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Best course on theme writing and development?

Kurosawa

Kurosawa

Active Member
Hey guys :)
I am currently looking for a course that focuses on theme writing and development. Do you recommend any? I easily come up with a melody but struggle to get going after 4 bars... Thx!
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Kurosawa said:
Hey guys :)
I am currently looking for a course that focuses on theme writing and development. Do you recommend any? I easily come up with a melody but struggle to get going after 4 bars... Thx!
Click to expand...
You could look at Norman Ludwin's website: Orchestrationonline.com. If you don't know of him he's a composer / Session Double Bass player ..and A-List Hollywood Orchestrator who has written a number of very informative ebooks. He speaks a lot about how to develop ideas and has a book that takes that very subject. He has some Composition and Orchestration Masterclasses on Youtube if you do a quick search under his name. Hope this helps!
 

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Not a course, but Fundamentals of Musical Composition by Arnold Schoenberg could be a good starting point.
 
Jim of Seattle said:
My advice is not to consult any such sources, but rather lean headfirst into that struggle you're having at 4 bars. That's where the fun is. Books and such will teach you technique, but it's far FAR better not to let those techniques cloud your own voice. Let bars 5-8 suck and keep moving.
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Absolutely this. Couldn't agree more.
 
Working through it on your own is valuable... but you can waste your time trying to re-invent the wheel without education almost as easily as you can waste your time wrapping yourself up in coursework.





Your voice isn't going anywhere as long as you listen to music you like, just don't forget to do things on your own. You can also analyze the music you listen to. It doesn't always show you how to make it, but it will show you what is going on.
 
Elliot A said:
Working through it on your own is valuable... but you can waste your time trying to re-invent the wheel without education almost as easily as you can waste your time wrapping yourself up in coursework.





Your voice isn't going anywhere as long as you listen to music you like, just don't forget to do things on your own. You can also analyze the music you listen to. It doesn't always show you how to make it, but it will show you what is going on.
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I'm going back on my earlier statement now. I actually agree with @Elliot A . My earlier post was perhaps too absolutist. I've listened to a great deal of music by student or student-adjacent composers, and it's rare when their unique voice can be heard at all. At the early stages, one must imitate to learn of course, but getting too bogged down in that - a result of understandable insecurity - makes one's music generic, and far too many composers never overcome that and embrace the things about themselves that sound like nobody else. So everyone sounds the same.

The old adage "You have to learn the rules before you can break them" is true, but I would add "If all you're doing is following the rules it won't be interesting or matter much to anyone."

This, I believe, is the single most difficult thing about composing, sounding like you. Some composers are simply unmistakable: Gershwin, Bacharach, Satie, composers where you know who wrote the thing a few seconds into it. I wish all composers' voices were as distinct from each other as that.

A book can't teach someone that, but it sure can prevent it from happening.
 
 
Jim of Seattle said:
Some composers are simply unmistakable: Gershwin, Bacharach, Satie, composers where you know who wrote the thing a few seconds into it.
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That's certainly true, Jim, but it wasn't solely because of some naked innocence of imagination. Each of those composers knew what had come before in specific, musical-language detail.

I don't hear the OP asking "where can I get the formula for shackling myself to what others have done before" He/she is just looking to extend what he/she's already written, a very specific task that is susceptible to useful, practical approaches. One doesn't have to apply rigidly those approaches, but knowing a few things can shine a light on what might be next, based on what one has already invented.

Bag o' Tricks

In the end, we're composers -- we decide what to do. But if one has generated something pretty cool, it doesn't hurt to have someone (even a book) ask a few questions about rhythm, repetition (or lack thereof), tessitura -- a lot of musical aspects that seem to be effective artistically over a long period of time.

Shelf Life

I am prejudiced by having written nearly everything to some infernal deadline, so speed to me is an everyday reality of writing. I can't spend 40 days on a melody. Nevertheless, even if one enjoys a blissful life with no financial or time pressure, there's still something to be said for being able, quickly, to generate several / a dozen alternatives of 'where to go next.'

Sometimes I feel a musical idea has a sort of shelf life that, if not developed with some speed, will wilt / wither / decay to 'blah, I don't care about that anymore.' Even some pretty good ideas, too. Accordingly, having a checklist to speed the composing along, whether that list is from a book or Beethoven's letters, or otherwise, doesn't hurt for idea generation.
 
JohnG said:
That's certainly true, Jim, but it wasn't solely because of some naked innocence of imagination. Each of those composers knew what had come before in specific, musical-language detail.

I don't hear the OP asking "where can I get the formula for shackling myself to what others have done before" He/she is just looking to extend what he/she's already written, a very specific task that is susceptible to useful, practical approaches. One doesn't have to apply rigidly those approaches, but knowing a few things can shine a light on what might be next, based on what one has already invented.

Bag o' Tricks

In the end, we're composers -- we decide what to do. But if one has generated something pretty cool, it doesn't hurt to have someone (even a book) ask a few questions about rhythm, repetition (or lack thereof), tessitura -- a lot of musical aspects that seem to be effective artistically over a long period of time.

Shelf Life

I am prejudiced by having written nearly everything to some infernal deadline, so speed to me is an everyday reality of writing. I can't spend 40 days on a melody. Nevertheless, even if one enjoys a blissful life with no financial or time pressure, there's still something to be said for being able, quickly, to generate several / a dozen alternatives of 'where to go next.'

Sometimes I feel a musical idea has a sort of shelf life that, if not developed with some speed, will wilt / wither / decay to 'blah, I don't care about that anymore.' Even some pretty good ideas, too. Accordingly, having a checklist to speed the composing along, whether that list is from a book or Beethoven's letters, or otherwise, doesn't hurt for idea generation.
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I think we're talking about two entirely different disciplines here, and this is something I notice a lot when people talk about music. There are two distinctly different kinds of composing (I'm speaking narrowly about instrumental and usually orchestral music here, not songwriting, btw). There is music written in service to something else, and there's music written to stand alone.

Film and video game music is written to fulfill a purpose, or rather, a whole lot of purposes, and is in service to it. In that case, there are right and wrong choices that may have nothing to do with the music itself. Standalone music has no such constraints, and where it goes is entirely up to the whim of the composer. I don't think people make this distinction nearly enough. As I see it they are entirely different animals. Your 40 years of deadlines are likely mostly for writing music intended to serve something else. When under a deadline, then of course one needs to resort to a bag of tricks.

So I guess the question for the OP would be "I don't know, what kind of music do you want to write?"
 
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