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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