Articles and Musical Thoughts

Transposition Skills

October 10, 2019 By Steven Lebetkin

The Path Towards Compositional Prowess

I make it a point of visiting local music conservatories and universities in cities around the world whenever my work is performed. I do this for the purpose of giving back to others, to offer master classes in composition to composers at the school and community. I have never charged schools for this offering.

On one such four city tour of Turkey a few years ago, a small platoon of composers attended a master class arranged for me to provide, and included several dozen observers and the media from the region. A young boy, about 15 years old, was among this group of composers and was offered up as the local genius composer for me to evaluate and teach as part of the master class.

The young composer came up to the piano, with his score, and played excerpts from a suite for piano. When this performance was over, I asked him to play from the beginning of the second movement, a slow piece of moderate pianistic difficulty. I let him know in advance that I will interrupt him several times for illustration purposes. A few measures in, I asked him to stop, go back to the beginning, and start again, but this time without the score in front of him. “Close the score, please, set it aside, and start again”. Panic in the young man’s eyes. He did so, and I then politely interrupted him again a few measures in. “Now start again, and play this slow piece a major third higher”. He was unable to do it. “The lesson to be learned is that if you cannot transpose your own music without the score in front of you, you have a great deal to do to develop basic musicianship skills – you are not yet ready to compose”.

Music As A Language

Music is, to a large degree, reflective of a set of integrated sound relationships shaped over time. Add rhythm and you have a piece. Add instrumentation (plus samples/sound design) and you have an orchestrated piece, sometimes called a “mockup”. But at the fundamental level of content, music consists of sound and rhythmic relationships, the sum of which is a piece of music. The starting point, or “key of the piece” is irrelevant to the set of relationships within it; key has more to do with performance practices, like range and capability of instruments, vocal ranges, and the physical aspects of playback and performance. There are some that hold forth that choice of key is a compositional element as well, but that is not the thrust of this article.

There are two broad aspects to training your brain to speak the language of music, and they are both mutually exclusive and additive. The first is to learn to play and transpose the music of others; the second is to improvise, the extemporaneous creation of new music. This article is focused on transposition, the first of these two primary steps on the process of inner hearing.

Play and Transpose the Music of Others

Unlike solfege (i.e. “sight singing”), there are no standalone courses at music schools in transposition. Consquently, the curriculumn and learning output at music schools worldwide is very uneven. For example, many (not all) of the music courses at schools offering degrees in media composing are light on musicianship building. Music departments that have de-emphasized musicianship skills (including the ability to play and transpose the music of others) churn out composers with limited capability. I will leave it to another article to dive deep into the underlying reasons for this.

Transposition skills are best developed when running parallel to the course progress in music theory. One learns the manner in which diatonic harmony developed in a logical way over time, and with that, corresponding musical complexity. Choosing pieces for transposition reflective of the times (historical context) is a great way to understand and internalize structural hearing.

Another way is what I and others refer to anecdotally as the Nadia Boulanger approach, which is to focus on Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, learn and transpose as many of the preludes and fugues as you can and stick with it. It’s hard to imagine a more thorough way to improve one’s musicianship skills by embarking on this course of musical action.

Close Your Eyes!

When working on your transposition skills, I recommend learning to play with your eyes closed. Looking leads to physical counting – transposition by the numbers or physical distance. Looking at your hands can be very distracting. Let your brain do the work, and your fingers become an extension of the inner hearing experience. Again, this is a “hearing” experience, and focuses on the internalization of the musical relationships between notes and structural hearing; the fingers become an extension of what one is hearing in one’s mind.

The Road to Compositional Excellence

The path towards excellence in compositional prowess includes the expansion of transpostion skills to a much broader level. One might think of this as the ability to view the entire expanse of a composition as a map of a journey, together with the ability to drill down to review (and modify) smaller segments of a composition.

