I enjoy playing around some with improvisation and composition. I don’t have aspirations to become the next Mozart, but it is a lot of fun to come up with my own tunes occasionally, or just find new ways to play over familiar progressions. I also find that by exploring sounds via improvisation, it helps me […]
Entries Tagged as 'Song Writing and Composing'
Confined wanderings
August 27th, 2010 · No Comments (Click here to add your comment.)
Tags: Playing and Performing Music · Practicing · Practicing Music · Practicing and Playing Music · Song Writing and Composing
Freeing up your composing by constraining it
April 14th, 2008 · 1 Comment
If you find yourself sometimes lacking imagination in your composing, here’s a suggestion for one way to loosen up your musical ideas. Impose some constraints on what you’re going to compose. Paradoxically, imposing constraints can actually free up your imagination to explore other dimensions of the music that are not under constraint. There are many […]
Tags: Song Writing and Composing
A melody writing exercise
March 27th, 2008 · 2 Comments
Each December of every year, Althea gave her piano students a music composition project. Althea was my beloved piano teacher for 12 years of my youth.
Althea’s annual composition project for her students was simple: Start with a Christmas carol; keep the chord progression; change the melody to your own.
That’s a good way to get started […]