# What do I need to do to overcome this hardship?



## Pug user (Feb 21, 2020)

Dear Composers,



I found myself struggling a lot for connecting the song from A to B,

For example, I have nice melodies I could fully think of making it orchestral.

I know which instrument I should use to make the sound I want, which harmony to use

But the little gap between A and B causing the endless hardships.

For example, I want to start the intro with French horns and then want to repeat the intro with strings again however the little gap between Horn and String before string starts sound awkwardly silent and all which I ended up filling in with the snare drum beat in the end.

This kind of hardships really slowing down the progress. How to smoothly connect each part in a song? How to fill up this empty silent part between this and that?

Once I wrote a waltz but that song didn’t cause me this trouble. I am thinking that is due to the back ground rhythm of the waltz that would constantly fill up every part. Maybe I should just embrace this empty silent phase in a song?

Or is that due to lack of orchestration skills? Or due to the lack of theoretical music knowledge? Or just due to the bad melody that goes to middle of nowhere? Or due to the weak structure of the song?



Or am I just paranoid?


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## jonathanparham (Feb 21, 2020)

Pug user said:


> Dear Composers,
> 
> 
> 
> ...


perhaps a short sequence or modulation between theme or section?


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## Pug user (Feb 21, 2020)

jonathanparham said:


> perhaps a short sequence or modulation between theme or section?


 
I appreciate your reply.
That might work! 
However may I ask you for any simple examples of those?


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## jonathanparham (Feb 21, 2020)

Pug user said:


> For example, I want to start the intro with French horns and then want to repeat the intro with strings again however the little gap between Horn and String before string starts sound awkwardly silent and all which I ended up filling in with the snare drum beat in the end.


I'm thinking harmonically. Take that whole section of music. Raise it or lower it a third. Then take that section raise or lower it a third again. THEN start your B section. The listener hears your A melody, your A melody up a third, then your A melody up another 3rd. You've created a musical bridge.


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## JJP (Feb 21, 2020)

I once had a college professor tell me that he thought 80% of the work of composing is writing transitions. You're not alone. Transitioning seamlessly between ideas is challenging.


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## Consona (Feb 21, 2020)

JJP said:


> I once had a college professor tell me that he thought 80% of the work of composing is writing transitions. You're not alone. Transitioning seamlessly between ideas is challenging.


This is exactly what I was writing about in the 25th Bond thread. Williams is a master at seamlessly developing and connecting ideas. Everyone can repeat a riff A 4 times, a riff B 4 times, that's why there's so many pop, rock and metal bands. But not that many people can write 2 flipping minutes of this Aunt Marge's Waltz. 




My advice? Stop listening to the riff A 4 times music and obtain score sheets of some Williams' pieces and study them.


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## youngpokie (Feb 21, 2020)

In this waltz, each little section (main theme and all the variations) has a strong cadence, both in harmony and orchestration, so the transitions here are simply starting a new section right back on I chord. In the variations, he's changing the length of section by splitting out and repeating small fragments of the melody to create syncopation effect and throw off the rhythm a bit. And he ends with a really nice contrasting theme and then a classical coda at around 1:45 or so. EDIT: Actually it sounds like a double coda from 1:20. It's a lovely piece, I feel some Prokofiev's Cinderella vibe.


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## Consona (Feb 21, 2020)

youngpokie said:


> In this waltz, each little section (main theme and all the variations) has a strong cadence, both in harmony and orchestration, so the transitions here are simply starting a new section right back on I chord. In the variations, he's changing the length of section by splitting out and repeating small fragments of the melody to create syncopation effect and throw off the rhythm a bit. And he ends with a really nice contrasting theme and then a classical coda at around 1:45 or so. EDIT: Actually it sounds like a double coda from 1:20. It's a lovely piece, I feel some Prokofiev's Cinderella vibe.


He's doing what all the masters did before him. When you look at Beethoven, it's so much of the I and V chords stuff, and splitting and repeating various small fragments of the main motif.


