Whether you’re just starting out at composing or have been writing music for decades, improving your composing skills can help you find greater technical mastery, artistic fulfillment, and career success. Deliberately developing your composing skills is especially important if you’re not yet as good of a composer as you hope to be (which describes most […]
Continue readingCategory: Wizarding School for Composers
Why I Founded a “Wizarding School for Composers”
Because SOMEBODY had to. Someone had to demystify the magic of how to give audiences goosebumps — without the usual handwringing about “style” and “voice” and “am I good enough?” and “great music is only for geniuses.” Someone had to cut through the cynicism, jadedness, and ignorance that too many musicians use as a way […]
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Flow like Water: Developing a Professional Creative Process
Last week, I wrote about the two fluencies that professional composers must have: technique and process. Professional composers generally all achieve a baseline of technical fluency. Many, especially those in media music, also develop a reliable process fluency. Without both fluencies, you can’t be like Michael Giacchino, for instance, and take on a project like Rogue […]
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The Two Fluencies Professional Composers Must Have
All composers began as amateurs. You wrote music, with no or minimal training, because you loved it. Sure, being an amateur had its frustrations. It often took you a forever of fumbling to find the figures you imagined. But that earnest stumbling was part of the fun. In the end, simply hearing your music and […]
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How Composers Used To — and Could — Be Trained
Anyone who has studied music history knows that musicians have been theorizing about music for millennia. However, that theory has not always served as the basis for musical training. In particular, many classical composers did not learn “music theory” as contemporary musicians typically understand it. Reconstructing how composers used to be taught has been a major facet […]
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What I Wish Someone Told Me about Music Theory
[Ed. — After publishing this post, I discovered that many readers were misreading my intent and were unfamiliar with the background of my critique. Accordingly, I added and tweaked several paragraphs below and wrote an additional post. New readers may want to start by reading that subsequent post, “How Composers Used To — and Could […]
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Hymn Arrangement Study Party, Part 2: Workshop Replay (10/05/21)
Here are the highlights from the above replay: Part 1 — Simple Harmonization 0:00: Essentials of chords — Blocked, Broken/Arpeggiated, Inverted, Embellished Arpeggiations, and Embellished Blocks 6:55: How (nearly) all tonal melodies embellish the tonic chord, with “If I Listen With My Heart” as a specific example (audio on YouTube) 10:50: The “quick and dirty” method […]
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Hymn Arrangement Study Party, Part 1: Workshop Replay (9/28/21)
Here are the highlights from the above replay: 0:00: Welcome, Introductions, and Reviewing Ryan Murphy’s arrangement of “If I Listen With My Heart.” See — Sally DeFord’s Original Version PDF Ryan Murphy’s Arrangement PDF Tabernacle Choir recording (YouTube) 11:20: How DeFord makes her melody easy to remember using Rhythmic Motives 20:00: Introduction to “Melodic Voices” […]
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Musical Variation Is Like a Good Set of Kitchen Knives
Variation in music is like having a good set of kitchen knives. If you use them properly, cooking becomes easy and fun . . . If you use them carelessly, somebody loses a finger . . . Likewise, in composing music, variation is NOT inherently valuable. How you use it makes the difference between Giving […]
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Fact: Your Brain Thinks Music Is a Horror Film
Strange but true: As far as your body is concerned, all great music is the equivalent of a horror film. “Takes my breath way,” “held me spellbound,” “gave me goosebumps”—these are the physical reactions we crave in music. These reactions are also literally our physiological fear responses. How does music transform our fears into pleasure? […]
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