Technique

[josejherring]

A long time ago I made a discovery that I want to share with you all so that we can debate.

I asked myself what makes the difference between an amateur composer and a pro. The answer I got was--Technique.

When I first started to compose I drilled music theory on the keyboard. I would run up and down the scales putting chords on each scale tone up to the ninth until I could do it reasonably well. That was just one of the things I did. Not just study books but actually drill the techniques until I could do it.

What I notice in a lot of demos here, no one in particular, so please don't be offended, is just plain lack of technique.

I also hear comments from others that too much music education is harmful. To me that's like saying to a pitcher that practicing is going to throw your game off. :rolleyes: There's actually no such thing as over education, just under application of that which is learned through drilling.

So how many of you sit down everyday and just bang around some raw composition, performing and production technique? How many people really spend the time to improve their chops?

Cheers,

Jose

[FredProgGH]

Not me. The realities of my world- being constantly busy, and flat out lazy when I'm not busy- and relying on computer tools have rendered my technique weak. BUT at least I'm aware of the fact, I know what it was like to have excellent technique and I can fake it when I work. That's relating to playing. Now as for composition, I'm one of those unwashed, untrained types- I just do what I do.

Unfortunately I have some live shows later this year so I'm going to HAVE to practice a little and get it together- woe! :D

[wes37]

Jose,

I think you've made some great points. Technology has made it easier to make music that sounds passable, but to really compose good music takes a great deal of education, dedication, and skill.

I'm taking composition lessons right now and agree that you have to drill this stuff until it's down cold. My instructor would probably wonder how much drilling I do given all the mistakes I've made. :)

I think one other key is that you have to train your ears. The biggest frustration for me when I goof on my lessons is that the mistakes don't always sound wrong until I hear what the better choices are. But I suppose this is part of the learning process.

Wes

[Chris Hein]

I think there is a differents in "composing" and "making music".
Making music is more composing, arranging and editing.
So, if you have a melody in mind but the samplelibrary (Thats our theme here)
does not sound good in one specific note you just take another note and people say: sounds good.
When you just compose like the old classic guys did, you have to imagine
how the musicians (sample librarys) will sound.
One of the best clients in my studio is Prof. Manfred Schoof, the most famous
european jazz-trumpet player since the 60´s.
He writes everything on paper, comes to my studio and I put it into sound
with my samples. After 15 years he knows my sounds very well and it influences his way
of composing like when you write for a real orchestra.

If you are not a genius you have to study compositing but there are some
composers, I guess Errol Garner for example who never knew how to write a note.

It does`nt matter how you make the music.
The only thing thats important for me to call it a compositing is,
that you make your music out of single tones and not by just putting some
phrases together in software like Apples Soundtrack.

Chris 'Hein

[rikp]

I am a basket case in this area. Practice sax and piano 2 hours a day, compose and study every orchestration, and composition book that I can. I actually schedule it into my day. Composition technique is just like performance technique. When I develop my ideas as I play jazz, technique no longer gets in the way. I want to be in the same place with my composing and orchestration. It takes time and patience!

Peace

rp

[Journeyman]

rp,

Since you're a jazz player (as I am), are the compositions and orchestrations you create in the jazz style or traditional "classical" genre?

[JonFairhurst]

I think the difference between an amateur and a pro is that the amateur makes little or no money, and the true professional makes a living at it.

That said, there are pros who are brilliant and pros who are hacks. There are amateurs who are geniuses and amateurs who might consider a different hobby.

We all bring varying degrees of inner talent, intuition and style to the party. The lucky ones among us are truly gifted. Practice, technique, skills and experience with top tools allows the fair to become good, the good to become great and the great to excel.

I figure that I bring some talent to the table in some areas, and am weak in others. I sure wish I had more time in the day - as well as the focus and self-discipline - to more quickly bring myself to the next level. I've improved during the past few years, but not as far as I would have liked.

