09/01/2021
ART OF COMPOSING
How to Compose Music....
What does it take to learn composition?
The fastest way to learn composition is to memorize small fragments of music, and then learn to change and combine those fragments in very specific ways.
The process of changing it, actually forces you to understand it.
So I set out reading just about every music theory or composition book I could get my hands on.
What is your motivation for composing?
You want to compose music that clearly expresses yourself and your emotions in a way that others understand.
You want to create music mostly for yourself, but you’re interested in film, TV, and video games.
You want to write down what you hear inside your head, and from that create longer works, hit songs, or just a good piece of music.
You want to understand how music works, but your music theory is a little bit… shall we say… sketchy.
Your goals may be slightly different, but in the end, we all want some of the same things. To express ourselves, to bring joy to others through music, and to just create.
Do you really understand what it takes to learn composition?
Learning composition is a process that will take time. There is a lot you don’t know, and that’s okay.
It starts with your background knowledge – everything you’ve learned about music until this very moment.
You then focus on one specific composition skill at a time. This could be something as small as writing a note correctly by hand or as big as a symphony.
Starting with small skills makes the whole process flow better.
A composition skill should be a repeatable process.
Harmony, melody, form – these are not skills. They are categories.
A composition skill should be repeatable, and have a clear goal.
Step 1 – Set some restrictions for yourself.
Restrictions will help to open up our creativity, because they filter out unnecessary ideas from your brain.
Step 2 – The process of composing, in one note.
It’s a little bit like a story, and you have the ability to imagine music in your head with clarity, It develops and changes as you create it. it's the process of making or forming a piece of art by combining the parts, or elements of music.
Composing isn’t about being totally unique.
It’s also not about just copying the past.
What Composers Actually Do
We create music based on our past experience and shared musical vocabularies
Composers don’t create something out of nothing.
How then, do we go about learning to compose music?
_The Unique Challenges and Goals of Learning to Compose_
Composing has some unique challenges, and it’s important to understand what you’re up against. Many of these will probably be familiar to you:
There is too much to learn, not enough time to learn it, and it’s hard to understand on it’s own.
Endless possibilities make starting pieces easy, but finishing them difficult.
It’s difficult to compose without inspiration, which doesn’t always strike.
You can’t accurately transcribe what you hear in your head, which means your music sounds different than you imagine.
Your music theory knowledge is weak and you’re not sure how to apply it.
You waste a lot of time trying to put together a coherent path to understanding composition.
Finally, it’s really difficult to see how it all this can come together.
Too Much to Learn, Not Enough Time to Learn It, And It’s All Connected.
At a basic level, learning to compose is overwhelming because there is a lot you need to know for things to click into place, and work together.
For instance, in order to harmonize a melody, you need to understand how harmony works. But in order to understand how harmony works, you need to understand how melody effects it.
The simple way around this is to give you very specific exercises which only require specific decisions to be made. For instance, how to write a melody over a chord progression that you already have. Once you can do that, you learn to write chord progressions alone. And then you combine the two skills.
Two separate composing skills become one.
Endless Possibilities Make Starting Easy and Finishing Hard,
Endless possibilities make expressing your emotions in an original way challenging.
~~~~~LABA~~~~~
To Educate & Elevate art business.
