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Dr.
Christopher
J. Keyes - DMA, Eastman School of Music
piano, composition, intermedia technology, education
Composition pointers
Approach
Although there is no advise one can receive, and nothing one can do that will guarantee their work will be great, not trying as hard as one can to do their best possible work WILL guarantee the work will NOT be great. I've met a lot of great artists in my time, and they all have the same things in common: a love of extraordinary work of all kinds, a drive to do extraordinary work, and the will to work very, very hard at it. Even that does not guarantee success, but great works of art don't just happen. No one, no matter how talented, starts with the intention of doing mediocre work, and just happens to compose a masterpiece.
There are no rules of composition – never have been. Rules are usually an attempt to codify (systemize, organize) the practices of a specific musical culture and of specific period in time so that students can more easily imitate that particular style. Like the theory that helps understand that particular music, ‘rules’ don’t appear until well after the practice has been established.
Principles
There are some principles that are valid for a great number of styles, however .Great music stimulates both hemispheres of the brain, the right and the left, the thinking the feeling, the intellectual and the intuitive. Thus our music should normally be both interesting and emotional. There are other principles, based mostly on how our brains work, which are detailed here:
Suggestions for Young Composers Beginning a Piece
For most beginning composers, and many older ones, composition is a process of improvisation and rejection/selection. Like learning to swim, you don’t necessarily need to “know how to do it,” you just do it. Below are some pointers, however, that may help you get started. Thanks to Dr. Christopher Coleman for his ideas incorporated here.
Listen, listen, listen and study the scores of pieces in the same or similar genres. The more music that is in your head the more that is likely to come out.
Don’t be afraid to base your piece on another piece that you like. Both Beethoven and Stravinsky are known as highly innovative composers even though their early works sound a lot like their teachers.
Work at instrument, not a desk or computer notation program when you begin a piece. An instrument is more likely to keep you emotionally engaged in a piece and allow you to improvise with its material freely.
Do not necessarily go with your first idea. Improvise/work with the material until you have something you really like and are excited about.
Don’t necessarily start in bar 1. Sketch out several ideas until you get an idea of the character of your piece. THEN let the piece tell you which ideas should go first.
Try not to move on to new material too quickly before developing the material that you already have. Keep in mind that even though you have been working on a section for hours, it may go by the listener in seconds. If you don’t know what to do next, look back. How can you reuse that material?
Use as few motives as possible. Look at Bach and Chopin preludes and see how many motives they use. One idea is enough for a short piece; two is plenty. Three is probably too many unless, they are well connected, and four run the risk of not holding together well in a short piece.
Stay with the mood your piece. If you are well connected to the mood of your piece you can continue more easily and many technical considerations will take care of themselves. If you just write things down without feeling, (using the left half of your brain only) the results will likely NOT be very satisfying and will be very difficult to work with.
Be careful with programs-never mistake a narrative idea (“This is the story of my life”) for a musical idea (“The brass come in on a chromatic cluster, doubled by strings, and one by one each note of the cluster drops out until only a pentatonic chord in the strings is heard. Then, the solo pipa enters”). Fantastic extra-musical ideas may give you inspiration and may help audiences appreciate your music, but they are not a substitute for good musical material, development and structure.
Remember that you are writing for people and for particular instruments, not just putting notes down on paper. What does that instrument (or person) do well or do poorly? What would make it (or them) sound great?
Think of the big picture. A good way to start a piece (after you've listened to a lot of other pieces) is to image it's premiere. Close your eyes and image you are in the audience. The house lights go down the stage lights go up, the string quartet (or whatever) walks out and sits down...or do they? Maybe they are already on stage. Maybe when the house lights go down no lights come up but a short video of something relevant to the quartet plays for 30 seconds, and THEN the stage lights come up, but only on the first violin. He plays a long gut-wrenching g-string melody reaching a climax, and THEN the rest of the stage lisghts come up and THEN the rest of the quartet comes in. Such ideas will not liiely come to you when you are sitting in front of a computer screen.
