Musical Composition

Teachings by Anna Merideth

Let's look at musical line through the ages; starting with (this is all so basic its bellow GCSE)

Renaissance

This music was early so it is mainly vocal and sacred. It is sung by monks, who aren't the best singers around (well maybe at the time.) The notation is conjunct and scalic. The monks sing in unison as they did not like harmonizing at this point in history. If the music ever made a jump, the note that was skipped would then be included after. Breathing time is included at the end of phrases and at the end of every phrase the music would return to the tonic. There was no polyphony at this point, only homophonic.

Baroque

Baroque reflects the architecture of the time. It is very decorative, yet the fundamentals are very simple. Baroque is always based on a scale or arpeggio, then it is decorated. "Autumn" from the "Four Seasons" by Vivaldi has the same line played constantly until he milks it to death.

Classical

4 bar phrases, antecedent and consequent. It is full of rules of etiquette and politeness. Sharpened 7ths state that we are modulating to either the dominant / sub-dominant.

Romantic

Romanticism came after Beethoven who did not care whether he had an audience or not, the music was for himself. People tried to catch on though as they thought of Beethoven as a man who's work and self would echo throughout eternity (isn't that true?) The Romantics had simple ideas wound up with virtuosity, thus making it a lot like Baroque. The baselines are commonly very simple. it sounds complicated, but it isn't. Schubert is a good example of masking his simple ideas with extremely fast flourishes that make it seem hard. Th intervals grow larger also in Romantic music, now we find intervals far bigger than 5ths and 6ths.

20th Century Composition

After the Classical era when composers where seen only as craftsmen who composed for occasions and instead were seen as geniuses they were cared for. Wagner made his own Tuba especially for his work called "The Wagner Tuba."

The 2nd Viennese School brought Serialism. Now all 12 semi tones were equal, there was no tonic. Instead, serialists used a grid to make compositions, it as all maths orientated.

Minimalism, Steve Reich is a pioneer in Minimalism. He has used 4 beat against 5 beat to make an out of sync composition that after 20 bars (4 x 5 = 20 yeah?) comes back into sync again.

you must start analyzing now (note to self btw.)

Composing Phrases

A and B phrases. (Music has never been so damn simple)

Repetition is the key yeah?

Here are some classic repetitions in line;

• AABC
• AAAB
• ABAB
• AABA

These are rhythmic structures. Some examples of these rhythmic structures are;

• Jingle Bells : AABC
• Good King Wenslus : ABAB
• Millenium by Robbie Williams : AAAB
• Land of Hope and Glory : ABAC
• Take on Me : AABC
• Tender by Blur: ABAB (possibly C)

Add some more.

Sequence

Ever heard Ding Dong Merrily on high? That has as descending sequence when you sing Glooorrrr-oorrr-orr-orr-orr-orr-orrrrrr-orr-orr-orr-orr-orrrr-orr-orr-orr-orr-orr-orrrrrriar

etc, that's a descending sequence. Another example of a sequence is in Muse's "Plug In Baby"

Plug in Baby

The rhythmic and melodic structure for the hook/riff at the beginning of the piece is AAAB.

The A is made out of a conjunct rising sequence and the B a a descent to get back to the tonic. That's all fine, but don't we hear it again and again? Yes, but in this order AABA. This is a rhythmic structure, only extended into instead of a 4 bar phrase, a 4 by 4 phrase / 16 bar phrase. We can go further and include the preceding section and look at that. It is exactly the same structure as "Take on Me" by A-ha for the first section, only is includes the riff just before the second chorus unlike Take on Me.

Intro - Hook/Riff - Verse - Chorus - Riff - Verse - Chorus - Middle 8 (virtuosic singing with riff underlining it.) - Riff - Outro

Take On Me another chorus and verse at the end of the middle 8 with a slight modification at the beginning of the 3rd verse in that the pitches are inverted at the beginning of the verse. We then go to the 3rd chorus that is slightly modified and then an outro.

Each song has as recorgnizable riff/hook because they have something strange and peculiar about them. "Plug in Baby" contains chromaticism, "Take on Me" has a descending arpeggio that is made up of sharps that are not normally used in Pop Music to this extent.

Somewhere Over The Rainbow

ABAB. It's memorable because it begins with an octave jump, not many tunes start with a leap this large. The range get narrowed down from oct, 6th, 5th and then 3rd. The rhythm has been imitated throughout the piece, the range of notes has been narrowed.

We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Just like Plug in Baby, We Wish You Merry Christmas contains an ascending sequence and a syllable count that can be divided by a multiple of 4.

These are quite common, but not as common as track names with an odd syllable number. This is because odd syllables go into 4/4, 4 bar phrases, etc with the ability to give syllables different note lengths. This gives larger choice to give a decent melody to them and adds more variety.

Compositional Devices

A list of things you can use to make your composition great:

• Repetition (Taking excerpts and putting them into repeat)
• Contrast
• Development
• Transposing (Sequence and modulation)
• Decoration (Baroqueness)
• Sequence / imitation
• Augmentation (This can lead to beyond 4 bar phrases)
• Diminution (You can make it 2/3 as fast or half the speed.)
• Extension
• Destruction
• Inversion
• Reduction