music composition techniques

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: [email protected]

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.

Continuing Education For Composers – The Need And Opportunity

October 9, 2018 By Steven Lebetkin

I’ve been composing and studying music for a long time. It strikes me that although there are more composers in the world than ever before, the effort and corresponding access by composers for further compositional study is non-existent. Professionals in all walks of life and at any level proudly continue their advanced studies; many states even mandate this in order to maintain the privilege of licensure.

Composition instruction at conservatories and universities is quite lumpy, to say the least. And therefore the work of many talented (and some not so talented) composers follows. Technique often falls wayside to technology, sound design, and the unfounded commercial message that somehow learning more about craft can interfere with the creative spirit.

Many of us believe that quality and craft trump volume and technology. The more you know, the better the music, and the joy of great music we wish to share with the world.

I’m doing my share to give back. Not only to compose the very best music that I can, but to pass down to others the advanced compositional techniques I was privileged to learn from great masters of the twentieth century that learned from others that preceded them.

Steve Lebetkin, Composer in Chief, Composition Online [email protected]