Learn to trust your gut instincts/feelings. Questions such as if a section/piece is too long or too short, too repetitive or too unpredictable etc. can only be answered there, and according to your taste. If you feel something is not right, it probably isn’t.
piano, composition, intermedia technology, education
Composition pointers
Approach
Although there is no advise one can receive, and nothing one can do that will guarantee their work will be great, not trying as hard as one can to do their best possible work WILL guarantee the work will NOT be great. I've met a lot of great artists in my time, and they all have the same things in common: a love of extraordinary work of all kinds, a drive to do extraordinary work, and the will to work very, very hard at it. Even that does not guarantee success, but great works of art don't just happen. No one, no matter how talented, starts with the intention of doing mediocre work, and just happens to compose a masterpiece.
“All
things excellent are as rare as they are difficult” - Spinoza
RulesThere are no rules of composition – never have been. Rules are usually an attempt to codify (systemize, organize) the practices of a specific musical culture and of specific period in time so that students can more easily imitate that particular style. Like the theory that helps understand that particular music, ‘rules’ don’t appear until well after the practice has been established.
Principles
There are some principles that are valid for a great number of styles, however .Great music stimulates both hemispheres of the brain, the right and the left, the thinking the feeling, the intellectual and the intuitive. Thus our music should normally be both interesting and emotional. There are other principles, based mostly on how our brains work, which are detailed here:
Suggestions for Young Composers Beginning a Piece
For most beginning composers, and many older ones, composition is a process of improvisation and rejection/selection. Like learning to swim, you don’t necessarily need to “know how to do it,” you just do it. Below are some pointers, however, that may help you get started. Thanks to Dr. Christopher Coleman for his ideas incorporated here.
Listen, listen, listen and study the scores of pieces in the same or similar genres. The more music that is in your head the more that is likely to come out.
Don’t be afraid to base your piece on another piece that you like. Both Beethoven and Stravinsky are known as highly innovative composers even though their early works sound a lot like their teachers.
Work at instrument, not a desk or computer notation program when you begin a piece. An instrument is more likely to keep you emotionally engaged in a piece and allow you to improvise with its material freely.
Do not necessarily go with your first idea. Improvise/work with the material until you have something you really like and are excited about.
Don’t necessarily start in bar 1. Sketch out several ideas until you get an idea of the character of your piece. THEN let the piece tell you which ideas should go first.
Try not to move on to new material too quickly before developing the material that you already have. Keep in mind that even though you have been working on a section for hours, it may go by the listener in seconds. If you don’t know what to do next, look back. How can you reuse that material?
Use as few motives as possible. Look at Bach and Chopin preludes and see how many motives they use. One idea is enough for a short piece; two is plenty. Three is probably too many unless, they are well connected, and four run the risk of not holding together well in a short piece.
Stay with the mood your piece. If you are well connected to the mood of your piece you can continue more easily and many technical considerations will take care of themselves. If you just write things down without feeling, (using the left half of your brain only) the results will likely NOT be very satisfying and will be very difficult to work with.
Be careful with programs-never mistake a narrative idea (“This is the story of my life”) for a musical idea (“The brass come in on a chromatic cluster, doubled by strings, and one by one each note of the cluster drops out until only a pentatonic chord in the strings is heard. Then, the solo pipa enters”). Fantastic extra-musical ideas may give you inspiration and may help audiences appreciate your music, but they are not a substitute for good musical material, development and structure.
Remember that you are writing for people and for particular instruments, not just putting notes down on paper. What does that instrument (or person) do well or do poorly? What would make it (or them) sound great?
