Overall Key Points in Rhythm Part 1 of Composing Music 1

Overall Key Points in Rhythm Part 1 of Composing Music 1 (Checklist & Exploratory Focus)

After finishing project 1 I have decided to have a quick look to the full material in the course book in Part 1 before continuing in detail with each of the projects in Part 1. Being quite new to music composition I can see there are quite a few interesting concepts in Part 1 that I can start playing with as I go throughout all projects. Below is a quick list of key concepts/focus to keep in mind as I wrote more music or comment on music in my listening log:

-         Composition Structure, idea, setting: Consider concepts such as visual/emotional ideas, mood, tempo (metronome marks), time signature (explore single and compound and variable metre introduced by Blacher) and structure before starting to write music by defining different sections with a function with an approx. time to fit overall length. Allow enough time to establish patterns in the listerner’s mind that are memorable before disrupting or change them. Typical pattern (A/B-C-B/A-Closing (A or B or C)).

-         Tempo & Dynamics: Indications of speed (quickly/slowly) and dynamics (loudly, softly, cresc., etc) (expression text and lines), accents, etc are extremely important even while structuring the composition and the same piece can become a lot better by spending the right time on these elements.

-         Instrument Selection: Choose instruments based on their timbre depending on the type of music that is being written (metallic/wooden/membrane for percussion and additionally strings and wind instruments for melodies). Each instrument has a different timbre because the sound wave is more complex than just a perfect sinusoidal waves and has a compounded textures. Watch out notation of rests on a music sheet if instruments have long resonance.

-         Adornments: Tremolos, acciaccatura, appoggiatura and other adornments depending on instrument.

-         About the Composition Itself.

o       Keep each piece focus on a single theme for it to feel structural balance.

o       Melodic or Rhythm lines can create an interesting conversation, one of them have the function to accompany the other one or both to accompany a melodic line (combining two rhythms into one can be very easy and effective)

o       Better short and interesting than long and boring.