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Welcome to the artissimo.gr pages of Workshop ! |
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English Language : Classical Music : Workshop 19 interesting advices written for amateur composers |
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The following text consists of my own remarks and recommendations on the process of composing : they may help you, they may not. Anyway, you will not lose anything by reading ! Our scenario implies that you want to create a new music composition. Here are some very basic steps : 1. Decide on what you exactly want to do : what are your motives, what are you purposes, what are your resources in general. 2. Decide on how much you will deviate from the "mean listener's" standards : it is very important ! It's all about the composing styles. After that, decide in which ways you will deviate. 3. Decide on the very final instrumentation (if this has any meaning in our case). Notice that you may not know the instruments available and such technical details. Very often original plans are modified and re-organized. This will be best done according to your experience and some steps will have to be reconsidered. Of course, the sooner you know eveything about the orchestration details, the better. 4. Sketch your workflow in rough : again, this is important! Here is a short example : first write or find the verses (if applicable). Second, harmonize the music text, then, do the orchestration. This is a matter of pure experience. Anyway, sometimes making things out of order is very useful (and you should experiment in general). 5. Start to work steadily according to your workflow. Work for a few hours. Then, find out : work's output "quantity", difficulties encountered, possible ways to work more efficiently (you may decide that you want to compose using a piano, or just your "inner ear", or writing down all notes first or or ...) 6. Try to be original : even if you still use the "old tricks", try to make them sound interesting by experimenting a little... This also has to do with the "quantity" of "listener's standards deviation" mentioned earlier. When you can apply an element in more than one ways, try the more interesting one. 7. Remember, all compositions should be considered as an entity, then should divided into their more important and obvious pieces, and, then, they should be even sliced in single phrases. To be more specific, beginning with the whole composition, every integral part can be divided into simpler parts. This works recursively till we arrive at the level of single notes ! Of course, not the whole analysis must be carried out each time, but, make sure balance in musical elements - as intended by you in the first plan - is not suffering when they are considered from part to part.. 8. You can always deviate from rules and balance spirit for reasons of style, form or surprise. Be very careful with it! It's easy to lose the control ! Experiment with small deviations and wait till you get confidence. 9. Never forget the qualities of the listener's ear : long memory is weak, short memory is strong, surprises are strong but can easily be surpassed, error in balance are difficult to cover up, error in minor elements are usually OK, especially if ear has many jobs to do at the same time. Perception is usually constant : ear cannot follow 100 notes a second, but will also find 1 note a second very boring. Always think of the gold mean of this in accordance with form and style (and of course, always considering the actual purpose of the composition). 10. Continue the work and check out whether work output per hour ratio has improved. Keep an eye on the quality of the work. 11. While working a single phrase of passage, check the whole integrity and movement. Check out all elements where balance (in a smaller or a larger scale) plays its role : structure, harmonies, movement, harmonic quality, harmonic density, listener's difficulty to follow!, players' tiredness (yes! of course! especially for certain instruments), and such matters of a "pragmatic" nature (instruments' range use, modulations' rhythm etc.) 12. Once completed, you should check the whole work again for small but well-placed modifications (it's not time to change big things!! this should be done in previous steps!). 13. Try to get your composition played by real people if possible ! In case this is not feasible, try to use most realistic sounds... 14. Try to promote your composition, especially if it deserves it ! 15. During all those final steps, many people may listen to your work. Note and write down only what they didn't like in it ! 16. You may find it difficult and dreary to work for hours on technical matters eg. trying to verify good voices' movement, constant perception fullfillment for the listener, harmonic robustness and such things. The best is to write down your bright music ideas, but, them alone will not make it up for a good piece of music. By gaining a lot of experience you will organize your work more systematically and be quite fast, effective and resourceful (very important !) while processing your new inspirations. 17. Further organization elements : have your own special book with sketches (or use computer software and hardware for this purpose) : even Beethoven had some of them ! Additionally, write good ideas on a special section and mark usual problems occurring while working your pieces. Organize the reusability of music material from one work to another (even Mozart used this!). From time to time have a quick read over some basic theory books (why not? It really works!). 18. Listen to others' music as more critically as you can. Find their own flaws - try to avoid them yourself! - and notice their strong points as well. Think whether you can use all this information in your own music as well. 19. Always try to find weak points in your compositions, even small ones, even subjective ones ! This will make you improve all the time. If your style changes, then, you may not like all your previous compositions. In this case, you should not be too critical to them... |
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