Good book on composing?

[Kinh]

Shit, why do you want a book for?

[fmr]

You have here what seems like a great source of material: http://alanbelkinmusic.com/site/en/inde ... ny-course/

It's classically oriented, but, IMO, composition is composition, and the basis are always the same. He also has several books in PDF, that cover all aspects, including harmony, musical form, orchestration, etc., here: http://alanbelkinmusic.com/site/en/inde ... ical-form/

All this is for free. Alan Belkin is really a generous soul, and must have a strong passion for music, so m,uch that he feels the need to share it with everybody. Deserves all my respect.

[Aloysius]

[jancivil]

What about an analysis of the music of The Beatles? Learn by example?

If you want to say that talent can't be taught, fine. A person can't learn from a book to make GOOD music, fine. But it seems a little dismissive and condescending to suggest that one can't learn about common chord progressions, song structure, and how to embellish the basic concepts. I'm sure there must be books like that, and if there aren't... well, there's a perfect hole in the market for someone to fill.

When I was 14, I took as much as I could off of Abbey Road, I mean the piano parts, all the guitar parts, the bass parts, the harmony parts, everything I could hear on my crummy stereo.

I never suggested such a thing, in fact I said:

What you can do, however is look for material on form, on linear writing in polyphony or counterpoint and some courses in part writing in order to get the chops a composer uses together.

and offered some stories out of life, where no one was taught 'how to compose' (or how to write or how to make a film or anything. You do the thing if you're driven to, in fact you can hardly help but to do it. If you're not, well that to me speaks for itself.). I'm not acting as a gatekeeper, just talking about the real world a little.

'Hole in the market', I doubt it, probably many people recognizing a market and promoting the con.

[jancivil]

There are surely people that understand all of these components but when it comes down to it, they're not a composer and it doesn't happen.

Again, where I saw people taking composition in school, they were in school having demonstrated they were composing. John Cage studied with Schoenberg; did Schoenberg teach him to compose or was it something more subtle?

[Michael L]

There are surely people that understand all of these components but when it comes down to it, they're not a composer and it doesn't happen.

this is an Inconvenient Truth; blogs will rarely tell you to go offline and listen for your own unique love, but will instead recommend the best search engine

[jancivil]

[Musicologo]

Although I agree that building a musical practice that emerges naturally from your own socio-cultural context, is the norm, this often implies a very slow learning curve filled with trial and error.
I'd say that reading other people stories CAN indeed help if they have a similar practice to your own. If they are "theory driven" people that actually formalized them, then even better, as long as you don't take them as "prescriptions" or "kitchen recipes" to follow without questioning. I've realized that what I needed in my own musical practice was not so much books in "composition" as "erudite western composition", but more on "popular music", "songwriting", etc... And THOSE books are more often than not missing in all these discussions. So I'm going to start recommending them.

I'd say anyone interested in developing "songs", "producing tracks", "pieces" instead of relying on "theories" that emerged from the mozart, beethoven, schoenberg and the likes should ALSO read Jimmy webb "Tunesmith", Tatit "o Cancionista", Phillip Tagg "Music Meaning's", Albin Zak "The poetics of Rock", or even Alan moore "Song means".

Jimmy Webb book describes his own practice as a songwriter, who composes both songs AND lyrics and there is a connection between the lyrical material and the musical material, sometimes to the level of the semantic content. This is something crucial often missing in most musical analysis i've seen in many other books, and I really would love to find more books with this kind of depth concerning this aspect. He explains from beginning to end how he writes the lyrics and then "extracts" out of them the musical materials. I always have advocated that good melodies have "semantic content" behind even when it is "hidden"... Messian got them out of birds, but if one gets them out of their native tongue prosody a la Janacek or Bartok, or jimmy webb that's good too.

So please just search those books and you may find some Shortcuts or great ideas to incorporate in your own musical practice... but then don't expect miracles... you have to physically do the job: actually write, sing, play, whatever the songs and only with time those processes will grow natural in you, I guess. My personal experience tells me it's a lifelong and painful process... and most of the brilliant musicians and songwriters that mean anything to me, only became great after at least 10-20 years doing hundreds of crappy songs until they start "nailing it".

