Starting a
composition is a difficult task. Getting your inspirations, thinking
creatively, applying your creative thoughts to your music and supplementing
your ideas with additional composition are all difficult tasks to accomplish.
For
starters, your current state of mind will greatly affect the music you right –
whether you feel angry, joyful or sad chances are your musical composition will
in some way reflect this mood.
Different
times of day and different seasons affect your composing as well as current
affairs and any stress’s you might have.
The variety
of factors that can influence your composition periods are immense and
hopefully these few pointers will demonstrate some methods of breaking out of
the psychological restraints placed on you.
- Colours – If you are looking to
compose a piece of music based around a certain mood find a relevant
colour that matches for instance orange gives the impression of energy and
drive. Eventually you will learn to bias your mood to suit the composition
you are aiming for.
- Character – it is well known
for actors to really get inside the character they are portraying through
their acting. Understanding key emotions and various behaviours help the
actors ‘ live ‘ as their proposed character. If you are creating a theme
for a character (think darth vaders theme tune) you need to be
demonstrating and describing that character through sound. If you follow
the same process as an actor would you will eventually unravel hidden
details that will help refine your composition, make it more realist and
detailed and allow for it to be much more creative and expressive.
- Nature – a lot of creativity
and inspiration can be got by observing nature. From birds communicating
through a song like speech to the rustle of leaves in a summer breeze.
Trying to emulate nature is an excellent way to begin a sound-scope – or
incorporating nature into a character theme for example to express an
angelic quality, singing like the birds (fast trills on piccolo or
glissandos on the violin)
- Memories – another great source
to tap into is your memories. A lot of emotion will go into compositions
that are personal in some way to yourself. Spend a few minutes reflecting
on your past – try to imagine the memory in great detail – sounds, smells,
colours the weather – anything that will give you a good image and story
to compose about.
These are
just a few sources for inspiration – use your imagination – it has never ending
possibilities!
With so
many possibilities to compose about and now that your creativity is running,
the next area to discuss is music theory.
The last
thing that you want to happen is to have all these wonderfully creative ideas
for your composition but being held back by the lack of musical knowledge.
A rugby
player could develop his passing techniques and his scrum techniques but if he
doesn’t know the rules of the game he won’t be able to perform during a game.
Although
music composition and as a whole is not bound by any rules you still need the
knowledge of writing music – in the same way as a poet needs a knowledge of his
language to write a poem.
Some of the
key areas you should know about and be constantly revising are:
- The Staff, Bar Lines, Clefs,
Time Signatures.
- Note Values, Rests, Phrasing,
Rhythm
- Articulation, Instrument
Specific Techniques (pizz, con sord)
- Key Signatures, Circle of Fifths,
Accidentals, Cadences
- Major, Minor, Diminished,
Pentatonic, Diatonic Scales
- Modes
- Chords, Extensions, Inversions,
Sequences, Arpeggios
- Instrument Ranges, Timbres of Each
Instrument, Difficult Areas of an Instrument (The break on clarinet for
instance or seventh position for trombones)
Of course
it is not absolutely essential you know about all of this but it will mean that
your creativity is weakened due to lack of a means to fully communicate.
Use music
theory books – go through them and notate comments on the pages, take notes on
to blank flash cards to memorize scales and extended chords, use past music
theory exam papers to test and analyze your knowledge and then act on your weak
areas, purchase a aural perception CD to recognize different cadences and the
general sounds achieved from different combinations of notes and chords – there
are many ways to learn all of this but find the way that you are comfortable
with and stick to it.
Finally the
last piece of advice in this article is to keep your composing active.
Aim to
compose a short piece of music each day, maybe before you go to bed you can
reflect on your day through a composition. Mix it up – compose for different
orchestrations and different abilities.
Composing
is challenging but by keeping active like this will greatly benefit you and
your compositions – and you never know – you may accidentally stumble upon your
masterpiece!
This article is free for reproduction providing it is left in its original format and an active link to http://www.realmusicproduction.com is present.
Edward Droscher is the founder of Real Music Production and
works to develop music education systems privately and in schools. For more
information or details on music instruction please visit
http://www.realmusicproduction.com or email info@realmusicproduction.com
