its m...
Chapter 6
FIGURE 6-1: This simple melody is in major mode.
FIGURE 6-2: Here’s the same melody in minor mode.
FIGURE 6-3: Our melody in major mode, including the F major key signature.
FIGURE 6-4: The same melody in minor mode, showing the F minor key signature.
FIGURE 6-5: The Circle of Fifths shows the relation between major keys and thei...
FIGURE 6-6: The Ionian mode should sound familiar because it’s a major scale.
FIGURE 6-7: The Dorian mode sounds melancholy and full of bittersweet longing.
FIGURE 6-8: The Phrygian mode can give your music a bit of exotic spice.
FIGURE 6-9: The Lydian mode has something of a surprising, jazzy feel to it.
FIGURE 6-10: The Mixolydian mode is often used for blues and bluesy rock music....
FIGURE 6-11: The Aeolian mode can convey great sorrow, regret, and despair.
FIGURE 6-12: The Locrian mode sounds a bit twisted and wrong.
FIGURE 6-13: The G pentatonic scale.
FIGURE 6-14: The E minor pentatonic scale, G’s relative minor.
FIGURE 6-15: The A harmonic minor scale contains a G sharp, unlike the A natura...
FIGURE 6-16: The A melodic minor scale is different going up than it is coming ...
Chapter 7
FIGURE 7-1: The first and most recognizable phrase of Ravel’s
Boléro
.
FIGURE 7-2: Da-da-da-DUH — perhaps the shortest and most famous motif ever.
FIGURE 7-3: A very straight-forward, hummable melody line can be your foundatio...
FIGURE 7-4: Repeating a melodic phrase reinforces it in the listener’s mind.
FIGURE 7-5: You can vary your use of repetition by adding other phrases to the ...
FIGURE 7-6: Instrument number one could play this melody …
FIGURE 7-7: … while instrument number two plays this melody.
FIGURE 7-8: Instrument number one plays the phrase while instrument number two ...
FIGURE 7-9: … and instrument number two picks up where instrument number one le...
FIGURE 7-10: Our original phrase after employing some good old rhythmic displac...
FIGURE 7-11: Our original phrase, this time with the first repeat truncated.
FIGURE 7-12: Using expansion to fill out our original phrase.
Chapter 8
FIGURE 8-1: This simple melody can reveal structural tones.
FIGURE 8-2: The structural tones are the most important pitches of our simple m...
FIGURE 8-3: We changed our melody by using step-wise motion.
FIGURE 8-4: We changed our melody by using skip-wise motion.
FIGURE 8-5: Adding passing tones to our melody.
FIGURE 8-6: Adding neighboring tones to our original melody.
FIGURE 8-7: Melody extracted from a chord progression in Chapter 10.
FIGURE 8-8: The appoggiatura here is in measure 2.
FIGURE 8-9: Here are two examples of short appoggiaturas.
FIGURE 8-10: Escape tones are the anti-appoggiatura.
FIGURE 8-11: The suspension appears in the last two measures.
FIGURE 8-12: Finally, retardation is introduced to our example.
FIGURE 8-13: Anticipation, unsurprisingly, anticipates the next chord.
FIGURE 8-14: A pedal point stays on a note until it resolves with the chord.
Chapter 9
FIGURE 9-1: C and G are consonant because they’re a perfect fifth apart.
FIGURE 9-2: C and G flat (a tritone) sound terrible together.
FIGURE 9-3: Conflict and resolution accomplished in just two measures.
FIGURE 9-4: Our melody, now harmonized into the key of G major.
FIGURE 9-5: Perhaps the most obvious set of chords implied by the melody.
FIGURE 9-6: A less obvious set of chords implied by the melody.
FIGURE 9-7: You can exploit the Circle of Fifths (and Fourths) for your harmoni...
FIGURE 9-8: Looking at the 1 through 7 (+ 1/8 — or all of the chords in the oct...
FIGURE 9-9: Here are the 1 through 7 (+ 1/8) chords in the E Phrygian mode.
FIGURE 9-10: Our melody, accompanied by the most obvious chords.
FIGURE 9-11: Our melody, with the harmonic accompaniment slightly altered via a...
Chapter 10
FIGURE 10-1: The C major chord.
FIGURE 10-2: The C minor chord.
FIGURE 10-3: The C major seventh chord.
FIGURE 10-4: The C minor seventh chord.
FIGURE 10-5: The C dominant seventh chord.
FIGURE 10-6: The C major sixth chord.
FIGURE 10-7: The C minor sixth chord.