But I'll always be an amateur. Music is my hobby, not my job.

-JF

[StrangeCat]

Good post! for me I just keep writing new stuff and trying not to because I have to do the production on other music, but music just pops in my head and I have to write. I think What JohnFairhurst said is pretty good too.
You deffinitly need to know the technique of what you are wriitng, be it jazz orchestration or classical orchestration, or laying down grooves, or just doing piano arrangement, you need know all the techniques of the styles for those styles.

Example Technique of say Film Style Score, you have your ethreal voices, slow wind melody under some fx, or light Asian percussion, then the tempo changes and the cress roll with cymble introduces hard dark percussion, brass following the Rhythm of the percussion, strings supporting it, winds adding harmony, bassically full orchestra playing, the tempo is faster the music is epic now, then that ends and were back to our Ethreal voices with a light ryhthm and under that a harp with the wind instrument playing a closing
statement. Just writing that out someone could compose that. So is that Technique of that style? (and that would be just one style)

Probably, which by the way is done so many times...but works.
so yea you need to know Technique of compositions and styles :n:

[karimelm]

Hi Jose,

Great question - and I am constantly struggling to understand the answer to it. We discussed it a while back on this thread:

http://www.northernsounds.com/forum/showthread.php?t=32131

One thing I've noticed is how easy it is to know good technique when you hear it but difficult to quantify it with words.

I posed this question to others and I got a lot of answers about technique being relative sort of like beauty being in the eye of the beholder. I felt differently though. It seems to me that even if one doesn't like the music, they can still hear good technique so it must be a universal quality - not relative.

One quality I think requires good technique is the following:

The ability to clearly communicate a musical expression, thought, or idea with the fewest possible notes.

This should apply to any music that has good technique regardless of how much one likes to listen to the music. For example, one could hear good technique in the Beatles but not necessarily like to listen to their music.

A quality of technique is efficincy of idea and expression. This is VERY very difficult to master and I am by no means an expert at it, but it is a useful exercise to try to answer the question and struggle to achieve it.

I remember remember reading a quote of Leopold Stokowski about the Shostakovich prelude in B flat minor that he orchestrated. Stokowski said "it is amazing how much Shostakovich says with so few bars." I think this is an excellent example of good technique.

Karim

[Chadwick]

It's time to define 'technique' as it applies to composition (as opposed to performance)

[rikp]

rp,

Since you're a jazz player (as I am), are the compositions and orchestrations you create in the jazz style or traditional "classical" genre?

Journeyman:

I do both. But I am really trying to learn the classical genre. I took arranging for big band in college, and pretty much ignored the whole orchestration thing. I am catching up though. Now it is so great, because you can get your classical stuff into your computer and hear the the finished product!

Peace

Rik

[Tomke]

I did practice very much before doing this - starting out understanding the classic idea of theory and then practicing using it in real-time and improvising on those terms. Nowadays, I tend to move away from it. I've discovered that I want to provide my standpoint, my spontaneous impressions, musical "opinion" and colors and whatever.

The classical theory is very much based in a (very) general idea of what sounds good, and what does not, what is to be a more preferred choice in a situation with many choices. I will not dispute that those ideas - of what sounds better than other things - are relevant from a general perspective.

But then look at the Blues, for example, a musical dialect that in some cases completely contradicts the classical and originally european idea of what sounds good and not, and still it sounds just as (a few might even say 'more') harmonic and fluent as most music composed on classical terms does. Today I think and feel more bluesy than .. hm .. let's call it pattern-like. :p

Like I said, I want to provide more myself and my inner ideas - as unique or non-unique as they may be - rather than developing and displaying an ability to comply to and use ideas and systems outside of myself. The classical musical theory doesn't help much in accomplishing that - although some.

While composing, one might ask "Hm, where do I go from this place, chord, bar, position or whatever" and then try all options you may know from the books or the classroom and choose the one that sounds the most relevant and best to your ear, and then go with that. That's one way.

