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Music Theory and Composition - Lesson One

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Copyright © 2000 Ogden Edward McGahan (All Rights Reserved)

Fact: 99% of all music is created with twelve notes.
Major and minor scales are made up of seven of these notes.

The following is a Treble Clef with all of the twelve notes represented:

Premise: Everything (people, places or things) found within life has a music value(a motif).  I will create motifs by giving different items within my life a value which is made up of intervals and rhythmic ideals.  The melodic motifs have a few concepts of composition that I incorporate so as to create a melody line within the individual motifs so that they work well in conjunction with each other.  I will explain these compositional guidelines in the coarse of showing you this method of composition.  I will take 8 of the twelve notes and use them for creating motifs of which I will create a small composition.  I must make a note here that to use all twelve notes in a composition results in music that will be atonal in nature.  When I use eight of the twelve notes the resulting compostion becomes more tonal because I am closer to a seven note scale or a mode of a major or minor scale.  I can still use the other four notes and retain a sense of tonality by using them as passing notes or by keeping them off the beat.

When creating motifs by giving reason for the sounds one truely enters the realm of an artist.  Hence every sound within a composition has meaning.  True genius is depicted through the way one handles this form of expressionalism.

Motifs are created from rythmic ideas and pitch approximations then given their actual notes from the row of notes that I have decided to use for this composition. I have written whole compositions with only motifs made from pitch approximations and rythnic ideas, going in later to drop in the actual notes from the tone row. A tone row is the list of notes that I decide to use from the original 12 note row. Within compositions I have varied the motifs thru methods of retrograde, inversion, transposition etc... Now, we begin with a few of my motifs and what they represent to the composer at the time of writing:

Contemplation:

  

Contemplation Answer:

  

Happiness:

  

Contentment:

  

Life:

  

Business:

  

The following is an example of a bounce between two notes (motif 5) in the bass and the use of 4 more of the motifs in the treble clef.  The five motifs(1,2,3,4 and 5) are represented by the colors: Red, Green, Blue, Purple and Brown. (all notes in black are repeated motifs)

(Example 1)

Now, Let me add the sixth motif (represented by the color orange) continuously repeating, I end up with the following:

(Example 2)

Now, one's imagination leads one to manipulate the motifs and the development of said motifs in whatever form pleases the composer.  I will add the two later examples together.  To hear the results click the play button:

(Combination of Example 1 with Example 2)

That which results is a composition representing life in the eyes of this composer.