Composing in the style of...

[Musicologo]

Well, along with my electroacoustic and pop music, I've been praticing composition studying the great masters. That's what I call "composing in the style of". I've read the arnold Schoenberg book on composition which is very useful, and some books on harmony and counterpoint.

Right now I'm able to do some Motets in the XV century style and working on Chorales in Bach Style.

However I feel lack of information on other master styles.

I tried to make a simple Sonata on Mozart style using the Noddy cartoon theme. You can have a glance at it here: http://www.myspace.com/tiagovideira it's the "Sonatina Noddy". I used very basic chord progressions and theme transformation and tried to respect the Sonata form. I also tried a Satie dance (Delicatesse), a more symphonic poem (A Universal), and a Debussy like prelude (My lil emo boy) and a Joplin rag (comic movie rag), but had great difficulty with those...

Now,
I would like to have more info and more "typical chord progressions" to be able to make more music on the style of:

1. Fugue like Bach
2. Sonata like Beethoven
3. Nocturne like Chopin
4. Prelude like Liszt
5. Prelude like Debussy
6. Symphonic poem like Stravinsky
7. Ragtime like Joplin

These are mainly my goals. I believe if we can master the techniques of past styles we can make better modern music, using those techniches whenever we want.

The XX century composers and the 2nd school of viena we already have plenty books and manuals on dodecafonism and serialism. It's "easy" to make that music.

So, who can post some "typical" chord progressions of these 7 styles above or links to books, sites and PDFs that contain info on this subject?

Comments and ideas on my already made music are also welcome.
Many thanks in advance.

[VicDiesel]

I would like to have more info and more "typical chord progressions" to be able to make more music on the style of:

1. Fugue like Bach

I dont' think that exists. For his preludes, sure; fugues, no. The chords change every 8th note almost, dictated by the polyphony. Everything in a fugue is driving by the polyphony. If you start by looking for chord progressions, you're on the wrong track.

Ok, Bach is open on the piano as I type this. Here's an arbitrary measure (WTC II of vol 1, measure 27):

Ab Fm Cm Dm(no 5) Cm/G Ddim7 Cm Dm(no 5)

A new chords every 8th note. Of course this is really Ab Cm/G in half notes, but if you were to hold those chords they'd be wrong half of the time.

Victor.

[Nystul]

I should leave this to people who know what they are talking about, but I have some thoughts on Joplin vs. your Comic Movie Rag. In terms of rhythm and syncopation, I think your rag is too safe; more like a European march with some rag influence than a Joplin rag. Joplin would really contrast the rock steady left hand part with a right hand that could emphasize any of the 8 notes in the measure whether they were downbeats, upbeats, or offbeats. You put "1-&a2e&- 1-&a2e&-" where Joplin might put something like "1e&a-e&- -e&a2-&a". He also uses the movement of the phrases in terms of pitch to create the syncopation at times. The highest note in the phrase will stand out, especially if it is unexpectedly off the beat.

You see some diminished chords in ragtime, especially creating a chromatic move in the bass line. To get from C to G or G7, Joplin might throw a C#dim in between and the bass line could go C, C#, D.

[llatham]

1. Fugue like Bach
2. Sonata like Beethoven
3. Nocturne like Chopin
4. Prelude like Liszt
5. Prelude like Debussy
6. Symphonic poem like Stravinsky
7. Ragtime like Joplin

I think what you're doing is admirable. But I think you may be doing yourself an injustice by not delving into each of these styles/genres more heavily. Instead of "composing like", it seems - at this point any way - you're doing more of "what are the cliches" that make X = X.

As another poster mentioned, Bach Fugues are about Counterpoint, not chord progressions. In order to *really* understand them, you need to understand at least two things - Counterpoint, and the form Fugue.

Beethoven Sonatas are insane. And you need to understand Motivic composition to understand Beethoven. What you might do is investigate the Sonatas of Haydn and Mozart (since they pre-figure Beethoven) and some of the smaller Sonatina forms like those by Clementi. But really, there are no "typical" chord progressions.

Beethoven himself was fond of Minor keys, especially C minor, as well as fond of using keys that were related by Chromatic Mediant.

Chopin Nocturnes too use the same simple chord progressions as B - I-V7-I, etc. What makes Chopin different from Beethoven is the way they "compose out" simple chord progressions. But both of these guys basically use I and V7 in alternation, progressions like I-VI-II-V-I and so on. Chopin Nocturnes typically feature an undulating, arpeggiated bass pattern, over which a "singing" melody with "flourishes" (fast note runs, or chromatic groupings, etc.) appears.

I am not so familiar with Lizst's Preludes, but I know that L was starting to use folk elements, things like the Overtone and Whole Tone scale, Augmented triads, and so on. The big thing about Lizts's Pianism is that it's extremely idiomatic to the instrument.