Empathy is the key. IF then you're able to "nail it" and are able to discover your own voice within this process of songwriting, and are able to write beautiful 3 minute songs driven by compelling melodies based on your native semantic content, you can use this process to discard the words later and arrange/orchestrate them as instrumental pieces or symphonies or whatever. But... perhaps, just perhaps, starting with short compelling songs is a good way to proceed your journey.

[jancivil]

The original post asked what to look for, essentially, to enable them to make longer or more substantial songs. Dave offered 'Acquire a deep musical culture. That may take some time.' which you pretty much reinforce in different words.

I will have wondered where Jimmy Webb got his chops. You look at MacArthur Park, not many pop songwriters even approach that sort of grandeur.

I haven't written very many 'regular songs', but I do agree that the lyric first might be a good thing to look at, I mean the contour of a tune may be, and the decisions as to the form probably are, determined in the words, the rhythm of the words. If I thought writing really accessible songs was the thing to do, I would write a whole bunch of them and not necessarily have the highest expectations like it's going to be solid gold right out the gate, yeah.

However, I think music is music and a dichotomy between "erudite" or by implication 'western art music' and a regular everyday 'song' isn't an attractive proposition to me, although people may find that a good strategy so as to not get bogged down.

How does it come to be that Frank Zappa wrote many gems in a form that definitely is 'pop song' but went all the way out there into abstract music? Chops, transcendental chops. So I would have to inquire, what if it turned out that Jimmy Webb studied music seriously? It does turn out that the culture he was born into was severely conservative and radio music was restricted to C&W and *white* gospel by his father. The family moved to southern California and Webb studied music in community college in San Ber'dino... Then he took a job transcribing for a Motown-associated music publisher and wound up with a JOB as a songwriter basically.

I really think the first order of business lies here, transcribe the song you think is a happening song off the record. In detail.

[Musicologo]

I completely agree that the act of transcribing pieces we like is a well-proven method. It forces you to listen, listen, listen and think about it, identifying materials and reducing them to symbolic formats, etc...

Basically "listen to this track, now try to do the same, can you do it?".

I just think Jimmy Webb and Tatit books show basically "that". It's a kind of deconstruction if a finer-level detail than say "Song exploder" podcast.

But yes, just reading those books and seeing the songs being deconstructed by itself won't help if then you don't "try it out". And that "try it out", it what takes time to consolidate.

I think "erudite music theory" is very useful to fine grain, develop, and consolidate basic sketches and structures, but one has to start somewhere. I think that starting by songwriting "theory" let's call it that way, it's an easier entry level to make what i think it's crucial: compelling structures and melodies that drive empathy. You might end up with a beautiful lyrical melody over the top of a Dm, G progression, and THEN when you are able to do that, you use other "theories" to turn those Dm G into Dm11 G13 whatever, you add variety, and start making things "more complex"...

So this approach I'm suggesting can be described as
1 - music as raw emotion
2 - lyrics translating those feelings
3 - formal structure and melodic contours derived from them
4 - simple song (let's say for voice and piano or voice and guitar) that translates all this. At this point one should have a 3.00 song able to induce emotions in the listener. Often, amateurs stop at this stage.
5 - Here starts the "ARt" part - the craft. Here erudite music theory, or others might enter the game. Rewrite and expand those 3,00 in a full developed piece. Complexify the harmonic structure, make variations, join 2 different songs and mix them, etc... (Jimmy Webb book is good because he exemplifies this part and that is what the op wanted I guess... to learn to make more complex songs, this part needs some music theory, but also some theory regarding linking semantic content to musical materials).
6 - Arrange the modified song for a larger ensemble or orchestra (here one needs to know arrangement (sebesky, Nestico books are good ideas), or orchestration (alan belkin, Adler, etc...).

