Composing Music -A suggested method for beginners
1) Decide what you are going to write -
a song, a dance tune, a jazz ballad. It could be anything,
it could turn into something else once you
get started; this is just a place to begin.
2) Doodle with your instrument or voice until
you find a short pattern or idea that interests you.
It could be a series of notes or a fingering
or a chord or chord pattern. This short idea is your
"motif" - a short musical phrase. We will
use it as a building block for your composition. It
needs to be short. As short as 3 or 4 beats
is fine. It can be as long as 6 or 8 beats, also. Think
about being able to sing it in one breath,
as you would speak a phrase in one breath.
3) This motif will be the first phrase of
the tune. Now you need another phrase, same length, to
"answer" the motif. This is called "question
and answer" phrasing, and is a very basic musical
form used in many styles of music. Your answer
does not have to feel finished. In fact it may be
more interesting if it doesn't feel complete.
4) Write down your motif again. Now you are
looking for a final "answer", one that does make
you feel that the discussion is done. The
easiest way to do this is to end on the note that names
the key. If you are tuned DDAD that note is
a D.
Hey, you just wrote a short tune!
A motif is very short.. It can manipulated
many ways. It can be reversed, turned upside-down,
played higher, played lower, played faster,
played slower. You can change the mode, the key, the
time signature. You can add on to it, move
it to different places in the phrase. All are valid
compositional techniques.
A few thoughts:
If you want to compose a particular type of
music, study it. What are that style's defining features?
Work on reproducing them in your music. For
example, become familiar with its "form". If you're
writing a contradance tune, it should have
32 measures to fit most dances. These are commonly
divided up as 8 measures in the A part, repeated,
and 8 measures in the B part, repeated. You can
also have each section be 16 measures with
no repeats. If you are writing a swing tune, there may
be a verse, chorus, bridge, reprise of the
chorus. That's what I mean by "form". What chordal
harmonies
are characteristic of that style? What melodic
patterns are characteristic of that style?
There is no one right way to compose music.
You can write free-form, improvisational music
and find an audience for it. You can write
more structured music and again find an audience for
it. All music has structure, and as human
beings our ears gravitate to familiar, secure sounds.
Study and understand the structure of the
style of music you wish to compose. Then you can
make deliberate choices about what to create.
If you choose to write free-form jazz your
audience will be different than an audience
for minuets. Your music is an expression of who you
are, how you feel on a particular day. It's
very personal, very important, and very fragile. Nuture
your creativity and nuture yourself as a composing
musician. Don't show your new compositions
to someone who may not be supportive. At the
same time, you need honest feedback to improve
your writing. Choose that person carefully.
Above all, create! Noone else ever has to see
what you write for it to be real, valid, and essential
to you.
Jump-starting your composition
(a.k.a, what to do when you're stumped )
1. Pick-up notes: same idea as 52-card
pick-up. Cut up a piece of staff paper with one note on
each piece. Pick out papers randomly and place
in sequence to create a motif
2. Repeated patterns: choose an interval,
a fingering pattern, a chord pattern or single shape. Play it
backwards, forwards, move it around the fretboard
and see how the sound changes.
3. Telephone numbers: play the frets of your
phone #, or date of birth, or social security #, or zip
code, or.....
4. Explore your instrument. What new and different
sounds can you create? Some may be
horrible, some wonderful and inspirational.
Give yourself permission to make ugly sounds. Try
playing with harmonics, bent notes, a slide,
a new tuning, fingerpicks, etc...
5. Educate yourself. Learn about composition,
about the history of music (of a style that interests
you). Try playing a different instrument.
It doesn't have to be hard - maybe a pennywhistle instead
of a dulcimer, or a hammered dulcimer instead
offretted (or the other way around). Try to write in a
different musical form or style.
6. "Fill the well" (as advised in "The Artist's
Way"). Put your instrument down and stretch. Go
for a walk and listen to the birds, the traffic,
the wind. Listen to new kinds of music. Go to a
museum, the beach, go dancing in public or
in your bedroom. Take a hot bath with a good book. Do
whatever helps you feel rested and centered
and able to listen to yourself again.
Music notation
If you don't know how to write down music,
I suggest you get a text and begin to learn how.
There's a book and computer programs recommended
in the resource section.lt's not as hard as
it appears. Basically, you want to show how
the pitch goes up and down and how long it lasts for in
a way that you will understand the next time
you look at the paper. For our purposes,
tablature or a graph will work fine.
A graph is pretty easy. Each point is a new
note. A straight line can approximate how long to
hold the note out as compared to other notes.
It's up to you where it begins or ends.
Tablature is "play-by-number". Write down
the fret #s you are playing on. If you're only using
one string, don't worry about lines. If you're
using more than one line, draw 3 or 4 lines (one for
each string) and write the fret # on the corresponding
line(string). Read it as you would words, from
left to right moving through time. To show
time noteheads are handy. If you want to use an
alternative, I suggest one slash for each
beat beyond the first beat that a note is held. If you're not
sure how long you want the notes, show time
passing by how far apart you place the numbers.
Remember, this just has to work for you, not
the rest of the world. Above all, this should be fun!