Lessons with Music_Theory2009

Right. Let's start with some of your music. Either link me to a composition you've uploaded already, or post something new that you feel represents you as a composer.

If you could also tell me what kind of music you like to listen to, what influences you to write, what you specifically want to learn, that'd be really helpful.

~Christopher

I don't have anything that I've started composing. I don't realy know the foundations of composing.

I listen to various types of music. Classical, pop, jpop, korean, rock, mostly "band music" the kind you play when you're in middles school/ high school and soundtrack music (The stuff from Harry Potter, Pirates, Animated movies like Spirited Away , Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind)

I'd like to learn theory for one I really don't know too much about it.

Okay - so, how much theory do you know? Are you versed in basic voice-leading?

I don't think I know voice leading. =/

Uhm well I don't know too much I know about the staffs to a degree some stuff about the scales and what not...The things they teach you in middle school I guess.

Well, what you can write is, in a lot of ways, contingent upon what you know. So let's get some counterpoint going!

Choose three pitches, your choice, preferably not reachable by steps, nor comprising a major or minor chord.

Write a two-part counterpoint (two melodies that work together) using just those three pitches. The rhythms of each part should be different, as should the melodic lines.

Sorry for being away so long, my computer crashed.

I'm afraid I still don't understand what you ask.

Essentially, I'm asking you to choose three notes. Any three notes.

Then, write two melodies that happen at the same time, using only those three pitches.

Example posted below.

O this is exciting! A starting point to "composition."

So, a pitch is the SAME thing as a note? I always had my suspicions about that.

Also, why shouldn't the three pitches contain a major or minor chord? Doesn't a melody usually contain a major or minor chord within contiguous three notes? IE Debussy's Arabesque seems like an inifitely many series of three-note major chords that entirely create the simple melody.

Well, a melody can contain either major or minor chords. However, I'm starting from a place that attempts to build harmony from melodies, rather than creating melodies from harmonies.

Also consider that if you choose your three pitches as a triad, you're really just playing a broken-up triad - which, contrapuntally speaking, is about as useful as just playing a chord. Remember, you do only get three pitches. Debussy's Arabesque uses 7 pitches within the first 4 beats. By choosing pitches outside a major or minor chord, you allow there to be more possibility for different harmonization, depending on the interaction of the two melodies that form the counterpoint.

And while pitch and a note are not necessarily the same thing, it rather depends on the context. I suppose if you're talking strictly, I use the term 'note' incorrectly, but I think it's generally understood to be interchangeable.