Think of the big picture. A good way to start a piece (after you've listened to a lot of other pieces) is to image it's premiere. Close your eyes and image you are in the audience. The house lights go down the stage lights go up, the string quartet (or whatever) walks out and sits down...or do they? Maybe they are already on stage. Maybe when the house lights go down no lights come up but a short video of something relevant to the quartet plays for 30 seconds, and THEN the stage lights come up, but only on the first violin. He plays a long gut-wrenching g-string melody reaching a climax, and THEN the rest of the stage lisghts come up and THEN the rest of the quartet comes in. Such ideas will not liiely come to you when you are sitting in front of a computer screen.
Learn to trust your gut instincts/feelings. Questions such as if a section/piece is too long or too short, too repetitive or too unpredictable etc. can only be answered there, and according to your taste. If you feel something is not right, it probably isn’t.
Have fun, create art!
The biggest weakness? When I ask students what they think their biggest weakness is, they usually say developing ideas...and
they're right. This is also what most composition teachers say about
their student's biggest weakness. So what's the difference between
development and variation? Not much (if any). Thus writing a set of variations (even with a more fanciful title) is a great way of developing material and building compositional skill. The following may help
:
:
Thoughts
on the Teaching of Composition
Getting
them started: In
teaching composition our primary role is simply to create the
environment and not get in the way. Any environment in which they can
improvise freely is a good environment. Software notation and a mouse
is possibly the worst.
Like teaching someone to swim; you start by simply throwing them into the pool. Once they are swimming they will be in a better position to take guidance on lengthening their strokes and using more of their legs…once they have improvised something they like and want to remember, you can help them with notation.
A composer’s world is largely the sum of what music she/he has ever heard or played. Creativity is about choosing and combining different elements. The greater variety of music in their head, the more choices they have. Making sure they have a variety of good quality music to listen to is the most important thing one can do for a young composer.
Knowledge of music theory is not necessary to compose. The teaching of music theory should thus expand choices, not limit them. Theory, if taught at all, should always be taught in the context of a specific culture, style and historical era…always. To the point that theory explains what has been done it can be useful. To the point that it is presented what should be done it can be harmful.
There are basically two aspects to guide a composer, the technical and the aesthetic. I usually demand good notation (technical) but I prefer to merely suggest aesthetics to avoid influencing style.
Notation has two different purposes:
1) to remind the composer of what he did previously or sketch what she might do next. Scribbles and blank sheets of paper work well.
2) the means by which a composer communicates his/her ideas to a musician. Like technique to a performer good clear notation is like good clear writing. It is in part a mental discipline that should be insisted upon in the final stages of completing a work. Sketching out loose ideas before they are fully formed, however, should be encouraged.
On coaching the aesthetic, try to find out what is the composer/piece is trying to do. What is its character? Where does it go? What is the logic of the piece? Then all a composition teacher can do is suggest: “This is what would make it more effective to me.” “If it were my pieces I would try…” If it’s a happy piece, perhaps adding some staccatos and a faster tempo might help etc. If it’s a sad piece, perhaps adding more dissonance would make that come across better.
Be discerning if using music software
Creating music is about making choices, and a blank sheet of manuscript paper allows you infinite choice. Sound editing software can expand those choices but most others restrict choices, or worse, make them for you. Designing software is in fact by its very nature about allowing only a finite (limited) number of choices for what the programmer imagines most people will want to do. So there is always a trade off between ease of use and flexibility, and thus the range of creativity it allows, if any.
Imagine a software call u-compose: choose one of 7 background tracks, one of 7 chord progressions, one of 7 rhythms for the melody, the length (either 16, 32 or 48 bars) presses “go.” Is choosing numbers between 1-7 really a creative compositional exercise? Aren’t the compositional choices already made for the user before they started? Beginning with manuscript paper allows you to sketch out ideas before making decisions of rhythm/key/meter/instrument etc.
Assessment:
From the objective to the more subjective, here’s what I personally look for:
Basics: correctness of notation, level of, and attention to detail, amount of work, instrumentation: is it idiomatic for the instrument(s) intended.
