In composing music, there are no rules. Though there are strong musical expectations in both the composer and audience, nothing, really, is off limits! Style will impose expectations and guide what we think of the ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’ of the notes we choose. As Thelonious Monk once said, “there are no wrong notes; some are just more right than others.” It is a matter of style and our expectations. This flexible, ‘no-rules-musical-space’, however, invokes a degree of anxiety amongst students. Unlike the bulk of work in, say, mathematics, there is no ‘one way’ of solving or resolving musical issues or statements.

After struggling to guide some of my students through the compositional process – the basis notated in the ‘Thinking About Teaching Composition’ post (perhaps because it was a little too broad) – I thought I’d try to strip it back to basics and keep it practical. Composition doesn’t have to be complex to be musically effective or successful – as an influential composer and music educator used to ‘press’ with us at university, ‘less is more’!

So, on that note, here is one of the simple activities I used today to hopefully give some of my students some confidence in getting started. I stress, this is one way of approaching this, and continued exploration of this will generate more options (and I encourage you to share yours!).

Starting with the following video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIs3jechQ_E (Musica Ricercata by György Ligeti), I asked what the students noticed about the work in terms of pitch?

Yes, it is just one note (A). Not the most spectacular of works, but useful for the exercise. So, how did Ligeti gave a sense of ‘development’ and ‘forward motion’ in the work despite only using one note? We generated the list below:

• Pitch: use of octaves/registers…
• Duration: varying note values/duration; syncopation and anticipation; use of space/rests; tempo changes…
• Expressive Devices: articulation; attack; ‘growth’ (dynamics)…
• Timbre: quality of sound; harmonics: muted/ghost notes…

All of these elements or devices were used to assist the development of forward motion and narrative in the melody. There was a realisation that pitch isn’t the only important aspect of a melody.

Similarly, this one-note compositional approach was also explored by Randy Gibson in his The Four Pillars Appearing From the Equal D Under Resonating Apparitions of the Eternal Process in the Midwinter Starfield (2014) – https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/16/arts/music/listen-to-three-hours-of-music-from-a-single-note.html.

From this, an extension (development) and flexible use of such manipulation can be seen in the well-known piece, One Note Samba, as performed by Stacey Kent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYdrhTL3VBk. In this piece, for the first phrase at least, we see changing harmony/chords underpinning a static note in the melody. The principal driver of the melody is the rhythm (and its syncopated nature).

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From here, I ask for 3 notes. I am given A, Bb and C#. We explore what we could do with these melodically, harmonically, and in terms of expressive devices… I improvise some possibilities. We critique and reflect on them. We consider what was done and what could be done:

• Pitch
  1. ordering of notes
  2. use of octaves/registers – even three notes each a semitone apart can be broken
  3. intervals between notes
  4. clustering of notes
  5. alternations between melodic and harmonic use
  6. division of notes between hands (LH and RH piano)
  7. an ostinato on one note, with the others free to move above it 

• Duration
  1. varying note values/durations
  2. syncopation and anticipation
  3. use of space/rests
  4. tempo changes
  5. cross-rhythms/hemiola between parts

• Expressive Devices
  1. articulation
  2. attack
  3. growth and dynamics

• Timbre
  1. quality of sound
  2. harmonics
  3. muted/ghost notes

• Texture
  1. three notes don’t have to happen in one part – how will you use the notes between different parts?
  2. how will you use texture and layering – thinness and thickness?

By limiting our musical data we are forced to use what we have wisely – often the result is more in line with compositional economy, growing a narrative, and not treating non-pitch music elements as an afterthought.

The students choose 3 notes of their own; the principles in the diagram above are used and applied to generate a composition. A melody – even only one that has three notes – should be able to ‘say something’ (or provide a narrative).

Off they go…

More on the result soon!