Nadia Boulanger referred to well composed music as “the long journey”. Felix Salzer referred to structural hearing as “…these organic forces of the musical language, particularly the tonal functions and relationships which form both the generative and cohesive forces of great music…..[the differentiators] between chord grammar (or labeling) and significance, showing that function rather than the ordinary label is really significant. Further distinctions between chords of structure and chords of prolongation, harmonic and contrapuntal uses, and the concept of musical direction provide effective tools for the analysis of music”.

Where Are You?

Advanced transposition skills are one of the stronger set of indicators that are reflective of the capability and readiness of composers to create music that maintains audience interest throughout the listener experience. The ability to absorb and understand the entirety of a musical composition at every hierarchical level is a prelude towards the ability to create one’s own composition that holds together. This goes for any type of music and venue, from fugue to symphony, commercial song to film score, and in all styles and venues.

It is essential for successful composers to speak the language of music fluently, and understand when and how compositions may veer off course and get into trouble. Stated another way, if you don’t know where you are in a piece, then the audience won’t know where you are either.

Steve Lebetkin is the founder of Composition Online, a pioneer in extended learning for professional composers, and the developer of the Mini-Master Class – Live and Online continued learning for composers worldwide. For more information please direct your inquiries to: scores@compositiononline.com

Contact us now! — Live and Online Mini-Master Classes for Composers that seek to learn more.

Competing With Mozart And Brahms

October 1, 2019 By Steven Lebetkin

Back in the day, when we were young students in theory class, there was a path of learning that closely tracked the development and evolution of harmony, voice leading, and counterpoint in music history over the past 400 years. The musical language of Haydn, for example, expanded in the work of Mozart, and of course Beethoven. Earlier, we studied Bach and his language, then his sons.

Student assignments would closely track and follow the language and techniques of composers for those time periods we were studying, and generally involved composing short pieces (never long ones) in the style of a composer. This “learning by doing” approach gave us a solid foundation towards the understanding of music and the building blocks for future study and application. Music majors in these classes included both performers and composers.

To be clear, we were not being taught for the purpose of creating new composers in the style of Mozart, or Brahms, as a compositional way of life. These assignments were exercises and stricly for learning purposes. It would be preposterous to consider or propose such a thing. These composers were reflective of the music of the time, written in context, developmental, and the expansion of new ideas and manner of artistic expression. Who could compose like Brahms today and think for a moment of imitating or outdoing him? It’s pretty presumptuous, to say the least. Brahms was, among other things, an expansionist. More than a century later, that expansion has come and gone, and gone further.

Stunted Growth

Nowadays, and for a myriad of reasons, there are more composers in the world than ever before in history. I will not pretend to be able to point to any studies that statistically support such a conclusion, but it surely seems that way. Technology of course is at the root of this growth. Profits derived from college and university tuitions are another driver of this as well as institutions of higher learning charging as much as $70,000 per year as they derive as much economic pleasure as possible while churning out a steady stream of composers into the world.

However, there is a most disturbing trend that has emerged from this frenetic new composer activity. A significant number of composers have seized upon the compositional exercises of their university theory classes, and to only compose works in the style of great masters from the 19thcentury and earlier. The student exercise has become the end of the road. Composers now make careers out of composing in the style of Chopin, Brahms, Mozart and other bygone composers.

The general public reacts to the music of such composers because the styles are familiar to them, although there is nothing new, identifiable, distiguishable from others, bold or innovative. This is easy listening, and, quite frankly, easy composing.

Growth has become stunted.

Developing Your “Voice” Is Hard Work – Imitation Is The Lazy Way

It takes a great deal of time and effort over many years for talented composers to develop an individual sound, or style. One cannot simply make a conscious decision to begin a new piece and create a style at the snap of a finger. Style and individual voice formulation is a monumental effort, and to a large extent begins with learning how to write well in the style of composers in earlier times. Then, through the development and achievement of a high level of musicianship and a dedication to improvisation and subsequent compositional editing that the path towards individualism emerges.