My .. eh ... wish, nowadays, is to go completely by the "emotional melody" and not a "select the best possible alternative from a number of options" way. I want to have it come from the inside and out, as opposed going from the outside going in. It's sort of singing with your soul, outwards, instead of composing using a modular library of ideas where you selects the best you can from what you can find, find out or seek out.

With this "goal", I find that the theoretical approach lacks its original purpose, which pretty much is to construct things like building a puzzle, rather than let your feelings just ooze out in the form of a musical incarnation. Needless to say, I compose most things in my head by first listen to my feelings, and then "singing" my feeling with my inner voice and then start concentrating on getting that melody down in solid form - with the intention of conveying my inner emotion to any listener.

This is my perspective of things, seen just as they are. But as for "improving or ignoring technique", or "amateuristic or professional" .. I'm not sure how to relate to that :o. This is speaking for myself of course, and this is not very "business-oriented" but still artistic I think. Still I'm confident that most readers here can relate to what I'm trying to portray :)

[StrangeCat]

I like what you said about blues there... Well how do you think Jazz came to be, those that were playing Classical music were not following Rule of Thumb harmony, and hence jazz ;) me I just write what I hear obviously I know the style i am writing in and how to create that music. I hear the music then write it. But whatever works for whoever that's all that counts... I guess Techniuqe must be as subjective as music is :D
Ninjas had great technique WHAHAHA :n:

[ikebrown]

"They say a good footballer is someone whos makes the right choices at the right time either pass or shot wise" maybe this is true of everything..... including technique in composing

p.s philosophy was never my strong point!!

[Ted Vanya]

Oh Chadwick!
I missed your comments, you are popping up only here and there.
But:
Forever finding the nail on th head!
Thanks

Ted

[evaclear]

I think the difference between an amateur and a pro is that the amateur makes little or no money, and the true professional makes a living at it.

That said, there are pros who are brilliant and pros who are hacks. There are amateurs who are geniuses and amateurs who might consider a different hobby.
-JF

Agreed! It's nice to think that he who plays fast, well and is able to put it to ink with great accuracy is the pro, but it's not always the case.

[evaclear]

Chadwick, you're defining technique as we speak. You've got mighty fine chops for an axolotl! :D :D

[josejherring]

I define pro as somebody who can put out a high quality product artistically. There have been plenty of Pro composers who never really made money composing. Mahler being one. Borodin being another and Gustav Holst. If fact i would venture to guess that most of the really pro composers and really pro pieces were written with little or no attention to money. So, I don't define a pro by money. Money's just necessary for survival but completely irrelevant to being a professional.

That being said I've throught out the years have tried to define composition technique. I'm actually pretty proud to say that I've come a long way in defining it.

Composition consist of serveral different elements namely:
Melody
Harmony
Counterpoint
form
orchestration

I've then gone on to isolate these factors in relationship to the elements above:
Cleverness of construction
and musical grammar.(what Bernstein called musical syntax)

Then I went on to isolate how these three things affect melody, harmony, counterpoint, form and orchestration.

There's a few more refinements that I'm working on now that have to do with pleasing aesthetic sounds. But as this is more subjective I leave it alone.

Above all this though is a little idea I found from a Harvard professor in the 1930's who said that Aesthetics is the replacement of an experience by an artificial experience.

Yeah, he was a little confused so I had to rethink what he was trying to say and basically he's saying that you're trying to communicate an experience through artistic means.

So I put the communication above all else and that guides the technique.

Cheers,

Jose

[StrangeCat]

I believe communication is deffinitly the highest or at least up there on the list for technique. Your communicating your art to the listener, what are you trying to say ? Music has to convey something to those that hear it. Uh oh this whole hearing listening thing could start a new topic about the listener verses the composer, a good listener will make the music more verses someone that is not interested in listening to it. and .... :D