So, It's a large journey and I think the "erudite knowledge" has it's bigger part after point 5. But I think it's easier if you ace first points 1-4 and have a compelling base material to work with (a good song).

Part of what drives me off in many contemporary avant gard composers and even the likes of Zappa or Messiaen sometimes is that their base material is not "lyrical" nor "melodic" per se, it is a craft of "very abstract material" and therefore doesn't ressonate with me. IT seems a very hard laborious craft on top of alien material, and therefore would probably create empathy with aliens. I personally resonate more if I can identify a human vocal gesture (even if made by a flute or a violin or whatnot) as a driving force for the piece. As long as you have THAT odds are that you are able to induce emotions to a larger audience (if that is your goal of course).

[jancivil]

Right, but I don't seek to induce anything in people with music. Nor did Stravinsky who didn't even believe it was possible. People tend to very much be individuals with different responses, typically people have a subjective response to my music which is a surprise to me. Trying to guide people to a specific emotional response, I don't know about that.

FZ:
“The compositional end of my musical experience started in high school when I heard an album by Edgard Varèse. I said, ‘boy, that sounds great, I have to write some of that.’ I also got a hold of an album called The Rite of Spring.

“It was a little cheaper label, a dollar 98 thing. And that excited me too. I thought, ‘boy, if anybody could make a missing link between Edgar Varèse and Igor Stravinsky, that would be pretty nifty.’ Then somebody turned me on to an album of music by Anton Webern. And I said, ‘wow, anybody who could get a missing link between Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern and Edgar Varèse, that would be very spiffy.’ Then I heard what some of the stuff sounded like that I had been writing. And it was so ugly, that I decided to go backwards and get into the melodic area again. Then people started telling me that my melodies were ugly.”

FZ's music *is* primarily melodic. The Perfect Stranger for instance; many people with less interest may find it's quite abstruse. Yet, FZ sang the main tune on his answering machine message to say:

I got emotional yesterday hearing a cover of The Black Page. Because the melody and the chord changes. So, expectations. I wouldn't recommend closing your mind to things which are 'alien' to you at first. I started out with no real prejudice. I remember so well my father's reaction fo the Stones Honky Tonk Women in the car at Freedom Park where I was going to set up and play my stupid idea of music. He dismissed it as 'country' which he had no time for. He was more or less correct about where it comes from, but I still think it's a good tune despite my strong distaste for Jagger. But I come from a day where music got blown wide open, a moment in American culture where the idea of 'free your mind' gained a little traction and not just among the young.

[jancivil]

one has to start somewhere.

I started off figuring out Abbey Road, again, and the solo in Badge by Cream and a little bit of Hendrix. I don't know anyone that started off with a music theory text or academy-approved curriculae. So I found JS Bach organ music psychedelic and it didn't take me very long to realize I did not have a basis to understand it. I had my mind blown in 2001 A Space Odyssey by Ligeti's music in it. I didn't understand that really for a long, long time. It impacted me on every level music can.

[jancivil]

[woggle]

This is a readable book that explores some of the positions that the OP and others may not have explored Michaael Nyman's Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond. It is available in pdf and on scribd, lots of places.

It is worth knowing that Eno, for his commercial song stuff like Here come the Warm Jets and so on, developed lyrics by first singing nonsense syllables and then replacing the nonsense with actual words. But he started with nonsense syllables using a technique he earlier learnt singing work by Kurt Schwitters and others. That is, he took something from the non-pop, non-classical traditions and adapted it to his own needs. It can be worth reading books like the Nyman one to get away from feeling too restricted or as if one is having a wrong idea of what music is. Good for personal confidence.

There are no right or wrong ways to make music, but if you want to make music in a particular known style then you will find that much easier if you understand the basis of that style ie learn the appropriate theory. that might be through studying texts but might also be through studying the practice - like blues guitarists did. Or both text and practice. But there isn't anything remotely like a universal theory (except maybe through Huron as others have mentioned, but that theory is at a more abstract level than pitch or harmony)