From: tankus@hsi.com (Ed Tankus)
Subject: Re: Music composition
Keywords: music, composition, how?
Organization: 3M Health Information Systems, Wallingford CT
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 11:02:30 GMT

In article <Bw308A.98@news.iastate.edu> jsturges@iastate.edu (Jason L Sturges) writes:
> The information in the previous article about Music composition (807 from
>fields) is quite good but may be hard to understand.  You've only been playing
>for 1 - 2 years, and you're doing music composition?  That's quite impressive.
>
> This is a little more simplistic - it's personal for me, and may not work
>for everyone.  But I'd like to share it in hope that it's helpful for you, or
>perhaps someone else.  Everyone seems to ask "How do you compose music?"  
>Well, here it goes!
>

[...]

>
> I guess that the second thing I would suggest comes in your head when you're
>thinking the melody.  I don't know about you, but when I started thinking out
>melodies and tones in my head, sometimes I was just thinking rhythms and 
>not the actually pitch.  I mean, I was imagining where the note was, but I 
>wasn't hearing it.  This is really hard to describe.  Try this: think a melody
>in your head... can you tell which notes go up and which notes go down from 
>the previous?  Do you hear the pitches change, or are you just pulsating the
>rhythm and thinking some imaginative magic note over and over again?  If you
>try this, you may understand what I mean.  If you're sitting at the keyboard
>lost with your melody, you definitely know what I mean.  So, just don't hear
>your melody being played.  Take each individual note and listen to each pitch.
>Hear it's placement exactly and relate it to other notes.  If you can't hear
>the melody exactly as it is in your head, you'll never find it on the keyboard
>no matter how hard you try.
>

 I'm a lyricist but I really don't play.  I usually write lyrics based
 on some other melody, harmony, or bass line I've heard.  I'll actually 
 work with various musicians to work out the progressions, etc.  and 
 the final transcriptions.  However, before I get to this stage, I take 
 my magic melody and sing it into a dubbing cassette deck.  This does 
 several things for me:

	1)  Let's me hear my melody out loud many times so I know 
            if it's "junk" or worthwhile pursuing.

	2)  Let's me hear the words and music together and make 
            adjustments in either.

	3)  Write *very* precise lyric sheets indicating breaks,
            bridges, etc.

	4)  Accurately convey what I want to the people with whom I'm
            collaborating.

	5)  Get the comments from friends family on the composition's
            value to them.  Would you buy this?  Why? Why not? etc.

[...]
            
>
> One more important thing - never sit there are say "I'm not leaving this
>piano until I come up with a composition."  This attitude never works.  
>Some morning I get up really wanting to write, but it doesn't come out, so I
>wait until it does.  Sometimes it's later in the day, or sometimes I have
>to wait until tomorrow.  At the most extreme, sometimes I'm out of it
>for a week or so.  You must feel imspired naturally, and not make threats.
>
>
>							-- Jason Sturges

  I'm still working on a piece I started 11 years ago.  I think if I
  forced myself to sit and write, and I have when frustrated, I would
  *still* to be trying to write this song while none of the others I
  have written since would have ever come out.

 -- Ed. 

-- 
"For every word, there is a song upon which inspiration lies ...". 
- or:  "Leave the programming to others but give the hammer to me"
Ed Tankus.   {uunet,yale}!hsi!tankus -- OR -- tankus@hsi.com
Newsgroups: rec.music.compose