The world is chock full of composers nowadays, and while there is a feeling of instant gratification that comes from the completion of a work that has shape and meaning, there is a much higher level of achievement that arises from the development of individual style and voice. None of us will ever write a better fugue then Bach, a more moving prelude then Chopin, or a stirring piano concerto like Grieg. Like the expression goes – be yourself, because everyone else is taken.

Media Composers – Raise the Bar and the Fees Will Follow

September 24, 2019 By Steven Lebetkin

The battle against self-commoditization

Let’s take a look at architecture. Dictionary.com defines an architect as “a person who designs buildings and in many cases also supervises their construction”.

An architect is an artist, a creative artist, and like any artist, there are all levels of talent ranging from mediocre to genius. Not all architects are of equal talent and capability. The same goes for music composers whose throngs are of unequal talent.

Over the last 20 years, the architecture has evolved and embraced technology. The manner in which this has manifest is through the advent of computer assisted design, otherwise known as CAD. These programs (like AutoCad) are miraculous operational and production tools, and generally utilized to create and manipulate geometric shapes into specific designs.

Walk into any medium sized architecture firm and look around. What you will see is physical space that segregates the architects (the “design” artists) from the CAD operators (production). There is even an industry of outsourcing the CAD operators to India and other areas of the world for capable and inexpensive operators.

Make no mistake about it, there are many talented and capable CAD operators. However, CAD is a back-office function, a commodity, priced and billed out at lower rates than the front office creatives (the architects).

Architecture firms run efficiently, and provide a balanced set of value propositions to their clients.

Media Composing – The back-office has taken over the front office

A good friend and composer colleague often says to me “today’s modern composer has to do it all”. Yes, that is largely correct. The trend over the years is for the production aspects to gain inordinate weight in the process. Production technology is wonderful (and many of the production professionals very talented), including DAW’s, sampling, mastering software, and so much more. The back-office has taken over most of the front office, and now rules. And the buyers have bought into it, where the pricing of media composition services has wrapped completely around the commoditized bundling of production and creativity. One size fits all, and fees have plummeted, still dropping.

Now, this is not the case for all. Composers like Danny Elfman, Hans Zimmer can get away with not being able to do it all for one simple reason – they have the money to pay others to do it for them. Composers like John Williams are at the other end of the spectrum, strong on musicianship and orchestration skills, and have the resources to pay for production. Take these same composers and drop them into the market as new entrants and the question arises as to whether they would be successful; I’m not so sure.

The Culprits

Schools and Curriculums Course mixes at schools like Berklee College of Music, NYU Steinhardt, Columbia University, USC Thornton School of Music and others offering media composing programs emphasize a preponderance of production and technology skills. Musicianship skills increasingly take a back seat to production technology. The lure of tuitions of $70,000+ per year has contributed quite a bit to the lowering of standards at these “name” institutions. Composers on the scene today often aspire for recognition and artistic validation in concert halls; unfortunately, the majority cannot do it. They don’t know how.

Professional Societies For decades professionals in every walk of life work hard at brand enhancement before the public (i.e. “buyers”). Groups like the American Bar Association, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, American Medical Association and other professional groups devote significant resources towards specialty designations, thereby segmenting out the memberships between general practitioners (lower paid) and specialists (higher paid). These esteemed groups work hard towards educating the marketplace of buyers through a myriad of traditional awareness initiatives, such as panel discussions, branding of specialists along with requirements for entry. Imagine, if you would, if these professionals had a “one size fits all” pot. It wouldn’t work, and would quickly lead to commoditization. Professional fees would drop like a rock in a pond.

The Composers Themselves Are they the culprits? Hmmm, I think not. They are the victims, doing the best they can to survive and create music for the joy of others.

Some Solutions

It takes a village. And time…..lots of it. It took years to drive the media composer car into a ditch, and it will take many years and a healthy international conversation to work its way out of it. Brands take time to restore, particularly following long term damage. Here are four areas for improvement. There are others.