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## youngpokie (Feb 21, 2020)

Consona said:


> He's doing what all the masters did before him. When you look at Beethoven, it's so much of the I and V chords stuff, and splitting and repeating various small fragments of the main motif.



Yes. What I am trying to say is that transitions between sections in a piece will always be difficult if there is no proper sense of closure of the section, i.e. if the cadence is absent or wrong in melody/harmony.


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## Consona (Feb 21, 2020)

youngpokie said:


> Yes. What I am trying to say is that transitions between sections in a piece will always be difficult if there is no proper sense of closure of the section, i.e. if the cadence is absent or wrong in melody/harmony.


Well, sometimes you can frustrate the cadence to bring more tension in and it does not sound wrong. What makes a good transition is some recognisable pattern, not cadence or harmony or melody, etc specifically. Just something our brain can latch onto.


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## Zedcars (Feb 21, 2020)

Alan Belkin talks about transition techniques in his book Musical Composition: Art and Craft. There’s a whole chapter on it. There are many different ways to transition. You can do it abruptly which is not necessarily wrong - depending on the mood of the piece; or you can do it very smooothly such that the listener barely notices. The latter of the two takes great skill to pull off successfully. One way to transition smoothly it to have similar instrumentation. Another way is to use overlapping themes - themes from section A spilling over into section B. Section B could have elements of it sounding before A has finished. Perhaps using the same dynamics would allow a smooth transition. You must think of every element between A and B and allow some of those elements (timbre, tempo, rhythm, dynamics, thematic material etc) to be shared. The more elements that are shared, the smoother the transition. Of course, this comes at the expense of contrast which is also important to keep the listener’s attention. It’s a balancing act. Sometimes transitions can last many many bars or even many pages (or minutes). There are a great variety of transitional possibilities between abrupt and silky smooth that can be explored.


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## Loïc D (Feb 21, 2020)

Drum solo ! That’s what they’re made for.


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## JJP (Feb 21, 2020)

LowweeK said:


> Drum solo ! That’s what they’re made for.



The film score equivalent would be a suspended cymbal or tam tam roll.


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## youngpokie (Feb 21, 2020)

Consona said:


> Well, sometimes you can frustrate the cadence to bring more tension in and it does not sound wrong. What makes a good transition is some recognisable pattern, not cadence or harmony or melody, etc specifically. Just something our brain can latch onto.



Cadence is a pattern by definition. And you can only frustrate a cadence by creating an expectation of it and not delivering on it.


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## Henu (Feb 22, 2020)

Consona said:


> But not that many people can write 2 flipping minutes of this Aunt Marge's Waltz.



Or this!


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## GtrString (Feb 22, 2020)

Try to think conceptually, if you make the transition sound like a question, the start of the next section can sound like an answer.

Its storytelling, you can find tons of examples in tv when journalists introduce a colleague. You can try translate that to music.


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## ReelToLogic (Feb 23, 2020)

Pug user said:


> For example, I want to start the intro with French horns and then want to repeat the intro with strings again however the little gap between Horn and String before string starts sound awkwardly silent and all which I ended up filling in with the snare drum beat in the end.
> 
> This kind of hardships really slowing down the progress. How to smoothly connect each part in a song? How to fill up this empty silent part between this and that?



A good way to smooth the transition between the parts in your example would be to introduce the Strings during the last measure of your Horn part A. For example, if your piece is in 4/4 time and the last measure of your Horn piece is playing GMajor, you could have the Cellos play the notes of a GMajor triad on the last 3 beats of that measure then move right into your part B with the Strings. That way the listener will know that "something different is coming", the Strings will effectively bridge the transition, and the transition won't seem so abrupt.