FIGURE 10-8: The C suspended fourth chord.
FIGURE 10-9: The C ninth chord.
FIGURE 10-10: The C minor ninth chord.
FIGURE 10-11: The C diminished chord.
FIGURE 10-12: The C augmented chord.
FIGURE 10-13: The C minor seventh flat fifth chord.
FIGURE 10-14: A dissonant chord all on its own.
FIGURE 10-15: A dissonant chord moving into a major chord.
FIGURE 10-16: Root voicing for a C major chord.
FIGURE 10-17: First inversion for a C major chord.
FIGURE 10-18: Second inversion for a C major chord.
FIGURE 10-19: Different melodic rhythms in the same piece of music.
FIGURE 10-20: Authentic cadences are the most common, obvious-sounding ones.
FIGURE 10-21: Plagal cadences aren’t as conclusive as authentic cadences.
FIGURE 10-22: Deceptive cadences are nice to use when you want to fake the audi...
FIGURE 10-23: Seeing the scale in I, IV, and V chords.
FIGURE 10-24: Seeing structural tones in a simple chord progression.
FIGURE 10-25: Extracting chord tones from a chord progression.
FIGURE 10-26: Adding passing tones to fill in the structural tones.
FIGURE 10-27: Having a little visit with neighboring tones.
FIGURE 10-28: Adding all the non-chord tones.
FIGURE 10-29: Adding passing chords.
FIGURE 10-30: Melody and harmony, together in perfect … well, harmony.
Chapter 13
FIGURE 13-1: “Greensleeves” has an AABB binary form.
FIGURE 13-2: “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” has an ABA form.
FIGURE 13-3: The beginning of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” starts Part A.
FIGURE 13-4: The development of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” begins Part B.
FIGURE 13-5: Mary had a crazy, disturbed little lamb.
FIGURE 13-6: Shared notes in C, E flat, G flat diminished, and A diminished cho...
Chapter 14
FIGURE 14-1: The B flat trumpet range, transposed to concert pitch.
FIGURE 14-2: The B flat clarinet range, transposed to concert pitch.
FIGURE 14-3: The B flat bass clarinet range, transposed to concert pitch.
FIGURE 14-4: The E flat clarinet range, transposed to concert pitch.
FIGURE 14-5: The English horn range, transposed to concert pitch.
FIGURE 14-6: The flugelhorn range, transposed to concert pitch.
FIGURE 14-7: Perfect fifths are easy to spot, being two lines or spaces apart.
FIGURE 14-8: The French horn range, transposed to concert pitch.
FIGURE 14-9: Range for the piccolo trumpet, transposed to concert pitch.
FIGURE 14-10: Range for the concert flute.
FIGURE 14-11: Range for the bass flute.
FIGURE 14-12: Range for the bassoon.
FIGURE 14-13: Range for the double bass.
FIGURE 14-14: Range for the oboe.
FIGURE 14-15: Range for the harp.
FIGURE 14-16: Range for the tenor slide trombone.
FIGURE 14-17: Range for the viola.
FIGURE 14-18: Range for the violin.
FIGURE 14-19: Range for the cello.
FIGURE 14-20: Notation for bowed or picked instruments: down-bows and up-bows.
FIGURE 14-21: Notation for playing the guitar: down-picks and alternate picks.
FIGURE 14-22: A violin slur shows which way to bow during the slur.
FIGURE 14-23: Bows with slurs on the violin.
FIGURE 14-24: The little hyphen-like dashes indicate
louré.
FIGURE 14-25: Spiccato on the violin looks like a tiny machine gun just oversho...
FIGURE 14-26:
Jetè
(staccato with slurs) brings together notes into a sing...
FIGURE 14-27: Notation specific to saxophones.
FIGURE 14-28: Notation specific to trumpet and trombone.
Chapter 16
FIGURE 16-1: Parallel harmony lines aren’t always completely parallel.
FIGURE 16-2: In block harmony, one voice moves around among the notes more than...
FIGURE 16-3: Two harmonic lines can also move in totally different directions.
FIGURE 16-4: Same melodic lines, different starting points.
FIGURE 16-5: Overlapping melodies are cleaned up for tonality’s sake.
FIGURE 16-6: Two different, independent melodies can define tonality with only ...
Chapter 17
FIGURE 17-1: Adding accent marks to Henry Purcell’s lyrics to indicate rhythm.
FIGURE 17-2: Creating one possible Purcell rhythmic example.
FIGURE 17-3: A second Purcell rhythmic possibility.
FIGURE 17-4: A third possibility for a Purcell rhythmic example.
