Impressionist Composing

Lately, I've been fascinated with impressionist music (if that's the correct term), particularly Debussy and Ravel, among others. So, I've been wondering: what exactly are the components behind such a compositional style?

I know of things such as planing, modality, atonality, polytonality/modality, whole-tone scale, pentatonic scale, and a bunch of other stuff. But, can anyone give me a "Impressionist Composing for Dummies" guide or something? I know all impressionist pieces are different in many ways, so it's not like anyone can truly tell me how to make one, but I wanna know if anyone can tell me the basic elements of the style or whatever.

Lately I have made the shift from classical, to romantic/impressionistic. I don't know how to describe how to actually "do" it because I am pretty new to this style, but how I learned was from listening to Rachmaninoff, Debussy and my model for romantic, Chopin. I really enjoy this style because I can just be myself in my writing and not be loaded down with so many rules and formalities. Just be creative really.

Good luck! ;)

- Jen

You should emulate the style of your favorite compositions. Continuously.

For example, I've currently been wanting to write in an Adam Guettel "Light in the Piazza" type sound, so I've been using heavy use of jazz chords and almost endless arpeggios. It may take a while for the compositions to sound like yours, but eventually, you will have strained out all the other composers and left their remnants and you. I just recently came up with a theme for a character I'm working on that actually sounded like it had my influence in it.