Professional Societies, some of which have general membership, and those that focus on gender and ethnic constituents, can do their part by turning their attention towards the relationships between musical content and music production. The production aspects are well oiled at this point, but there is no better way of driving success into the market than composing better music. A refocus on musicianship and advanced composition skills and techniques combined with segmentation of education and branding to the buyers of music for media will no doubt achieve results. Composers will make more, the music will improve, the public will enjoy it, and producers will wind up with better product to sell with greater longitudinal value.

Schools and universities can likewise focus in on the return to higher levels of artistic achievement in the students they accept, educate, and then turn out into the world. It’s important to bear in mind that film composing began with the composition of a symphonic score for The Brothers Karamazov in 1930, the first motion picture with a film score by the classical composer Karol Rathaus. The score came first, the picture came second. Rathaus didn’t need credibility to write for the concert hall.

Professional groups and educational institutions can team up, and begin the long-term conversation and implementation to raise standards. Over time, the supply and demand curve will change, the result of which will be that directors and studios will come around. One size fits all will no longer be in vogue, and composers will be more adequately compensated.

Composers also can do their part, although much more difficult for them. Composers work alone, and for the most part, lack adequate resources to compete. However, they can do their best to work on their musicianship skills, study throughout their lifetimes, and parse out production functionality (low paying) from creativity, where there is room to grow.

Continuing Education In the 20th century, Nadia Boulanger taught hundreds of composers that had already graduated. Composers in film, jazz, and classical (many household names like Aaron Copland to Charles Fox) flocked to Paris to study with her. This is no longer the case for composers in the 21st century. A very odd stigma towards continuing education for professional composers has crept into our culture. Many believe that after graduation, their musical studies are complete, and need only learn more about technology trends and production advancements to be competitive. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Composers and The Future

There are more composers now than ever before in human history. Technology has made vast musical resources available to listeners, and to those that have a calling to compose. It takes more than great ideas to be a great composer. Great ideas need shaping, nurturing – a dedication to craft and detail before new music is ready for the world to hear. Eventually, the market will turn back towards musical content and quality, and away from back-office production solutions that have become the vogue of the day.

The Search For Missing Musical Architecture

September 18, 2019 By Steven Lebetkin

I listen to lots and lots of music. Old and new. Good and not so good. The old(er) I listen to for a variety of reasons, some purely joyful, and some to dig deeper and learn more about lesser known works by well known composers. The new music is primarily because of my work helping composers of all ages learn and improve their craft.

When you listen to and review as much new music as I do, certain patterns emerge. Yes, there is a great deal of talent out there, but there is consistency among the deficiencies noted. This article shall focus on just one of those deficiencies, how to diagnose them, the persistent reasons they occur, and solutions.

A preponderance of new compositions in the market these days, regardless of style, instrumentation, length, venue, or composer age (or gender), lack durability. These worka don’t seem to hang together, oftentimes drifting around, losing momentum, an arch, and other aspects that elude the Holy Grail of music composition – music that bears repeated listenings. I have termed music of a momentary interest (these days including social justice goals for composer groups that feel left out) as “transactional” composition – nice to hear (or at least parts thereof), but not motivating to listen to again….and again.

Diagnosing The Problem Through Reverse Engineering

A not so perfect analogy to diagnose an apparent problem is an automobile. Some cars are focused on the visual – the paint, body, styling, etc – the surface issues. In music, it’s the melody, about which lesser trained and knowledgeable composers focus in on to the detriment of the musical engineering. Composers that wish to be able to learn how to write better melodies would be best served practicing Species Counterpoint. Learn these skills and in a year or two your melodies will be first-rate.

The process of diagnosis the problem is called diminution, where the reduction of the music implies what might be called a “top down” approach – stripping out the music at the surface (yes, the melody) and dig deeper to find increasingly simple diminutions. Take out the melody (like the passing tones and the rest of the ornamentation), and see/listen to what remains as far as chords and their progressions over a continuum. We hear music on a variety of layers simultaneously, and one way to diagnose a problem is to dig deeper and identify the layers of the music presented. It is then that problems emerge that require fixing. Like an auto, we strip off the body, and start examining the parts and see how they interface, then deeper into parts that may be malfunctioning.

