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Maximize the benefits

I recently read a blog post by Seth Godin titled “The real scam of ‘influencer'” and in that post he ends it with this paragraph:

“Maximizing the benefits for the social media platform you’re on are different than maximizing the benefits for you and those you are leading.“

This got me thinking about writing ‘meaningful’ music; maximizing the benefit that the act of writing music can have on the composer. Music that ‘matters’ to you. Whatever those two words mean to you. Whatever it means to write ‘meaningful’ music that ‘matters’ to you is what you should write.

If that means writing music in a specific genre, then do that. If that means composing music using certain techniques, then do that. If that means writing avant-garde music, then do that.

Write something that matters to you. It doesn’t need to matter to anyone else. Write the most authentic music you can. Write the most meaningful music that you can.

Make that experience of writing music or making music the most meaningful for you.

Maximize the benefits for you.

ISJ

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Play

You play violin. You play guitar. You play piano.

You play an instrument.

We often forget that it is play.

It’s for enjoyment. For self expression. For fun basically.

Even if that fun is taken seriously and studied, it’s because it’s enjoyable that people want to learn more and improve their skills. It’s for further enjoyment.

We often forget that about playing instruments and studying music. We get so caught up in the seriousness of making it a career and playing properly and learning how to analyze music that we forget to play.

Don’t forget to play.

Have fun with it.

ISJ

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Space

It’s a little cliche to say, but the distance and space between the notes matters just as much as what specific notes you choose. Miles Davis and Serge Koussevitzky both have quotes about this.

“Music is the space between the notes.” – Miles Davis

Giving a piece of music some space, taking some elements out, and letting the music breathe can add a lot to your music. It might add more than putting more elements into your music.

Even if it’s a small amount of space, it can add a lot.

ISJ

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Play matters

You play an instrument. You play guitar. You play violin. You play piano. You play.

As cliche as it is, it’s something worth remembering.

You’re playing.

It’s one of the reasons why I’m a fan of Jon Batiste. He plays piano. He has fun with it.

Remember to have fun with it.

ISJ

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Write intentionally

Think of a vision or a specific sound you want for a piece of music. Think about the different ways you could achieve that using harmony, melody, timbre, and rhythm. Choose the specific musical ideas that will give you that specific sound.

That’s writing intentionally.

Often writing music can feel mechanical at times because you’re following the muscle memory you’ve built up over years of practice.

If you take a step back from that, step back from your instrument, and think of a specific sound you want to create first, you’ll break that cycle of mechanical writing.

ISJ

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Timbres

Writing music that only has 4 chords, or one set chord progression, forces you to change something about it to keep it interesting.

But it can’t be the harmony.

The melody could change.

After hearing a piano playing the same four chords over and over it’ll get boring pretty quickly.

So you need to change timbres.

Change the instruments around. Move things between guitar and piano. Maybe have a synth. Alternate the timbres of the harmony parts and it’ll create a whole new sound that’ll keep those same four chords fresh.

This is often how producers do this with four chord loops. The chords stay the same, but the timbre changes drastically.

It can also be used to differentiate sections of a piece of music. The chorus could be staccato punches on piano and the verses could be a guitar finger picking the chords. Those two textures and timbres sound very different even if the chords stay the same.

ISJ

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Shapes

Start with the shape of a line. Plot that line on staff paper and check how it sounds. Choose a scale and a rhythm to go along with it and use your shape to create a melody.

Thinking about melodies and solos this way can change how you look at, play, and write lines because you’re thinking about the shape rather than the notes.

It forces you to make lines that make sense, rather than just throwing notes together.

It also forces you to simplify in a lot of ways. You’re not thinking of rhythms or scales as the focus. You’re looking at the overall shape of the line.

Use shapes to create a solo.

Doing this with a 4 bar solo can make a really well thought out solo. Draw four different shapes as your four bars. Then plot them on staff paper and add your notes and rhythms.

Test it out.

ISJ

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Don’t write linearly

I was talking with a friend of mine the other day and we were talking about writing music from start to finish.

He mentioned something that he learned from a teacher at Berklee. You don’t have to write linearly.

You don’t need to write a song from bar 1 to bar 100 in order starting with writing bar 1, then bar 2, then bar 3 and so on.

You can write bars 1-16 first, then write bars 64-80 next. Then write bars 90-100 and go back and write bars 16-40 and then the rest of the song. It doesn’t need to be done in order.

I started writing a new album that’s going to be titled “Home” and that’s how I’m going to write it. I’ve got the first song done and I’m going to write songs 2, 6, and 7 next. Then I’ll come back and work on songs 3, 4, and 5.

The reason I’m doing this is that songs 1, 2, 6 and 7 have related musical material. They’re going to be based off of the same ideas and musical materials (melodies/rhythms/harmonies). Songs 3, 4, and 5 will be based off of similar materials as well, but different materials than songs 1, 2, 6 and 7.

It’ll keep me focused when I’m working on those specific songs because I’ll have the other related songs fresh in my mind.

Then when I’m done with those I’ll go back and write the other songs that aren’t as related or are using different materials.

This could also be applied to pieces of music. In a song that’s 15 minutes long, you could write the music in the middle at minutes 7-9 before writing the beginning.

In some cases this will make more sense than starting from the beginning because you might want to have an exposition of your melodies and themes after an intro. The main themes may be written first, and then you want to use those materials to make an intro, rather than starting from writing the intro.

This is such a simple idea, but I hadn’t really thought about it. Sometimes we get so caught up in “the normal order of doing things” that you don’t realize things don’t have to be done that way. Just because a series of pieces of music are meant to be played in a certain order doesn’t mean they need to be written in that order. Just because a piece of music is meant to be heard from start to finish doesn’t mean it needs to be written from beginning to end. You can start writing the end. Or start writing the middle.

Give it a try. You don’t need to write linearly.

ISJ

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Learn techniques of music production

Rather than learning specific programs. Yes learn a specific program and get fluent and quick in whatever program you have available to you, but look at larger techniques of how things are done.

Don’t just learn the specific program.

If you learn larger ideas and concepts within music production, recording, and engineering you’ll be able to switch programs and use whatever program easily.

You won’t know all of the keyboard shortcuts, but you’ll be able to think backwards from the end result. It’ll take time to work in a new program well, but knowing what the end result should sound like and what techniques are involved in creating that sound will make that process faster.

ISJ

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Make variations

Making variations of a melody or a musical idea that you have has been one of the most valuable skills I’ve learned related to composing.

An exercise you can do is take one melody and make 10 variations as quickly as you can. It doesn’t matter if they’re good, but they have to be different.

Vary the speed, rhythm, time signature, mode, key, harmony, and timbre. Think of as many different ways you can play a single idea as possible.

It’ll help you write better music and help you write more music.

ISJ

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