Debussy's Preludes are formally not unlike classical/romantic pieces - Voiles with it's ABA layout, etc. However, Debussy is using Whole Tone Scales, Pentatonic Scales, Modal Elements, and so on and so forth. These are more of "character pieces". YOu might think of his Preludes as "romantic music, with a twist" - and that twist is the very non-traditional melodic and harmonic materials he's using.

Stravinsky wrote no "Symphonic Poems" per se. That's Richard Strauss, et al. Stravinsky is famous for the Ballets "Firebird", "Petrushka" and "Rite of Spring", in addition to many famous later works. I would recommend you study those three ballets in order - they get progressively "more modern". But common elements are "melodic fragments" - especially from folk music melodies; chromatic moving harmony lines, polytonality, etc.

There are no "chord progressions" in Stravinsky. Thinking of his music in those terms will yield nothing helpful. In fact, even for Debussy or Liszt, thinking about "chord progressions" is still not very helpful, especially if you're trying to find "typical" ones.

look, "art" music is not "pop" music. Pop music does rely heavily on "chord progression" as a structural technique. Unfortunately, too many people do not realize that art music - even though it has chord progressions - is not built structurally in the same way. You will not fully understand this music until you can set aside "chordal" thinking for a while, and look at how line (horizontal) interacts with harmony (vertical) to produce the results you hear. In other words, you're only getting 33% of the picture, which is why you're having a little trouble with these.

I think the other poster covered Ragtime pretty well, and though there are some more "typical" progressions - it being a popular form - still, studying all of Joplin will be much more informative than just trying to find one element of many that's "typical", and try to make a piece out of it.

But you're certainly on the right track!

HTH,
Steve

[sockofgold]

Sometimes... Just when I think that nobody on KVR is ever going to talk about anything other than Deadmau5 or Justice ever again, I come across a really in-depth music theory discussion like this or the one on Neaopolitan chords a while back, and it impresses me. To think that there are people on KVR discussing the differences between Chopinic chord progressions and Beethovenic chord progressions just tickles me pink. Good times. Thanks for the good read.

[Sixofour]

I think people go into it too much. The difference between Bach and Mozart, is utterly minor compared to Classic Western and Traditional Chinese, or Traditional Indian. It would be nice to see discussions about those...Western Classical isn't the only music in the world.

I think those kinds of discussions don't take place because non-western music theory is rarely if ever taught in the west, and so many don't know about it.

For chord progression, art is the ability to make your own, why copy what someone else did?Isn't asking for the chord progressions of mozart, the same as asking for the bass sound in tiestos latest track? What IS the difference?

[deastman]

Isn't asking for the chord progressions of mozart, the same as asking for the bass sound in tiestos latest track? What IS the difference?

I see this as something more along the lines of a college course on "Understanding Classical Music". By understanding the differences between the styles of the great composers of the western tradition, one can push their own creativity in different ways. Comparing this task to copying a simple bassline from a trance song really trivializes the complexity of western classical music.

[terragong]

maybe helpfull
http://webplaza.pt.lu/mbarnig/pages/dicemus.html

[Sixofour]

That was the point, to trivialize Western Classical Music. The things you find in classical music are not new for their time, or even original. Comparativly speaking. Western Classical music is not very old. not even a thousand years old. You have traditional Indian, Chinese, and Arabian music theory that surpasses anything western by several thousand years. If you want to see the big picture, imho, it would be better to study the roots of music. If you want to do as you say and compare classical music to better your self.

I find it disheartening that people consider classical western the be all end all of music, the epitomy even.

[standalone]

" Structural Functions of Harmony " by Arnold Schoenberg , Faber & Faber .

[frederik D]

Well, I'm not going to tell that western music is end or the epitomy of all music, but still I think it is very relevant to talk about the differences between composers as Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Stawinsky and so on. IMHO it is even a bit ridiculous to throw in vague claims about music from different traditions to suggest that "they weren't inventive", or to suggest they were like "thousand years behind"...
Of course it can be refreshing to look at other traditions to see the western tradition in perspective, but this never can rule out the relevance of the study of the internal evolutions in the western tradition.

To return to the original subject: I think Steve is spot on. Much from the music in the classical tradition can't be regarded as a chord progression with a melody put on top (later on). The western classical tradition has a lot to do with "theme's", or musical motives that drive and structure a piece, with the fugue as the most extreme example (and thus the most difficult to achieve if one doesn't start from the right basis). Of course those motives can't be seperated from a certain kind of harmonical progression, but the point is that these progressions aren't schemes wich are later furnished by some melody that comes on top.