As one digs deeper into the various layers of the piece, it often becomes quickly apparent where the weaknesses are. The progressions don’t work, or flow from beginning to end. This is true for short pieces (like commercial songs) and longer pieces and in any style or purpose (contemporary, jazz, film, avante garde). If it becomes difficult to identify the harmonic structure, chances are there aren’t any to identify, and the problems become acutely obvious. This is painful for composers that have not gone through this exercise, but necessary to able to advance their work and achieve greater artistic goals.

How Is Great Music Architecturally Formulated?

By now it should be apparent to the reader of this article that we are not talking about form (like Sonata, Fugue, Ternary, Minuet, or Pop Song), but what we are talking about here is architecture, the musical engineering and neurological mysteries of human recognition of when it is present, and when it is not.

Talented and skilled composers do not spend all of their time on writing in a layered approach, but almost all unconsciously structure their music on a layered basis. As the music travels through time, skilled composers know exactly where they are architecturally and when they veer off course. The level of musicianship and experience in the study of other great works guide the degree of intuitive capabilities composers bring to the composition and editing process. But they are also acutely aware of where they are architecturally and consciously at any point in the composition and editing process. Another way of saying it is – If you (the composer) don’t know where you are, then the listener won’t know either!

Great music can stand up to a rigorous analytical process (which I am calling reverse engineering in this article) because the composers have applied much more than talent and inspiration to their works. Too much work, you say? Well, maybe composing is not for you.

Style And Musical Architecture

In order to really understand how this works, it is essential to set aside any preconceived notions about art and the human experience. The study of musical semiotics and musical sciences (neurologically) is at a relatively early stage, but we do know that all human brains are genetically wired identically. We have the same starting point, after which our environment effects us………to a point. There are sounds and sequences that no matter how many times we hear them, out brains will reject and are unable to digest.

Many composers, in great frustration, reject the study of music and “rules” as inhibiting their individual artistic expression and experience. For example, composers without access to advanced training or even poor instruction will dig in their heels and insist on a free style approach to composition as a better way and affording broader and more meaningful means of artistic expression. Nothing could be further from the truth. While these broad philosophical diatribes may angularly look good on paper, the reality is compositions without solid engineering will quickly go off the road and into a ditch.

The miracle of the human experience includes the broad expanse of music we can hear and enjoy across time periods, and styles. Our brains are positioned to hear and enjoy musical and architectural splendors from Bach to Takemitsu, Brahms to Britten, Ellington to Britten, and so much more. But music without engineering? It’s like driving without a map, and without a destination. Our brains will reject it.

It’s Not Your Fault – The Great University Deception

Many composers have done their level best to go to school, study, practice, work with professors with doctorates in composition, and much more. Yet, despite these best efforts, a great many composers in the world struggle with their craft. Some of this is the result of a lack of capability – not everyone who wants to compose has the requisite talent to do so. However, for many the skill sets, which are learned, are unavailable due to the deficiencies of teaching and knowledge at the university level. This is a sad state of affairs, and largely due to the tenure system coupled with the enormous profits derived from outrageously priced tuition in many parts of the world, particularly the USA. Young students on the way up lack the tools to evaluate the level and capabilities of professors at schools and universities, the result of which is musical educations that are short on musicianship and long on student loans. I have personally watched the decline in the level instruction in my lifetime while the number of composers has dramatically increased to unprecedented levels. This is a sorry state of affairs, and I can only urge the talented to focus on craft and musicianship and continue to learn throughout your life and career. There still remain some wonderful composers on the faculty of universities worldwide, but not because they have the PhD appended to their names.

