Mel Bay Composing Made Easy - Smith - Book

Author: Gail Smith
Format: Book
Version: Composition Text

When words fail, music speaks...so the saying goes. Expressing yourself through music by putting words to notes and notes to words can be easy; yes, easier than you may think. This book is a treasure chest of ideas for anyone interested in composing. Simple ways to spark the creative process are included, such as taking the musical letters in your name to form a melody. Step by step, you will see how to actually process the notes into music. Norse Song by Robert Schumann shows how he used the four musical letters of his friend GADE to compose the piano solo.

Contents:

• Chapter One - What's in a Name
• Chapter Two - Take Five
• Chapter Three - Pentatonic Scale Songs
• Chapter Four - Five-Tone Blues
• Chapter Five - Whole-Tone Melody
• Chapter Six - Musical Q & A
• Chapter Seven - Song Form
• Chapter Eight - Using a Poem to Compose
• Chapter Nine - Inspired by Nature
• Chapter Ten - Palindromes and Semordnilaps
• Chapter Eleven - Inverted Songs
• Chapter Twelve - Twelve-Tone Songs
• Amy Beach's Ten Commandments for Composers