FIGURE 17-5: Purcell’s own choice for
Dido and Aeneas.
Chapter 19
FIGURE 19-1: This lead sheet is for the traditional song “Little Brown Jug.”
FIGURE 19-2: A blank tablature grid for guitar basically represents the guitar’...
FIGURE 19-3: A blank bass tablature grid represents four strings, instead of si...
FIGURE 19-4: These notes are going up the E string in tablature.
FIGURE 19-5: Illustrating a G barre chord in guitar tablature.
FIGURE 19-6: A G barre chord again, this time played in arpeggio.
FIGURE 19-7: The spacing in “The Star-Spangled Banner” tab indicates roughly ho...
FIGURE 19-8: Writing
h
is the convention to tell a guitar player to hammer-on a...
FIGURE 19-9: Rock-and-roll groove.
FIGURE 19-10: Half-time groove.
FIGURE 19-11: Swing as written.
FIGURE 19-12: Swing as played.
FIGURE 19-13: Tom-tom drums, and ride and crash cymbals.
FIGURE 19-14: Full kit groove.
FIGURE 19-15: Drum accents only.
FIGURE 19-16: This score shows the opening of “When the Swallows Homeward Fly” ...
FIGURE 19-17: This is the score for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, second movement...
FIGURE 19-18: Finale presents the proper blank sheet music for multiple-voice c...
Guide
Cover
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Begin Reading
Index
About the Authors
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Music Composition For Dummies®, 3rd Edition
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ISBN 978-1-394-26641-8 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-394-26643-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-394-26642-5 (ebk)
Introduction
Welcome to Music Composition For Dummies, 3rd Edition!
Are you the type of person who walks around all day with a maddening melody in your head that makes you stop whatever you’re doing so that you can pay it full attention?
Do you often find yourself tapping out rhythmic passages from these melodies on your desk at work or scribbling down song lyrics on scraps of paper?
Is music sometimes more of a slave driver to you than a muse?
If you said yes to any of those questions, all we can say is this: We’re here to help.
About This Book
Music Composition For Dummies, 3rd Edition, contains everything you need to know to get started
Picking out the perfect rhythm and tempo for your composition
Matching keys and chord progressions to the moods that you want to convey
Working within the confines of musical form without confining your creativity
Forcing yourself to sit down and come up with musical ideas, even when your mind is drawing a complete blank
Doing exercises related to each chapter’s material
In this book, we discuss the basics of composition, from writing natural-sounding chord progressions and cadences, to composing atonal music, to making yourself a demo recording and getting it in the hands of the right people. If we really tried to do any one thing here, it’s demystify the process of composing music and writing songs.
There are few things more satisfying than plucking a melody from inside your head and nurturing it into a full-fledged song, or even an orchestral piece. This book can hopefully make that process a whole lot easier for you.
Music Composition for Dummies, 3rd Edition, is organized into seven parts; the first five focus on a particular aspect of music. Part 6, the Part of Tens, contains information about some of the fun aspects of composition that may have little or nothing to do with actually playing music. And Part 7 contains some helpful appendixes. Throughout the book, you can find short interviews with musicians, profiles of important composers, and summaries of music genres worthy of further study.
Because each chapter is as self-contained as possible, you don’t have to read every single chapter to understand what the next one is talking about — but if you want to, of course, read the book cover to cover! To find the information that you need, use the Table of Contents as a reference point, or you can just flip through the Index at the back of the book.
Foolish Assumptions
We wrote this book for many types of budding composers: the classical music student who never learned how to improvise, the backup musician who wants to start taking the lead and writing material, and the seasoned musician who wants to start writing music in genres outside their comfort zone.
You’re probably at least familiar with playing a musical instrument. Perhaps you were trained on piano and now want to strike out on your own and start composing your own music. Maybe you’re a self-taught rock guitarist who wants to understand how to compose in other genres. Or perhaps you’re just a person who has had this maddening tune dancing around in your head, and you want to figure out how to turn it into a real song.
We do assume that you have at least the rudiments of music theory knowledge. We expect you to know how to read music at least at a basic level, what chords are, how many beats a whole rest gets in 3/4 time — stuff like that. (Unfortunately, we don’t have enough room in this book to teach you music theory, too.)
If you’re an absolute newcomer to music, we recommend you first go out and get yourself a copy of the latest edition of Music Theory For Dummies, by Michael Pilhofer and Holly Day (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), to give yourself a good grounding in the language of music. Then come back here.
Icons Used in This Book
Icons are handy little graphic images that point out specific sorts of information. You’ll find the following icons in this book, conveniently located along the left margins.
