Composition 1:

How do we Start?

If you give everybody an orchestra the same pitch, its going to sound beautiful. Orchestra
sounds beautiful all the time. All you really have to do is not screw it up

Get your head thinking differently

How to get first note on the page:

- Start with F Sharp

- The notes don’t matter until they have context
- Try going from there
- Can be simple: don’t need to be complicated
- Continue f# until the note starts materializing

Program Music and Metaphor

- Program Music
o Program to the music (Story)
o Ex. Jack and Jill (one melody for each
o Going down the hill – scale going down
o Percussion – increase intensity hurt
- Metaphor
o What timeline you use to create your story in the music
- How can you do it in a way that audience knows what’s talking about? You can’t
- Or usually you give the story/ program before doing the story
- Ex. Timeline of Jay lmao

Character Sketches

- Using metaphor
- Ex. Luke Skywalker
o What would his music be like? His theme music? Music should be similar to what his
journey is.
o First part: Naïve sound/ innocence . Gets more aggressive, but use same theme along
the development of the theme
- Sets you up to write a Suite of music
- Try: get/create a story and create music for it

Free Writing

- Generating Ideas: finding a process for you when you are getting started
- Rely purely on imagination
Canon

- Round singing like

- General sound tells us what is in the melody
- Lets you explore the melody; what chords, what it sounds like etc.

Form

- Overall structure or plan of a piece of music, and it describes the layout of a composition as
divided into sections
- Depends on statemenet and restatement, unity and variety, and contrast and connection
- Musical Architecture (Shape of the piece) && Contrast (what makes music interesting)
- Contrast (ex. Chorus: big and loud, verse quieter)

-
- Form of the piece is: A-B-A-B’-A-C
- Audience like to hear a clear form
- Makes our lives a bit easier lmao

Different form “templates”

- Through Composed form

o A-B-C-D-E-F-G - …
o Not ideal (because audience like a recollection moment)
o Usually boring to listen to
- Binary Form
o A–B
- Ternary Form
o A–B–A
 o Most common kind of music
- Rondo Form
o A–B–A–C–A–D-…
o Start and end in A
o Familiar Stuff keep coming back
o Fun to write
- Know before you write what form you are trying to write

Starting with a Plan

- Start of thinking of a form

- Describe each Section (ex. A section: melodic with a major-key melody, and simple harmonies
(triads); B section: Texture oriented (contrast to melody) (Might not hear melody as most
primary thing) (rhythm or groove or feel), minor key melody, and simple harmonies (triads))
- Melody would be ideal to have some kind of relation with melody of A section

-
-