--- title: Music Composition --- Status: 🌱
Table of contents
### Motives and Phrases {#motivesphrases} ##### Motives - "smallest musical idea" - usually 2-7 notes[^1] - motive is a seed/DNA of things to come - motives are developed 2 parts of a good motive: 1. distinct interval/shape[^2] 2. distinct rhythm [^1]: rule of thumb - can be more, but difficult to pull off. Same with 1 note, very exceptional cases. [^2]: distinct doesn't necessarily mean never heard before - just something that is recognisable in a piece #### Phrases - "complete expression of that idea[^3]" - consists of motives - standard phrase is 2 bars long 3 parts of a good phrase: 1. motive - no more than 3 motives 2. peak - the most something; can be lowest/highest, loudest, most disonant, etc[^4] 3. punctuation - as in writing, simplest is rest or hold a note[^5]. Important to give listener a pause [^3]: idea = motive [^4]: it needs to stand out and it's best to hit it only once [^5]: good idea is to visualise someone singing and needing to take a breath ### Harmonic Function {#harmonicfunction} Each chord in a key has a function. For major key | Tonic | Subdominant | Dominant | | ----- | ----------- | -------- | | I | ii | V | | iii | IV | vii[^6] | | vi | | | C Dm Em F G Am Bdim can change to Cmaj7 Dm7 Em7 Fmaj7 G7 Am7 Bm7(b5) in minor key Am Bdim C Dm Em F G Am7 Bm7(b5)[^7] Cmaj7 Dm Em7[^8] Fmaj7 G7[^8] [^6]: very spicy in major, beginner should avoid [^7]: dimished here is more useful in minor, as it can be seen as "spicy subdominant chord to v" [^8]: can be changed to E/E7 and G#dim/G#dim7 to give more pull into tonic ### Period and sentence forms {#sentenceperiod} #### Period - 8 bar phrase - **basic idea**[^9] - 2 bars - **antecedent** = basic idea + 2bars that end with half cadence[^10] - 4 bars - **consequent** - basic idea[^11] + 2 bars that end with authentic cadence - 4 bars - period = antecedent + consequent. It's bit like question and answer, or saying basic idea, "not sure where to go", repeat basic idea and lead somewhere satisfying. Period is a very balanced form. ABAC is good representation of it. #### Sentence - also 8 bar form - more forward directed than period - 4 first bars -> basic idea x2[^11] - bars 5&6 -> **continuation** -> there's "more something"[^12] - bars 7&8 -> any cadence because of open end it is easy to move on, but more difficult to use repetition to extend beyond 8 bars due to repetitive nature of beginning. AABC is good representation of it [^9]: pretty harmonically stable [^10]: contrasting idea [^11]: can be copypaste, can introduce variation, but familiar melody **needs** to be repeated [^12]: no matter what more, but more. Bit like with peak. Can be more chords in a bar. Can be idea expressed in 1 bar instead of 2. Can be more notes. ### Harmonic Rhythm and Sequence {#harmonicrhythmseq} #### Harmonic rhythm `how many chords per bar` [^13] #### Sequence (in melody) Take a small pattern and shift in N steps, for example `def efg fga`[^14] #### Harmonic Sequence `tl;dr the same but for chords` Examples: - chords going down by 3rds: `C Am F Dm` - ii V I that goes forever: `Dm7 G7 Cmaj7 Cm7 F7 Bbmaj7 Bbm7 Eb7 Abmaj7...` very useful in continuation of sentence form [^13]: use similar chord functions to increate chord count [^14]: even if we shift diatonically, not exactly by the same amount, so it fits the scale, if overall shape is the same - it still counts as a sequence ### Secondary Dominants {#secondarydominants} `tl;dr borrowing V chords from other keys that tonics are present in our key` example: 1. in key of C we have Dm chord 2. in key of D we have A(A7) as dominant chord 3. we can "borrow" that A7 and lead into Dm even in a context of C Basically, we can create a "pull" into any chord[^15] and add some extra color (C# in A in example above) [^15]: except vii°