Overcome the Musical Barriers

Composition Motivation

Composing music can be very challenging, for both the novice and the expert. However, their problems are very different. While the beginner struggles to come up with any melody or a good melody, the expert struggles with trying to create different-sounding piece. These difficulties will be dealt with in these following 3 tips which will hopefully help you improve your composition skills.

1. Listen to Music

This might sound trite or unimportant, but this is one of the most valuable tips to a composer. By listening to music, your mind installs new chord progressions, new note patterns, and new rhythms without you even knowing what's happening. To the expert, this is one of the best ways of getting out of the rut of making boring and similar-sounding pieces. To the novice, this can help them to understand how good songs are made and how to create them.

A clarification should be made, though. Don't just listen to one type of music. To get the full benefit of this tip, try to listen to many styles of music. For example, even if you hate classical music or instrumental music, give them a listen. You will likely pick up new information to furnish your songs with.

2. Just Try

This is another critical tip. Even though a lot of people may have talent, they won't ever know because they won't ever try for long enough. They'll give up after a few attempts and tell themselves and others that they just weren't cut out to be a musician. This unwise excuse can often cost them a lot in life and it happens with far more than just music. Some people tell themselves they'll never be good at a certain sport, and you know what, it happens. They never are good at that sport. Self-fulfilling prophecies can be very dangerous so try not to make them--at least not the negative ones.

3. Connect with Others

There is a lot of great music advice out there and there are a lot of composers who would love to help you improve your skill. Get connected with blogs, forums, or chat rooms that discuss music composition and your knowledge of music will definitely improve. If you are shy and don't like to meet new people, just try it anyway. You never know how much fun you'll have and how much your life will change for the better.

That's all for now. I hope you have fun composing. Remember, never give up!

 

The Artist's Toolkit II

Themes & Motifs II 

Here is the second part to the first. These tools are more advanced but, applied carefully, can give your music a powerful edge and make it worth remembering.

[Advanced]

1. Notes Change

Playing the exact same melody every time to signal a motif may get old after a while. Besides, themes may darken, brighten, become more elaborate, or change in other ways depending on the mood of the movie. Thus, it is useful to sometimes change the notes of the motif while still making it recognizable to your audience. This may be more challenging than it sounds.

2. Mode Change

Classical music uses this a lot. The most common one being transitioning from minor mode to major mode or vice versa. Other changes could be from major mode to lydian mode, lydian mode to mixolydian mode, or minor mode to phrygian mode. Of course there are many other mode changes which sound good. Finding the right one is the trick. Also, making the motif still recognizable is very important.

3. Rhythm Change

Depending on the mood of the theme you're showing, you might want to change the rhythm of the motif so that it better conveys the new mood or atmosphere of the movie. This change in rhythm is not the same thing as changing the time signature, although it may incorporate it if you are going for a dramatic rhythm change. The easiest way to do this though, is just to change the timing of individual notes while still sticking with the same time signature. For example, you could turn half notes into quarter notes, while turning eighth notes into quarter notes to keep the balance.

4. Segmentation

Another technique to use for motifs is to split your melody into pieces and fill it with new musical material. For example, you could play 1/3 of your motif melody, then break off into a new part before finishing the other 2/3 of your motif. Alternatively, you could split off into new material every 1/4 of your motif. Depending on the length of your motif, this process could take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. This is not a very common technique, but if used masterfully could give your music an interesting edge.

5. Reverse Notes

Reverse the main melody of your motif or reverse sections of it. By reversing I mean to make your notes go in the opposite direction. For instance, if you motif uses E D C G F E D, you would reverse it to D E F G C D E. This might be too extreme for you. If this is the case, you can only reverse a few notes while still keeping most of the main theme. In this case, E D C G F E D becomes C D E G F E D. If used right, this technique is very powerful and will definitely keep your motif from becoming stale or overused.

6. Instrument Choice

If you've already established an instrument which is mostly used whenever a character or theme is shown, then you can use this one. For example, a flute may often be playing in the background during a scene featuring a certain character. This instrument becomes part of the motif for your character. Whenever a flute is played, your audience would connect it with the character. This technique is useful but dangerous. After all, if you did this for every one of your character motifs, you wouldn't have many instruments left to use for regular themes. Some characters may be stuck with their motif being a snare drum or a wind chime. One way to get around this problem is to use instruments in only certain cases to represent a character. For instance, a solo flute may represent a character, but when a flute is played with other instruments it may not. Alternatively, a piano played along with just a violin may represent a location or theme while a piano played by itself or with other instruments would not. Knowing how to make the best use of this technique is critical and will wondrously improve your music.


That's all for now. Have fun composing!

The Artist's Toolkit I

Themes & Motifs

Almost every movie needs to have themes and motifs in them. There are various kinds of them, some being about different characters, others about locations, still others about certain themes or other types of things that the film composers want to convey. The Lord of the Ring's movies are a great example of this. It's really fascinating to study the soundtracks. It couldn't have been easy for Howard Shore to weave together so many intricate puzzle pieces into a complete whole.

Five basic theme techniques will be discussed as follows. This is not an exhaustive list, these are just a few that came to my mind.

1. Tempo Change

One of the simplest ways to change a theme is to slow down or speed up the tempo. This isn't a very powerful tool, but it can be used to bring about a slight change in the theme. It can be really potent if used in combinations with some of the other tools.

2. Key Change

Another great tool to use. This is especially useful if the previous music for your movie is in a different key than your original piece and you want to make a smooth transition between the two. It's also useful for creating more of a dark mood by key changing to a lower key, or making it more majestic, by key changing to a higher key. 

3. Instrument Change/Addition

By adding instruments or changing which instruments are used, you can dramatically alter the sound of your theme. Sometimes the theme might come in with flutes, other times with brass instruments, other times with the piano or a combination of instruments, depending on what mood you're aiming for.

The Crown Prince, one of my compositions, is as an example of this. Listen to the first 22 seconds of it and get the feel of it. Then skip ahead to 1:34 and notice the different feel. Believe it or not, the melody line for the tuba is exactly the same, but now new instruments are added which change the whole atmosphere of it.

4. Chord Change

Even if the main melody stays the same, just by changing the chords, you can create an entirely different mood. If you're motif is major, for instance, turning it to minor for a rather depressing or sad scene in the movie would work very well.

Arcade Fire's song Abraham's Daughter is an example of this tool. Listen at 25 seconds until 38 and note the dark, foreboding sound of the piece which utilizes only one minor chord. Then listen to 39 seconds until 52 and notice the more hopeful sound of it which is caused because it uses other chords, particularly some major ones.

5. Harmony Addition 

By adding harmony to your motif, you can greatly improve and beautify it. It's very useful to use when embellishing a theme for a more powerful part in a movie. Try it and see the results.


That's all for now. Keep composing!