For example: a theme from a fugue builds the harmony of the piece, out the combinations of it's own (dux and comes) and counterthemes. This is what makes it so hard to compose a fugue: you should compose a theme that results in an acceptable and interesting harmonical evolution. Trust me: you won't get it done by throwing a melody on top of a chord scheme. So how then should you do it - well, I'm the first to admit that I can't give you an exact answer myself. Only things like: study the roules of counterpoint, and study the Bach fugues to figure out how one can build a theme that has "fugal potential".

The other examples you summed up may seem less hard from a theoretical point of view, but musical wise they are just as hard. The challenge to compose a Beethoven like sonata is huge. Here you'd have to compose material that leads to a big unity, with a certain formal logic just as well, but with a unique sense of musical tension that continues and evolves over several minutes. You can't do this by simply repeating a chord progression, that's for sure.

A "typical" chopin piano piece doesn't follow as many formal rules as a fugue or a Beethoven sonata (chopin wrote some sonata's too, but I'll ignore them here), and scheme-wise a lot of chopin pieces could be regarded as simple ABA, or ABA'-forms. And you can indeed as steve pointed out find quite common progressions in his pieces - but there are some harmonical twists too, or more uncommon evolutions (modulations). The subtlety, and the difficulty for those who try to imitate him lies in the combination of freely flowing melodies and the evolving bass part, the later indeed often in arpeggiated bass patterns (but mind you: those arpeggiated figures are already far more then a simple diabelli-bass!).

And the others: well, things don't get a lot easier there.

This all been said: I respect your try to achieve different results and goals when composing, whether or not as some study to achieve your own style later on.

frederik

[jancivil]

until you get to say Debussy, what's been done previous to that I don't think much applies to music you'd do today, if you are really trying to make 'modern music', anything relevant.
It might be useful to see what happened in music history to know what Debussy and Stravinsky et al were revolting against...

A good class in what we used to call Form and Analysis might be in order; looking at something you choose, such as a JS Bach suite, and describing the counterpoint and harmony and how he got those materials and the whole architecture together, yes. Which would take some grounding in the disciplines of harmony and counterpoint etc.

But 'composing like' fill-in-the-blanks... I honestly see as a huge time-waster unless you just want to perpetuate 'fill-in-the-blanks'. You won't get real close unless you focus in on a 'school', specifically. ... and then, what, you're a clone of a school; when you could have done something more reasonable, and figured out something towards your own voice in the meantime.

[Ogg Vorbis]

Comments and ideas on my already made music are also welcome.
Many thanks in advance.

I think trying to compose in the style of various masters is a very worthwhile pursuit that is undervalued in music. Painters spend entire years copying the masters as a part of their learning, but somehow composers are supposed to "find their own voice" straight out of the gate.

But we often look at the music of the past through modern lenses. Therefore we sit down and try to figure out what "chord progression" Haydn may have had in mind when writing a certain string quartet, etc.

The problem is that Haydn and the old masters didn't study Jean Philip Rameau's approaches to harmony the way modern western culture does today. He studied counterpoint.

People ususally confuse the terms "counterpoint" to equate with polyphony. Counterpoint does not describe texture, it describes relationships of notes within the context of consonance and dissonance.

So I always try to caution musicians not to try to get into Beethoven's head as if he were a pop guitarist. If you said, "Hey Ludwig, I loved how you threw in that dm7 right before you went to the five chord and jammed out in the dominant," he would not know what the hell you were talking about (nor could he hear you).

Luckily the more we modern cats study counterpoint, the more insight we have into pop, jazz and rock as well. And learning from the old masters can not hurt a jazz pianist or an electronic DJ

[duncanparsons]

If you said, "Hey Ludwig, I loved how you threw in that dm7 right before you went to the five chord and jammed out in the dominant," he would not know what the hell you were talking about (nor could he hear you).

almost spilt my beer with that one!

DSP

[nuffink]

That was the point, to trivialize Western Classical Music. The things you find in classical music are not new for their time, or even original. Comparativly speaking. Western Classical music is not very old. not even a thousand years old. You have traditional Indian, Chinese, and Arabian music theory that surpasses anything western by several thousand years. If you want to see the big picture, imho, it would be better to study the roots of music. If you want to do as you say and compare classical music to better your self.

I find it disheartening that people consider classical western the be all end all of music, the epitomy even.

That's simply rubbish. Chordal harmony is a product of western classical music. And it isn't a decoration tacked on, it's a completely different dimension in music.
You might well subscribe to the somewhat fashionable view that some other ethnic musical traditions are aesthetically superior, but don't kid yourself that they're based on any kind of theory that surpasses western classical by several thousand years. There's no music so theorised as classical. The depth, breadth and scope of western musical theory is enormous.