When we make a point or offer some information that we feel you should keep with you forever, we toss in this icon.
This icon indicates good advice and information that can help you understand key concepts.
When we discuss something that you may find problematic or confusing, we use this icon.
This icon flags information that’s, well, technical — and you can go ahead and skip it if you want to.
Beyond the Book
In addition to the information and guidance about music composition that we provide in this book, you can get access to even more online at Dummies.com. Check out this book’s online Cheat Sheet for handy info regarding the Circle of Fifths, chord progressions, and more. Just go to www.dummies.com and search for “Music Composition For Dummies Cheat Sheet.”
Where to Go from Here
If you’re just starting out as a composer, then go ahead and plow into Part 1.
If you’re already familiar with the basics of rhythm and want to start writing melodies, then head for Part 2.
If you’ve already got a hot melody but want to know how to turn it into a more full-fledged composition, Part 3 covers the basics of matching melodies to harmonies.
Part 4 can help you decide what instruments you want to use in your composition, or to whom you might want to sell that composition.
It’s important to relax and have fun with this — listening to, playing, and writing music are some of the most enjoyable experiences you’ll ever have. Music Composition For Dummies, 3rd Edition, may have been written by teachers, but we promise that no clock-watching music instructors will show up at your door to check on how fast you’re plowing through this book. Composing music is a magical, mysterious, wonderful thing. Yet it’s also based on surprisingly simple principles. In Western music, there are only twelve pitches in each of eight octaves on the piano, but think of just how different one piece of music can be from another.
Limits can actually be freeing: Just like with poetry or prose, the more comfortable you are working inside a specific form, the greater your ability to successfully express yourself within that form becomes.
Part 1
Basics and Rhythm
IN THIS PART …
Find out how to train yourself to start thinking like a composer and what exactly a composer is.
Discover the tools that composers use to create their masterpieces, whether at home or on the road.
Explore what mediums you can use to write out your compositions, and the pros and cons of various software platforms.
Find out how to use rhythm to create specific moods in your compositions and how to make your music more interesting by using rhythmic variations.
Chapter 1
Thinking Like a Composer
IN THIS CHAPTER
Finding freedom in restraint
Joining the ranks of those who create something from nothing
Getting to know a few rules of composition
Identifying things to remember when you get started
Music is the one art form that’s entirely defined by time. After a piece of music is performed — technically, when the last of its echoes fade — it’s gone. Each piece of music is literally sandwiched in silence, or external noise, and if your listeners aren’t paying attention, they’re going to miss it.
Your job, of course, is to make them pay attention.
In this chapter, we introduce you to the concept of musical form, how being a good listener will make you a good composer, and how the rules of composition are there to serve you, not constrain you, in your journey as a composer.
Structuring Freedom
Music can be considered the sculpting of time. You can think of your three minutes — or half hour, or 36 hours — as a block waiting to be chiseled into a specific shape that tells a story or conveys an emotion. You just have to figure out which carving technique(s) work best to get your particular idea across to your audience.
This is where form comes in. Forms are the specific ways of composing all kinds of music: pop, classical, blues, jazz, country, and even atonal and serial. If you know in what form you want to compose your song, part of the groundwork for your composition is already done for you.
And don’t fret about form constraining or limiting you. Does the net limit you in tennis? No, it gives both players a structure around which to play the game. In music, a form does the same thing: Your listener knows more or less what to expect, and you know more or less what to give them. The rest — the uniqueness of your contribution — is up to you. Also, there’s nothing wrong with combining forms to make new ones. You may have heard of jazz/rock fusion, pop punk, country blues, and so on. In fact, you may even find yourself combining forms without thinking about it.
After you choose a main form, you may want to pick the key you want to write your piece in. Knowing how the different keys and modes lend themselves to specific moods is a great help in trying to get a specific emotion across in your music. And how do you know about keys and moods? By listening to music written by other people, of course. You’ve already internalized a lot of musical mood information, probably without even realizing it. (See Chapter 4 for more information.)
You may have a melody already bumping around in your head that needs harmonic accompaniment. You can either plug that melodic line into your chosen form or start adding some chordal accompaniment and see where it goes on its own. Sometimes, the choice of chords can act as the choice of moods.
There’s no real preordained order in which you should begin composing music. The end result is all that matters. And if you end up with a piece of music that you’re even partially satisfied with, you’re on the right track.
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Much of the work in composing music has already been done for you by others. Instead, make your wheel different, more interesting, more unique, and truer to what’s inside you than any of the other wheels out there.
