COMPOSING
These pages are not intended to be treated as an authoritative text on the subject, (there are already many books in existence which cover the orthodox rules), so much as a practical working guide to writing and arranging music in a way which I have found to work well in the real world of popular commercial (and sometimes not so commercial) music.
Many of these resources have been used on the Southampton University commercial composition course which I designed and taught between 2000 and 2004, before leaving to go back to full time professional composing. I have tried to achieve a balance between doing it by the book
and looking at some of the realistic short cuts available. In some areas I have taken a slightly academic approach where I feel that the knowledge of certain rules (or conventions as I prefer to call them) are invaluable. In other areas I have relied purely on my experience of what happens in the music business. I am very happy and proud to see many of my composition students from Southampton University go on to work professionally as composers - see the composition students pages in the Media Music Forum to hear examples of their work.
Musical boundaries are being broken all the time and so these tutorials cover more than one genre, not purely orchestral and not purely pop and commercial. Although I have concentrated mostly on western diatonic music, the area with which I am most familiar, many of the techniques I describe can be applied to all types of music, traditional or avant garde and from whatever culture. It would be narrow minded and uncreative to assume that we can’t apply one set of conventions to various styles of music. For many years I have been composing and arranging in many different styles including pop, jazz, rock, rhythm & blues, big band, orchestral, classical, country and folk. I have been involved in writing and producing music for the film, television, radio and the record industry as well as for my own gratification and pleasure. I have often needed several different textbooks when a problem arises. I hope that these tutorials will answer many of the questions that would normally take three or four different books to cover. Inevitably I have had to omit some of the more intricate aspects and would recommend much further study in specialist areas.
These notes are designed give the intermediate musician some short cuts to creative writing. In some instances there are no short cuts but ways of avoiding some pitfalls are useful. The conventions that exist are of course a very important aspect, but not as important as that most intangible requirement: inspiration. I believe that at certain times we are all able to create music with a magical quality that breaks the rules and transcends all the studying we may do. No book can tell us how to do this, but at those other times, there’s a lot to learn.
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