Next level: continuity development of ideas, sophistication: does it do interesting things with material rather than just repeat it? Are there transpositions/inversions/octave displacements etc? Syntax (harmony): does it sound ‘right’ and ‘make sense’ to you? Structure: does it hold together, have contrasts (for longer pieces)? Originality/Predictability: how much does it look like/sound like something the composer already knows, or how far does it deviate from a know pattern? Overall Effectiveness: how well does it do what it tries to do?
Sumnative assessments are better with multiple assessors. One composition in isolation can be difficult, but many are easier to compare. For multiple assignments, I like to grade things twice, once on their own, and on another day, comparing them to one another.
Like teaching someone to swim; you start by simply throwing them into the pool. Once they are swimming they will be in a better position to take guidance on lengthening their strokes and using more of their legs…once they have improvised something they like and want to remember, you can help them with notation.
A composer’s world is largely the sum of what music she/he has ever heard or played. Creativity is about choosing and combining different elements. The greater variety of music in their head, the more choices they have. Making sure they have a variety of good quality music to listen to is the most important thing one can do for a young composer.
Knowledge of music theory is not necessary to compose. The teaching of music theory should thus expand choices, not limit them. Theory, if taught at all, should always be taught in the context of a specific culture, style and historical era…always. To the point that theory explains what has been done it can be useful. To the point that it is presented what should be done it can be harmful.
There are basically two aspects to guide a composer, the technical and the aesthetic. I usually demand good notation (technical) but I prefer to merely suggest aesthetics to avoid influencing style.
Notation has two different purposes:
1) to remind the composer of what he did previously or sketch what she might do next. Scribbles and blank sheets of paper work well.
2) the means by which a composer communicates his/her ideas to a musician. Like technique to a performer good clear notation is like good clear writing. It is in part a mental discipline that should be insisted upon in the final stages of completing a work. Sketching out loose ideas before they are fully formed, however, should be encouraged.
On coaching the aesthetic, try to find out what is the composer/piece is trying to do. What is its character? Where does it go? What is the logic of the piece? Then all a composition teacher can do is suggest: “This is what would make it more effective to me.” “If it were my pieces I would try…” If it’s a happy piece, perhaps adding some staccatos and a faster tempo might help etc. If it’s a sad piece, perhaps adding more dissonance would make that come across better.
Be discerning if using music software
Creating music is about making choices, and a blank sheet of manuscript paper allows you infinite choice. Sound editing software can expand those choices but most others restrict choices, or worse, make them for you. Designing software is in fact by its very nature about allowing only a finite (limited) number of choices for what the programmer imagines most people will want to do. So there is always a trade off between ease of use and flexibility, and thus the range of creativity it allows, if any.
Imagine a software call u-compose: choose one of 7 background tracks, one of 7 chord progressions, one of 7 rhythms for the melody, the length (either 16, 32 or 48 bars) presses “go.” Is choosing numbers between 1-7 really a creative compositional exercise? Aren’t the compositional choices already made for the user before they started? Beginning with manuscript paper allows you to sketch out ideas before making decisions of rhythm/key/meter/instrument etc.
Assessment:
From the objective to the more subjective, here’s what I personally look for:
Basics: correctness of notation, level of, and attention to detail, amount of work, instrumentation: is it idiomatic for the instrument(s) intended.
Next level: continuity development of ideas, sophistication: does it do interesting things with material rather than just repeat it? Are there transpositions/inversions/octave displacements etc? Syntax (harmony): does it sound ‘right’ and ‘make sense’ to you? Structure: does it hold together, have contrasts (for longer pieces)? Originality/Predictability: how much does it look like/sound like something the composer already knows, or how far does it deviate from a know pattern? Overall Effectiveness: how well does it do what it tries to do?
Sumnative assessments are better with multiple assessors. One composition in isolation can be difficult, but many are easier to compare. For multiple assignments, I like to grade things twice, once on their own, and on another day, comparing them to one another.