Composing as an Extension of Listening
As a music teacher, Johann Sebastian Bach (like other great composers of his day) trained his students to be not just impressive little robotic pianists, but to be improvisers and composers. Music professors today don’t often teach composition or improvisation. Back in Bach’s day (the 18th century), learning how to read scores and perform other people’s music was not a separate or independent skill from learning about the creation of music itself. The music of the masters was presented to students as something to improvise on — and possibly even to improve on.
This practical musicality was a comprehensive craft that involved thinking creatively and realizing it in sound. Music meant more than merely following instructions. The rote repetition of other people’s music, including Bach’s own, was used as example and was not the end itself. Students were encouraged to alter scores by adding notes, reducing the time value of notes, dropping notes, and changing or adding ornamentation, dynamics, and so on. A person couldn't even get into Bach’s teaching studio without first showing some rudimentary improvisation and composition ability.
If you’re a classically trained music student who hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to spread your wings and write your own pieces of music, this book can help you find your own voice, both by drawing from what you already know after all those years of rote memorization and mining your own feelings about how music should sound.
Using Rules as Inspiration
If you didn’t know better, you might think that music was something that could start on any note, go wherever it wanted to, and just stop whenever the performer felt like getting up to get a glass of iced tea. Although it’s true that many of us have been to musical performances that actually do follow that — ahem — style of composition, for the most part, those performances are confusing and annoyingly self-indulgent, and feel a little pointless. The only people who can pull off a spontaneous jam well are those who know music enough to stack chords and notes next to one another so that they make sense to listeners. And because music is inherently a form of communication, as a composer and performer, you want to connect with your listeners.
You really need to know the rules before you can break them.
Knowing about song forms, how to meld harmonic lines into a real melody, and how to end a song on a perfect cadence can inspire you to see what you can come up with on your own — especially when you know the rules and structures behind your favorite songs. There’s no describing the power of the light bulb that goes off in your head when you suddenly know how to put a 12-bar blues progression together and build a really good song out of it. The first time you make music with your friends and find that you have the confidence to present your own ideas is thrilling.
We want the reader of this book to end up putting their copy down on a regular basis because they just can’t resist the urge to try out a new musical technique!
Following Your Music Instincts
Like with any creative activity, composing music requires that you trust yourself. An understanding of music theory and a lot of playing skill can be a good starting point, but what an idea means to you — how it makes you feel and what you ultimately say with it — can be the only real criterion of its validity.
As you’re reading this book, keep the ideas in the following sections in mind.
Identifying your options
After you have an idea for a song or a piece of instrumental music, figure out how you can best work it, using methods for (re)harmonization, melodic and rhythmic development, counterparts, variations, and other compositional techniques. A good composer never stops learning and can never have too many tools in their musical toolbox. Get comfortable with as many compositional styles and techniques as possible and try to get an intuitive grasp on how and when to apply them.
With practice, this information can become second nature — as easy to summon and use in your compositions as it is for an electrician to pull a screwdriver or wrench out of their toolbox. A firm, intuitive grasp on music theory and basic composition and arranging techniques can take you further than you can imagine.
Knowing the rules
Every musical form has a set of rules, and as a composer, get familiar with all of them. Rock, folk, classical, and even experimental genres have specific rules that define them, and knowing those rules is sometimes half the work. Are rules made to be broken? Sure, sometimes. But they’re also made to be hard-earned guidelines that many, many people before you had to figure out by trial and error. Use their wisdom for all it’s worth — don’t unthinkingly discard it.
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI (1567–1643)
If we had to name one person who was the missing link between the music of the Renaissance (14th–16th century) and the Baroque (17th–18th century) periods, we’d name Claudio Monteverdi. (Well, which we just did.) Monteverdi brought an unparalleled level of sophistication and respect to vocal music, turning it from something only peasants and priests could enjoy into full-blown opera performances designed to entertain the ruling and intellectual elite.
Even as a child, Monteverdi was musically precocious. His first publication of sheet music was issued by a prominent Venetian publishing house when he was only 15. By the time he was 20, a variety of his works had gone to print. His first book of five-voice madrigals succeeded in establishing his reputation outside of his provincial hometown and helped him find work in the court of the Duke Gonzaga of Mantua.
Monteverdi became known as a leading advocate of the then-radical approach to harmony and text expression. In 1613, Monteverdi was appointed maestro di cappella (music director) at St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice. There, Monteverdi was active in reorganizing and improving vocal music, specifically a cappella (singing without instrument accompaniment), as well as writing music for voices. He was also in huge demand outside of the Roman Catholic Church for his operas and made a decent living from opera commissions.