Sound Design and Orchestration – Sonic Camouflage

The use of sound design – oftentimes is a camouflage for a lack of structure. Look closely at the music of Debussy, Ravel and Takemitsu – masterful composers with a deep knowledge of composition technique and musicianship, whose greatest contributions may have been the unfolding of sound design as a set of composition techniques. Composers since then imitate the beautiful soundscapes of Debussy’s work, but without the deeper aspects of his compositional prowess. Lots of glitter, but not the gold (welcome to the world of DAW’s, music samples, and production). Debussy’s sound design has been widely imitated for 100 plus years, from Messiaen to film composers of the current day, and many contemporary composers enamored with the sound design or effects of his compositional oeuvre While the music composed is often entertaining and enjoyable for the moment, much of it does not bear the test of repeated listenings. Film directors and music editors, for example have often opted for these surreal tonal landscapes to add “feel” for scenes (i.e. music cues), but when extracted from the picture, the music often doesn’t work that well. Music gets chopped up and moves from cue to cue in a transactional approach, for example without regard to key relationships and architectural issues across timelines. (I could go on for many pages about this)

Music From The Inside Out.

Start improvising. Pick out the ideas that feel right. Develop the architecture as you go along. This requires a high level of musicianship. The really talented composers bring in the architecture and structure as they move along in the creative and editing process, some of which is subliminal (a great inner ear that brings in the architecture) and the rest through conscious analysis and decisions on where to go and how things fit in as the composition process unfolds. Composing on a strictly instinctive level without mindfulness of hierarchical structures and how to manipulate the music is a surefire recipe for disaster. Orchestration and sound design will camouflage a weak composition – such music and the composers that create these works are easily forgotten.

This is very hard to do. It may be the hardest part of the composition process. The achievement of a composition of any length that is well conceived and executed on every level and dimension is very difficult to achieve. It’s very hard work. In my experience and in listening to a huge amount of new music in my daily regimen, I find there are few that can do this. Yes, there are incredible numbers of composers now in the world, more than at any time in world history. If you want to stand out, and make a memorable contribution, do the work necessary to achieve these goals. There are no shortcuts.

One of the great ways of expanding your composition skills is through continued learning. Composers that believe in studying past graduation have a much better chance of succeeding. www.compositiononline.com

Musical Language and Attitude

September 17, 2019 By Steven Lebetkin

Composers often struggle with learning the rules of composition, including composing music, how to write music, and how to become a music composer.

If I had a nickel for every time a composer expresses umbrage towards “rules” of composition, I would easily be able to pay of the national debt. There appears to be a natural backlash of inexperienced and/or combative and rebellious composers towards “rules” and that somehow such rules are restrictive of creative activity and must be broken in order to break new ground and forge ahead in the quest for higher art. Unfortunately, and in my own experience, the underlying reasons for this rebellion relates to a lacking (or laziness) towards understanding what the so called “rules” are as a first step, working with them, and then going further (or abandoning them). Arnold Schoenberg, for all the controversy surrounding his music, had a deep understanding of music and the “rules” that preceded him, and stood on firm ground as a starting point in his compositional journey.

“Best practices” is defined by Wikipedia as “a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to any alternatives because it produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means….” For those rebellious and combative composers unhappy with rules that they wish not to follow (or understand), I have a bit of advice which is twofold – first, substitute the word “rules” with the phrase “Best Practices” in your thinking and see how that feels. Secondly, assuming that one takes adequate time to thoroughly familiarize oneself as to the details and functionality of what Best Practices consist of and their use, take a step back and think about “why” such Best Practices came to be. Then make your own determination as to where you wish to go from there.

It makes much more sense (and a sign of maturity) to look at and understand what has been done in the past and the reasons than to summarily reject prior practices and determine the path for your own creative journey. This is, in my view, a far more grounded approach than one that ignores the foundations of the human experience and the how and whys of Best Practices, not rules, evolved over time.

For more information on composing music, how to write music, and how to become a music composer, a good place to go is Composition Online.