Hey
@wing, it's interesting that you jumped in on this thread, as it all started after I was reading some of your comments in the other thread "Is there a standard or established syllabus...".
You mentioned how counterpoint, and more specifically the book 'Music Theory and Composition', had helped you out of "chord progression-itis," and that really resonated with me in a powerful way. Even more so after checking out your work and seeing that you compose in modern styles, and we both have similar backgrounds as touring musicians. So, I thought if learning about counterpoint helped you so much, I'd give the book a shot.
Anyway, I started working through the book and was powering through the initial theory preface until I reached the exercise I posted above and saw that it was a massive flaw in my music theory skills and knowledge. That led me to posting here asking for assistance, and here we are.
Regarding your comment here, I've done a little bit of transcribing, but not into a notation program, just straight into Logic. I guess transcribing straight into Logic is a good way to improve mockup and production skills, whereas transcribing into notation software improves your score reading skills. That's a choice I'll have to make depending on the piece and where I think I can get the most value.
I hear over and over again how transcribing your favorites is the most direct way to go, but for some reason, I always find myself trying to find a more structured approach to improving my composition skills. Whether that's through a course, book, or YouTube video series. That might just be a modern-day problem stemming from consumerism or possibly just how my brain is wired and thinks it's the best way to learn.
Every time I do transcribe something I love, I'm blown away by how simple it is, but I struggle with adapting it into my own writing. I also constantly think if I were a better keyboard player, these interesting chord voicings would just come naturally to me, but to be honest, all my favorite music is pretty easy to play on piano, so that's probably just another excuse. I will definitely follow your advice of putting the lessons learned straight into practice and writing my own music.
Thanks for the comment - you're an inspiration!
And
@Louie thank you for your comment too. I have to admit when I was reading through it, I felt a lot of internal resistance to your recommendation. There was a voice telling me that it'd be a waste of time and potentially embarrassing. But on reflection that probably means you're onto something and it's definitely an exercise I'll consider. Thanks
That's awesome that what I said before and my work has resonated with you! That makes me feel like I'm not screaming into a void at least lol. Thank you for your kind words!
I feel I might have misleading in my post on this thread, since I myself am still getting through the book and doing the exercises on the regular – which might sound like a contradiction, but allow me to clarify what I meant in the above post – I meant more specifically stuff like apps, drills, flash cards, and endless exercises which can just become a distraction in and of itself. As a guitarist I'm sure you can appreciate that difference between a basic warm-up exercise, vs. those endless and rather unmusical "finger dexterity exercises" which can take up all your practice time and honestly are not all that applicable to real music (that is, you can just study real music and you'll learn those same skills anyway). So that is mostly what I was referring to, these apps which generate random notes for you to exercise reading or counterpoint, at that stage I would rather just move on to studying real music.
But that said, I still stand by that book, primarily enjoying that the chapters are short and the exercises are short – so when I say that, I'm not anti-exercise or anti-study obviously, I just wanted to suggest that you don't need to spend more money on apps and go down the rabbit hole of endless exercises and flash cards and what not, because trust me, I've been there and wasted a lot of time on it, time I wish I could get back!
Regarding transcribing into Logic vs. notation software, whatever makes you feel more comfortable - but if you do have a goal to read scores faster, definitely notating an actual score will improve your reading skills tenfold. One thing from the book I suggested, which has also helped me a lot, is early on he says to sing notes on the page. I'm an ok singer but always kind of reticent, but I took the advice, and boy I'm glad I did - it has improved my ear training and also my sight-reading in big ways too, because I'm able to make a much stronger sight-sound connection by forcing myself to 'hear' what the notes sound like before even touching an instrument, which is really cool. I'm still not awesome at this skill but doing it every day has really been paying off and I'm noticing lately when I look at a score, the ability to kind of 'hear it' is starting to reveal itself more and more!
But if your goal isn't necessarily to read notation or read scores, I don't think there's any issue with doing transcription in Logic that way. Also I'm possibly not entirely using the word transcription correctly, I also meant hand-copying scores from the written page (so in addition to doing it by ear, it's helpful if you wish to read scores to actually read
and re-write them).
With transcribing and adapting to your own writing, I think the best advice I can give is to literally take concrete notes about things you notice:
- What is the harmony doing? How does the composer or songwriter treat inversions and chord voicings? (helpful to run a brief harmonic analysis, just writing the chords)
- Are there any interesting extended chords? Chromatic alterations? Modulations?
- If you spot the key, is it a traditional diatonic use of major or minor key? Or is it modal?
- Are there interesting scales appearing? Use of a colorful note, or maybe pentatonic scales?
- Does the composer start and end the entire piece diatonically in a resolved fashion to the tonic chord? What about at the end of cadences, or end of phrases or sections? Or do they switch it up and modulate elsewhere? How do they treat the relationship to the relative major or minor? What about the dominant V chord, is that used in a particular way, do we modulate to the scale based on the dominant perhaps? Or any other scale?
- Is there something happening with the rhythm that sticks out to you? Maybe a cool alternation between slow and fast notes, dotted notes or triplets or something unexpected about it? Polyrhythms or interesting meters?
- How does the tempo affect the feel of this piece?
- Is there interplay with the melody between sections, counterpoint, call and response, canon/repetition, layering, doubling, mirroring?
- If it's an orchestral piece, how does the composer orchestrate sections? Melodies vs. accompaniment, doubling, treatment of thirds and sixths etc. (Simple notes are helpful like, "I really love how they doubled the melody on trombone and cello, but by 6ths")
- Lastly, and most importantly, what is your favorite part, the thing which sticks out to you - and in short analyze why you think it grabs you every time.
I usually open up a notepad and save notes like this. It has really helped me to have a concrete analysis of things I notice. I will then later review these notes and think about how I can apply them to my own writing, whether literally (borrowing chord or scale ideas) or abstractly (borrowing ideas around mood and feeling).
Hope that all helps clarify what I meant about all those exercise apps vs. studying from the book (which I only spend a few minutes per day or sometimes every few days haha). I didn't actually realize the image you posted above was from the book – to be fair, it helps that I have played piano and cello for awhile so I went into that book able to read that by sight, but I would re-iterate what I said in the post before that my reading skills exploded once I started copying other scores down (like easier Mozart, chamber pieces, chorales), and just trying to show up consistently, even if that means just 10 mins a day.