Monteverdi can be justly considered one of the most influential figures in the evolution of modern music. His opera Orfeo was the first to reveal the potential of the genre, while his follow-up, Arianna, may be responsible for the survival of opera into the 18th century and beyond. Monteverdi's final opera, L′incoronazione di Poppea, is his greatest masterpiece and arguably the finest opera of the 17th century. Monteverdi was also one of the first composers to utilize the techniques of tremolo (a wavering effect in musical tone) and pizzicato (plucking the strings) on stringed instruments.
Picking up more instruments
Each instrument has its own beautiful, specific sound. Sometimes, becoming halfway fluent on a new instrument can completely change the way you want to put music together. It can also expand your appreciation for those other musicians who will (we hope) put your music into action.
Putting a piece of music aside
The compositions that cause you persistent, frustrating problems are probably the ones that you need to put away for a later date. Often (but not always), the best ideas for compositions are the ones that come together naturally, easily, and quickly. If you’re struggling with a piece of music, sometimes the best thing you can do is put it away for the day, or even longer, and come back to it later with a fresh perspective.
Getting something from nothing
A great idea is a gift and can’t be produced at will. However, a lot of great composers can do just fine without divine intervention. If you look at many of Johann Sebastian Bach’s compositions, for example, you can see that many sections are directly technique-inspired, built around very basic melodic lines and musical ideas.
If you can’t come up with a brilliant start from thin air, try to start with a random one by taking a pen and writing down a series of random notes. Fill a whole music sheet with random dots and see whether you came up with anything interesting. Yes, we’re serious. Or pick up a guitar and play random chords until something sounds interesting. Or fiddle around on a keyboard until something makes your ears perk up. Countless classic pieces of music have begun with little more than these simple techniques.
After you have a bit of a tune that you want to explore, you can use rules to help you. It may sound corny, but it’s true: The biggest oak tree began as a tiny acorn. This book can show you how to fill out the melodic line that you just created, as well as build a harmonic accompaniment.
Trusting your own taste
If you like it, someone else will, too. Composing music is about self-expression, and if you write a piece of music that sounds wonderful to you, then by all means, go with your gut. As beautiful and unique as all members of the human race are, there are more similarities between us than differences.
On the other hand, even if what you’ve written doesn’t follow any set of rules, and even if most people who hear it hate it, if you love it, it’s worth keeping. Eventually, you’ll find other people who will truly get it, and you’ll be happy that you saved that one odd bit of music that everyone else thought was unlistenable.
Chapter 2
Tools of the Trade
IN THIS CHAPTER
Writing music by hand or by using software
Composing on an instrument and with a trained set of ears
Understanding how music theory influences composition
Finding the space, time, and ideas to compose
Keeping everything you create
Just like electricians, plumbers, and mechanics use toolboxes to organize their tools, composers also bring toolboxes with them to work. The difference is, of course, that with the aforementioned tradespeople’s toolboxes, you can see and feel them (and trip over them in the dark), whereas the composer’s toolbox exists mostly within their mind.
These mental tools are still tools, and you need to use and develop them if you’re going to get far composing music. If you could open up a typical composer’s toolbox and take a peek inside, you’d find the tools covered within this chapter.
Composing with Pencil and Paper or a Tablet
Believe it or not, even in this computerized world, in many situations, a sheet of paper and a pencil are still the best tools for the music composer. Many important modern composers won’t work with anything but paper and pencil. So, never think that you’re too advanced for these humble tools.
Many musicians work directly on their instrument of choice (see the following section) — usually a keyboard or guitar — and simply jot down their musical ideas on paper or on a graphics tablet while composing. The ability to work with pencil and paper comes in especially handy in this context — for one thing, you don’t have to compose solely in the same room as your computer.
Nothing beats computers for neatness when you need to print written music for a
Score:
For all the instruments that play a piece of music
Part:
For just one instrument, extracted from a score
Lead sheet:
Using chord charts and a melodic line
But you can take a pencil and paper or a graphics tablet anywhere.
Although composers can find the actual sound of the instrument itself interruptive to the composition process, composing with pencil and paper can allow you to work with just the music in your head without the outside distraction of real sounds. Just imagine yourself deep in thought, hearing the perfect sequence of notes in your head, when suddenly, your finger touches the actual piano key, and it doesn’t sound exactly like you imagined. Real sound is jarring, and hearing even the first note of your imagined phrase before you’ve written it down can cause you to lose an entire piece of music.
