How Pros Compose Number Two

Scales also have well-formedness. They usually have 5 or 7 notes, not 4 or 6. 5 is a bit simple, the chromatic is a bit complex so, we mostly like 7 even if some of the notes are microtonal but most people are having none of this 31 divisions of the octave stuff etc... that computer music programmers are spewing out.


In Berklees book on melody writing it says the Chorus often starts on a "consonant" sounding place e.g. the downbeat. And ends in a position that feels final. Thats different for a 2 measure phrase than it is for a 4 measure phrase.

In a 2 measure phrase, (if I remember correctly) thats the third beat of the second measure.

In a 4 measure phrase thats the first beat of the 4th measure. I'll check my the book later to be certain.

Of course there are different places where you can end or start a chorus for sure and they all have different feelings of how much rhythmic "consonance" or finality there is.

The second most restful place for a 2 measure phrase to end is the first beat of the second measure etc..

Another point they brought up is that its often important to contrast starting and ending points between the sections. If the chorus starts on the downbeat then the verse shouldn't unless you have a reason for starting on the downbeat again such as its dance music or groove music or your mitigating that with a change of instrumentation or whatever.

You can also contrast melodic rhythms between sections or phrases. Long held notes on the chorus and shorter note values for the verse.

Or contrast phrase lengths within or between sections.

4bar phrase in the chorus 2 bar phrase in the verse or two 2bar phrases followed by a 4 bar phrase in the verse.

These are NOT the only possibilities.

Further, the consequent phrase within a section often reaches a greater height, has a wider leap, gives a greater dynamic or, or, or, etc...

Of course I'm sure you're aware of contrasting melodic outline between sections as well.

If you've got an upward curve in the verse then perhaps the chorus is a flatline or a descending line.

Varying your starting note is another tool. Does the chorus star on 1? Then the verse might start on a less stable note such as 2, 4, 6, 7, b2, ..4, b6, b7. This is also affected by what chord is playing in the chorus.

These hints have helped me make better melodies.

In fact another one of my article reads said that pro musicians had a rhythmic concept behind their melody writing and amateurs didn't and only thought about a string of notes. Shit, most music just walks up and down the scale by neighbor notes. That aspect is hardly important most of the time for pop and rock music.

Another observation about classical music which surely applies to pop as well; An article on computer based music composition said that, after analyzing 1000s of classical compositions, the nostrum about hitting the climax only once was an old wives tale. That rule was broken so often that it could hardly be called a rule. The other old wives tale was reversing direction after a leap. Once I tried to follow that rule on everything I wrote and it was all crap. Lesson; don't believe everything your told.

Last thing; one technique is that the climax is approached by walking up the scale by step, the climax is a held or a repeated note and then leaps down or visa versa e.g. it leaps up then walks down. an example of the second is the foreign language part of "All Night Long" by Lionel Richie;

Jumbolitae Setemoya. Yeah Jambo Jambo. Way to Party Oh we goin, Oh Jambola. Jambolitae Setemoya (leap up)Yeah Jambo Jambo (Held) Yeah TEXT. All Night Long etc...

Musical Patterns Two

My Korean composition professor, who is a big fan of Eastern European classical music especially the Polish composer Lutoslavski, told me to write ALL of my rhythms for classical music using the golden mean/fibonacci series in a certain way. Where, for example, 3/4s of the way through there was some variety within two measures. Then again at 3/4s through 4 measures which includes the first two already discussed. And again at 3/4s through 8 measures.

Anyway, if you’re so inclined to search for meaning within mathematical "systems", I came across this page which has about 147 number sequences 1/3rd of the way down the page.

http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/Seis.html

Here is another one with probably thousands:

http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/Sindx_Aa.html

Not all of them seem musically useful to me and I only looked at the one’s with an asterisk which are supposed to be frequently resorted to by mathematicians making them more important in the math world.

How to translate these into musically meaningful ideas will be the topic of the next posts in this thread.

One definition of a pattern is: a succession of local similarities.

Pattern recognition software such as speech recognition, or face recognition use some of the same things we’ll be talking about here. There is also software for identifying patterns within music, which can be difficult because sometimes a repetition of a pattern is so altered that it could just as easily be defined as a new pattern.

They usually say that musical patterns are based on contour, pitches and rhythm. Once a pattern is identified, the third repetition of a pattern can be found merely from it’s contour even if the melodic and rhythmic aspects are significantly distorted.

A note or group of notes make poorly perceptible patterns only when they cannot be related to more salient patterns. Simple suffixes and prefixes of patterns cannot be considered new patterns.

The importance of a pattern within the music is a product of it’s length and the frequency of it’s recurrence. Another musical pattern they talk about is that the degree of slowing reflects the importance of a boundary. So, if either you’re playing a longer note such as a whole note at the end of a tune, that usually signifies it’s the most important boundary in the composition, or if the tune is performing a ritardando after the climax and approaching the final pitch and rhythmic event.

Some of the most basic patterns in music are if a note begins and ends a piece.

If it’s in a metrically important position, is louder than the rest and if it’s accented.

If it has a long duration and if it’s repeated.

If it’s the highest lowers or pivotal within a defining pattern.

Or a member of the harmonic relations, octave, fifth or fourth even if they are only consecutive.

More complex patterns would be motifs, antecedent phrases, consequent phrases, and sections.

Expert and Rule Basic Music Composition Systems

One possible music composition flow chart



the computer based music composition systems have rules for the computer to follow such as; the more frequently you rise to the next pitch from the last one, the more likely it is that you will come back down. Mostly, the results all hover around an idealized optimum and lack variety. There are also ways to test the output of rule based systems for fitness but those systems never fool anyone into thinking the music was made by a person.

One observation about classical music which applies to pop styles as well is that, after analyzing 1000s of classical compositions, the nonsense about hitting the climax only once is more frequently broken than not. That rule was broken so often that it could hardly be called a rule. The other nostrum was reversing direction after a leap.