Post by wizzarts on Feb 4, 2014 11:57:15 GMT
I read Kevins thread about how to develop a motif/theme. I enjoyed reading Annes answer but although I have a different point of view in some details.
A melody is a living creative with its own nature. It is driven by its inner forces created by the functionality of the combination of notes. Our western-musical ear always tries to settle a basement-scale (somehow). Even if there is no scale at all a series of notes establish a function when played one after another. They depend on each other.
This inner force creates a mood, an emotional aspect we barely can avoid. Sure we can break through and show up with a effect of surprise. But the main mood given by the function of notes in a series as well as the emotional details of the given tempo and key will not change that much.
How often have we listened to a piece of music and got the feeling something is missing, or we hear ourself say "this might be a better solution when doing it this way..."? How often have we changed some notes that matches better to cover a feeling?
It is absolutely true that when we start with a picture we pick up this given emotion, we interprete it, based on our life experience, our association, our current mood, and show up instinctively with a combination of notes that covers all those - based on the inner function of notes/chords.
So in fact we reorganize the mood of a picture to a mood in our melody. We extract our visual impression which results in a emotion and transfer it into an audiophile experience.
But what will happen when a given melody meets a given picture - created totally independently from each other ?
Imaging the following:
You are standing on track 29 (
) at central station waiting for the next train. Another 40 minutes.
You start talking to someone you have never seen before. You both are individuals with very unique life-experience, inclinations, wishes, points of view.
This could end in an disaster or in a conversation you both enjoyed, - both of you feel enriched.
But both of you are still individuals, - you just gathered some more experience for your book of life.
There is no difference when a musical theme meets a picture, both created independently. It can be a disaster or a wonderful conversation without giving up the personality.
So here we go:
Here is a given melody with chord-changes. It covers its own mood.
You can do what ever you want: change key, tempo, expand, add alterations, reharmonize.
You are not allowed to change the personality of the given melody.
The duration should be about 4 minutes.
Select one of the following instrumentations:
Flute + Piano
Altoflute + Piano
Oboe + Piano
English Horn + Piano
Clarinet + Piano
Bassoon + Piano
Bass Clarinet + Piano
Horn + Piano
Then select one of the pictures:
(the links do not work so I will post the pictures in the next 2 posts)
![Picture 1]()
![Picture 2]()
![Picture 3]()
![Picture 4]()
![Picture 5]()
Post your soundcloud-file here to see what other members say.
Do not tell them which picture you have chosen. Let them guess
What will happen:
Well, you will learn more about yourself. You will learn how you interprete things. Everybody interpretes differently. Every listener and every reader interpretes in his/her own way based on experience, worries, memories, moments of happiness, spirit of the times they have experienced.
But all this will not change the emotional aspect and mood of neither the melody nor the picture.
It is just you.
We will never experience the true nature of our melody as long as we are not willing to give up our own personality. It will always be an individual point of view, - our point of view.
The melody can be our best friend or the evil neighbour. We can arguing with the melody. We can agree or disagree. This are the forces, the mechanisms we use to compose (our) moods/emotions.
A lot of composing techniques are common sense and result into similar interpretation of listeners.
But there are also techniques that are very wide open for individual interpretation.
A melody is a living creative with its own nature. It is driven by its inner forces created by the functionality of the combination of notes. Our western-musical ear always tries to settle a basement-scale (somehow). Even if there is no scale at all a series of notes establish a function when played one after another. They depend on each other.
This inner force creates a mood, an emotional aspect we barely can avoid. Sure we can break through and show up with a effect of surprise. But the main mood given by the function of notes in a series as well as the emotional details of the given tempo and key will not change that much.
How often have we listened to a piece of music and got the feeling something is missing, or we hear ourself say "this might be a better solution when doing it this way..."? How often have we changed some notes that matches better to cover a feeling?
It is absolutely true that when we start with a picture we pick up this given emotion, we interprete it, based on our life experience, our association, our current mood, and show up instinctively with a combination of notes that covers all those - based on the inner function of notes/chords.
So in fact we reorganize the mood of a picture to a mood in our melody. We extract our visual impression which results in a emotion and transfer it into an audiophile experience.
But what will happen when a given melody meets a given picture - created totally independently from each other ?
Imaging the following:
You are standing on track 29 (
) at central station waiting for the next train. Another 40 minutes.You start talking to someone you have never seen before. You both are individuals with very unique life-experience, inclinations, wishes, points of view.
This could end in an disaster or in a conversation you both enjoyed, - both of you feel enriched.
But both of you are still individuals, - you just gathered some more experience for your book of life.
There is no difference when a musical theme meets a picture, both created independently. It can be a disaster or a wonderful conversation without giving up the personality.
So here we go:
Here is a given melody with chord-changes. It covers its own mood.
You can do what ever you want: change key, tempo, expand, add alterations, reharmonize.
You are not allowed to change the personality of the given melody.
The duration should be about 4 minutes.
Select one of the following instrumentations:
Flute + Piano
Altoflute + Piano
Oboe + Piano
English Horn + Piano
Clarinet + Piano
Bassoon + Piano
Bass Clarinet + Piano
Horn + Piano
Then select one of the pictures:
(the links do not work so I will post the pictures in the next 2 posts)
Post your soundcloud-file here to see what other members say.
Do not tell them which picture you have chosen.
Let them guessWhat will happen:
Well, you will learn more about yourself. You will learn how you interprete things. Everybody interpretes differently. Every listener and every reader interpretes in his/her own way based on experience, worries, memories, moments of happiness, spirit of the times they have experienced.
But all this will not change the emotional aspect and mood of neither the melody nor the picture.
It is just you.
We will never experience the true nature of our melody as long as we are not willing to give up our own personality. It will always be an individual point of view, - our point of view.
The melody can be our best friend or the evil neighbour. We can arguing with the melody. We can agree or disagree. This are the forces, the mechanisms we use to compose (our) moods/emotions.
A lot of composing techniques are common sense and result into similar interpretation of listeners.
But there are also techniques that are very wide open for individual interpretation.
However, the melody given is difficult to read as it is very tiny. I have expanded it on my tablet but I am still unable to decipher the chord in measure 2 and also the chords on the 3rd beat in measures 6 and 8. Would you be able to help me with that? Thank you.