In order for this method to be useful, though, you have to be able to translate what you hear in your head into music notation. Gain a good knowledge of solfege (the basic system of do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, in which each syllable represents a note on the major scale), or the numeric system of melodic representation (Do is 1, Re is 2, and so on) in your standard 8-tone scale. Beyond solfege, a deeper knowledge of music theory is required for you to write intelligible music with paper and pencil. Scales, key signatures, ranges, transpositions, and special markings for the instruments you are composing for are hugely important for clear communication.
If you aren’t fluent enough in your head with different keys, you can write everything out in the key of C and change it to a different key, or transpose it later. Transposition is simply taking a melody, chord sequence, or whole piece of music and changing the pitch of the notes while keeping the relative intervals between them the same (see Music Theory For Dummies, by Holly Day and Michael Pilhofer (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), for a complete explanation of what intervals are and how they work).
Use a pencil and paper, or a graphics tablet and pen, to jot a rhythmic idea down quickly. Write it on any type of paper or background; notation paper isn’t necessary — you can even just write X’s for note heads and draw in the measure lines.
When using an actual pencil and paper, be sure to have a good eraser on hand, too. We discuss more about composing with a pencil and paper in Chapter 3.
Using Your Performance Skills to Compose
Most composers use a keyboard or guitar to compose, but you can use any instrument that you’re comfortable with. Although most composers are proficient instrumentalists, some composers actually do it all in their heads.
At any rate, being able to play melodies and chords on an instrument is a definite plus when you start composing. The piano, with its 88 keys, encompasses the ranges of all other orchestral instruments, so it’s traditionally the most versatile choice. An electronic keyboard hooked into the right computer program (see the following section) can provide a broad sound palette that can give you a rough idea of what a composition might sound like played on real instruments. That MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) keyboard can also generate actual music notation, as well.
Keep in mind that a violin played with a bow, for instance, is tricky to accurately portray with a violin sample coming out of a keyboard.
Some skill at playing, plus the easy availability of an instrument, is almost essential for a music composer. The first time Scott wrote music for orchestral instruments, he had only enough skill on the piano to play two or three parts together at the same time, so he had to play the oboe part with the French horn part, and then the French horn with the trumpet, and so on. He never actually heard all the notes played together until he was in the recording studio in front of the orchestra. Exhilarating? Yes. Scary? You bet!
Accessing Composition Software
We really can’t overstate the important role of computers in music composition today. The following are some ways computers are involved in composing music. Computers
Provide various sounds to work with.
Print out your parts quickly and neatly.
Help you organize your ideas.
Fit music to film easily.
Provide tools for piecing together entire compositions while enabling you to test out ideas before committing to them.
Can even produce and deliver a final recording of your work, if you use a good composition program.
Remember, many great music composers don’t use computers at all in their work, whereas others would be completely lost without computers.
So where do computers fit into your musical world? Ask yourself a few questions:
Are you computer savvy?
Do you have access to a computer that has the latest operating system?
Do you understand the basics of file management?
Have you successfully figured out other computer programs before?
If you answered yes to most of the questions in the preceding list, then you can probably do all right using composition software, as long as you don’t pick the wrong software for the job. (See Chapter 22 for computer system requirements.)
In the following sections, we briefly discuss a few major industry software packages, focusing on the good and not-so-good for each.
Finale
Finale (www.finalemusic.com) is a music notation, scoring, layout, and publishing program. The program enables you to try out your ideas with traditional orchestral sounds, but it’s mostly used to print scores and parts. It does this layout and printing very well, and many music programs in colleges and universities require students to study and use this program. One downside of Finale is that older versions of the program can’t work with files made in newer versions — and they typically release a new version every year — so if you’re working with someone and need to send files back and forth, you each need to work with the same version of Finale.
Finale version 27 runs approximately $600, with a significant discount for teachers and students. You can also upgrade from a previous version of Finale to the current version for approximately $150.
Sibelius
Sibelius (www.avid.com/sibelius) is a competitive program to Finale (see the preceding section). It has better playback features for hearing scores that you’ve just entered than Finale does, but it’s less straightforward to navigate through. The newest version of Sibelius Ultimate gives you the capability to compose orchestra scores with unlimited parts, and it costs $20 a month for use on both your desktop computer and mobile device. You can also download a free version of Sibelius from their website that lets you compose pieces with up to four instrument parts.
Logic Pro
Apple’s Logic Pro (www.apple.com/logic-pro) is a complex and very deep program that aspires to be everything in one package. It offers sophisticated notation, scoring, layout, and printing tools, audio recording and editing capabilities, MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) production with sample and synthesizer plug-ins, excellent cut-and-paste arranging and compositional tools, and more.
