Transitions

Often what distinguishes merely competent melodicists from experts is their ability to create interesting transitions. We are going to talk about a few of the techniques that can change you from merely good to excellent. Sometimes a transition is its own little section which can range anywhere from a single beat on up to 8 measures or anywhere in between. Lengthier transitions with hard boundaries would more properly be defined as interludes or diversions.
Some transitions contain their own melodic material, use material already presented, utilize upcoming material, or both. And this begins to blur the boundary where one section starts and the other begins.

If you want to delay the presentation of the melody in the next section, one technique the composer can use is to copy and repeat a fragment of the last phrase to lengthen it, so that the phrase doesn’t end where the listener expects. The composer can also perhaps transpose the fragment on each repeat. This is more properly an extension than a self contained transition but the effect on the listener is the same. It contains some melodic or rhythmic tension creating the expectation that more music is to come and helps freshen the listener’s palette. Perhaps it could be inserted between a verse and chorus that have already been repeated one time so that the chorus doesn’t start where the listener expected it, adding a bit more entertainment value to their experience, mitigating the boredom of repeating things exactly as before and keeping your listener focused on your music. Here is an example.





Another simple transition is to present some of the material prior to the arrival of the rest of the material such as playing a new accompaniment for maybe 1,2 or 4 measures before the melody returns, either presenting the old melody again in this new setting or creating an entirely new melody.

A transitional technique that does not create its own defined section of the music is the use of elision. Elision is when one melody starts just as the previous one ends. Below is an example.





The method of overlapping the previous melody with the next to some degree is another technique. Below is one way it could be played out.





We could have started with the triangle phrase instead which would have let the square phrase have the final say. That may have been better since it ends on a strong rhythmic position but only if you hear the tonic pitch as F. Ending on D as I've done above forces the ear to accept D as the tonic pitch.

An interesting way of creating a transition is to switch between parts of the previous phrase and parts of the upcoming phrase like this:





I chose to alternate on every beat starting with the triangle phrase because this produces the least number of leaps only jumping a fifth between a beat from the square phrase to a beat from the triangle phrase between the second and third beat of the third measure. If I had started with the square phrase, it would have come to a screeching halt on the triangle phrase's quarter note containing pitch D but it doesn't occur repeatedly and it occurs near the end (on the first beat of the fourth measure) and is a natural resting place to interrupt the technique to end the phrase because we don't want to be mindlessly or heartlessly adhering to a technique. The technique is there to serve the ends of the composer. The reason the composer is there should not be to serve the ends of the technique.

The natural evolution of this method is to reduce the length of the previous phrase until it is phased out completely. Here I continually add more of the end of the triangle phrase until all of the square phrase is completely replaced.





I could have started with the square phrase first but that creates even greater leaps in the melody although the intervals it produces are less offensive than the leap of a seventh that occurs between measures six and seven that was presented above. Of more concern to me was the constant stall in the rhythm that is created by stopping on the single quarter note coinciding with pitch D in the triangle rhythm followed by a quarter note rest before the phrase can finish.

Another transition is to interrupt in the middle of a repeating phrase.

Music That Accelerates From 0-60 p.5

One thing that can be done with additive and subtractive techniques are to create transitions between sections by shortening the last repeat of a section by one beat or whatever because polyrhythmic music has traditionally used rhythm as a structural element rather than harmonic considerations which is another aspect whose stranglehold post-postmoderns are trying to escape. This also helps break up the authority of form which people in the postmodern era have been trying to do but all too often wound up facing 180 degrees and embracing formlessness. 180 degrees of sick is still sick.

180 degrees of burning up is freezing cold. The resulting chaos is something else I do not wish to recreate. Having transitions between sections helps get away from the 3 1/2 minute radio format and 15 second attention span of the verse, verse, chorus, verse, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus of the pop song and the AABA jazz form (when lengthened much becomes quite boring) without succumbing to the formless hour long pieces sometimes found in minimalism.

The historical precedent in the western world for a longer music with transitions, known as the long form, is found in big band arrangements and musical theater although, there, the music isn't rhythmically shortened to make transitions which is more akin to African music.

In Thailand, sometimes the gongs are played in a manner where the parts of the rhythm on beats 2 and 4 would be played the first time through, then the complete rhythm would be played on the next repeat, now including the rhythmic events on beats 1 and 3 also. This is an additive technique. I like this because it is a way to achieve more with less which is similar to minimalism.

Minimalim was mostly just a reaction to modernism. It was primarily based on deconstruction, on negating what went before. Unlike most minimalists, we should know why we're doing additive/subtractive procedures.

I want to avoid elitist music and, more importantly, move toward having several easy parts that don't require very much memorization to learn. I would like music to bring people together in performance not just professional musicians. Good teachers and manuals only introduce 1 new element at a time.

They only add on what is absolutely necessary to what a person already knows one step at a time. Additive procedures are one way to accomplish this educational goal of connecting to a person's prior knowledge. It can be intuitive and user friendly as opposed to counter intuitive and difficult.

I'd like to avoid some of the separation of the audience and performers. I think additive/subtractive procedures help facilitate that.

Another competing force is that the music needs to be likeable. Music does not have to pander to the adolescent 15 second attention span and 3 minute radio format like Britney Spears, yet not stretch the attention so far that it breaks as did early minimalism. Music does not need to sound so different that it alienates the audience.