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## VinRice (Feb 23, 2020)

Transitions and modulations - where the magic happens, and the hardest bloody things to work out. Extending and tweezing out that last V (or wherever your cadence lands) like the old masters for a few bars can be a great way to indicate somethings coming and ready us for a key or tempo change without sounding unprepared. Getting out of 8 or 16 bar blocks by extension or reduction is a great way of adding 'sophistication'. Dovetailing the orchestration, especially using the same instrumentation for a common tone when modulating really helps. Timp rolls are my jam.


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## Maxtrixbass (Feb 29, 2020)

Many good points from everyone. Wasn't it Wagner who said the art is in the transitions? Its a tough one for us all.

One thing I might add is the gaps you struggle with could be, at times, not be a problem at all. Sometimes gaps allow a breath between A and B, like turning the page into a new chapter. Look at poetry. Sometimes there just isn't much on the page. It doesn't have the same impact if all the gaps all filled.

Sometimes the space is what makes it work. Maybe your style makes greater use of space. Might be something to run with...


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## Farkle (Feb 29, 2020)

JJP said:


> I once had a college professor tell me that he thought 80% of the work of composing is writing transitions. You're not alone. Transitioning seamlessly between ideas is challenging.



Not to pimp out EIS, JJP... but the first two books deal with drills that literally train the ability to do transitions and interludes. Spud basically said, "The hardest thing to do in music is introductions, transitions, and endings, so we're going to work on those first." I think he's absolutely right.


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## VinRice (Mar 1, 2020)

Maxtrixbass said:


> One thing I might add is the gaps you struggle with could be, at times, not be a problem at all. Sometimes gaps allow a breath between A and B, like turning the page into a new chapter. Look at poetry. Sometimes there just isn't much on the page. It doesn't have the same impact if all the gaps all filled.



Agreed. Adding stops, rests and holds in 'natural' places can sometimes be absolutely transformational to a piece


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## Living Fossil (Mar 1, 2020)

Pug user said:


> For example, I want to start the intro with French horns and then want to repeat the intro with strings again however the little gap between Horn and String before string starts sound awkwardly silent and all which I ended up filling in with the snare drum beat in the end.



You shouldn't expect a concrete answer to such a question that offers thousands of possibilities.
Because the problem with all those answers is that they are depending on the context.

However, just to put one of the problematic answers in perspective:
Never, never ever modulate just for the sake of "creating a transition" or "filling a gap"
The reason why a composer modulates is always (at least in non-dilettantic music) that these bars of modulation are an integral part of the piece which on its own has further consequences.
In Schubert's music e.g. you can find modulations that, after reaching a new tonal centre, continue in a different key than the reached one. Etc.
Even if the goal is to change the tonal centre, there wouldn't be necessarily be a need to use a modulation. In some situations it's the right thing just to continue in a different key.
It's one of the most neglected areas in music theory to keep an eye on the stringency with which good composers treated modulations. There is no random in it. Neither what's the original key, neither what's the key to be reached, neither which of the countless ways of modulation the composer uses in that specific situation. It all comes with consequences. And a good composer is a good one - among many other reasons - because he is sensible for the consequences that his decisions imply.

To come back to your question:
It's impossible to give the right advice without knowing the example you're speaking of.
Often, when a melody is repeated in a different section, the accompaniment continues. So there is no gap at all.
In other cases, it's good to have a gap.

However, if you say it sounds "awkward": are you sure that you have set your reverbs properly?
If there is a lack of reverb, pauses may indeed cause an awkward silence.


The good thing in music is that there are literally endless possibilities (they are not really "endless" in a mathematical sense, but in the sense that some billion years of human life aren't enough to explore even a tiny snippet of these possibilities)

The bad thing in music is that allthough there are countless possibilities, specific situations usually require quite specific solutions.


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## Pug user (Mar 2, 2020)

I appreciate every comment. It was really comforting to know that it was not only me who has difficulties regarding the transition. Every time I learn and being surprised a lot by the depth of knowledge and perspectives people in here write. Truly respect all the opinions and great advises!


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