Its reputation is based on being one of the first professional recording studio software packages available at a reasonable price for independent musicians, and you can record, mix, edit, and create a finished musical product to release as a CD or audio file right from your Mac computer. It’s a popular program for electronic composition, sound design, and music composition for film and video, and it’s as popular in the studios of Europe as Pro Tools is in the United States (see the section “Pro Tools,” later in this chapter, for a discussion of this option). Many of the notated figures in this book were originally created in Logic Pro.
The current version of Logic Pro for Mac is available for about $200.
Cubase
Cubase (www.steinberg.net/cubase) is similar to Logic Pro (see the preceding section), though with less power in the scoring printout area and fewer compositional features. Cubase is easier to figure out than Logic Pro, though, and it’s available for both Mac and Windows machines. The newest version of Cubase Elements runs approximately $100, while the Pro version runs approximately $600. An upgrade to the newest version is approximately $100.
Ableton
Ableton (www.ableton.com) is designed especially for the performing composer, in that many of its features are designed to be paired with Ableton mixers and control pads for live performances. But you can still work with it just from your keyboard — it has the expansion capabilities to take you from writing and recording music on your keyboard in your studio to recording and mixing 18-plus channels of music and all the sounds from a roomful of musicians. Ableton offers two basic products:
Live:
Software designed for computer-based compositions, which can be manipulated in real time
Push:
A hardware controller designed to work with Ableton’s range of electronic instruments and interfaces
You can purchase the basic Ableton Live program for $79, while complete studio packages range from $590 (Ableton Live Suite) to thousands of dollars in hardware to accompany the programs, including electronic drum and instrument programming pads.
Pro Tools
Pro Tools (www.avid.com/pro-tools) is found in almost every recording studio in the United States and is almost single-handedly responsible for the home-recording phenomena that started in the ’90s. It’s designed primarily for recording and editing audio tracks, although Pro Tools does include access to sample players and synthesizers through its MIDI capabilities. Pro Tools’s claim to fame is its compatibility with other music software programs, so it can make everyone’s life easier during collaborative projects. Pro Tools is also unparalleled for cutting, pasting, and otherwise processing audio recordings. Pro Tools software runs from $79 to $479 a year, depending on which package you purchase.
If you already use a music-composition program and feel comfortable with it, there’s no real reason to change your routine. However, if you’re planning on moving your work around from place to place or studio to studio, you might want to figure out Pro Tools, especially if you’re doing a lot of audio recording of performances. If, in addition to working with audio recordings of performances, you also do sound design or electronic composition, need music printed out, or work with loops (repeated samples or recorded sounds that run through part or all of a composition), Logic Pro may be your best bet.
REAPER
REAPER (www.reaper.fm) is a recent entry in the world of digital audio workstations (DAWs). It’s a complete digital audio production application for computers, offering a full multitrack audio and MIDI recording, editing, processing, mixing, and mastering toolset that supports a vast range of hardware, digital formats, and plug-ins.
It’s available for all computer platforms, and you get 60 days of fully functioning software for free to check it out. After that, the current price is $60 for an individual license that you can run on several computers (as long as you only run one of them at a time). This program is famously bug-free and can be used across platforms, making it easy to collaborate with other musicians whether they’re on a Mac, PC, or using Linux. It can do everything that the other programs can do (minus any scoring features), but it comes with no built-in sounds of its own. You have to get those separately from any other music software program (for example, from Band-in-a-Box or Apple Logic), but they can be easily installed.
Having a Pair of Moderately Well-Trained Ears
When you think about it, we don’t really train our ears at all. We develop listening skills and, therefore, develop our communication skills. We do this by training our brains to exercise a more focused type of attention on the stimuli arriving at our ears. It’s just like when you’re learning to speak a foreign language — you practice familiar words and phrases spoken in that new language and build your vocabulary from there. Music is as much a language as Mandarin or English or Swahili, and it takes time, patience, and good listening skills to understand its words. You probably won’t pick it up instantly, but with perseverance, you can start to make sense of it.
You can find a lot of good courses available for developing good musical listening skills. If you’re the self-teaching type, sitting in front of a piano and hitting notes over and over until you can identify intervals by ear is a good way to start.
Very few people can acquire perfect pitch, but most people can become able to identify intervals (the difference in pitch) between two or three notes and can pick those notes out on the piano without much trouble. With practice, the same person can play simple phrases and chords on the piano, and therefore understand how other composers put their songs together.
