Music Composition:
Anyone Can Do It!
Developing Musical Skills in
Non-Musicians
Jenine Brown
Oakland University
June 8, 2012
Today’s Talk:
Three Composition Projects
1. Project 1: Compose a song in Verse/Chorus
form in GarageBand.
2. Project 2: Take a vocal track that someone
else made and compose a drumbeat for it at
advanced.aviary.com
3. Project 3: Build a song around a recording of
you making music with the every-day objects
around you at advanced.aviary.com
Project 1: Writing a song in
verse/chorus form in GarageBand
– GarageBand is a program that comes installed on
every Mac.
– Mixcraft is a similar, inexpensive program for PCs.
Project 1: Writing a song in
verse/chorus form in GarageBand
– What do students learn about during this project?
• Tempo: How fast/slow is their song?
• Songs usually have a formal design, and students learn to
analyze their favorite pop tunes and imitate verse/chorus
form.
• Students learn to combine drums, bass, and some melody
instrument to create their desired mood.
• Dynamics: Which parts should be louder/softer?
Verse/Chorus Form
• Popular music often is in Verse/Chorus form.
– Intro: Usually very short (no more than 15
seconds)
– Verse 1:
– Chorus: Higher notes, more exciting.
– Verse 2: Same melody as Verse 1 but uses
different words
– Chorus: Exactly the same as the previous chorus
– Outro: A short ending
Verse/Chorus Form
• Elton John’s “Your Song”:
– Intro
– Verse 1: “It’s a little bit funny…”
– Chorus: “And you can tell everybody…”
– Verse 2: “I sat on the roof…”
– Chorus: “And you can tell everybody…”
– Outro
Project 1: Writing a song in
verse/chorus form in GarageBand
• I’m first going to share with you a song that
one of my students composed.
• Then, I’ll compose a short piece in GarageBand
for you so that you can understand the ease of
the process.
Project 2: Writing a drumbeat to go
with a vocal track
• 1. Students choose a vocal track from
ccmixter.org
• 2. They then compose a drumbeat at
http://advanced.aviary.com.
• 3. Finally, students combine their drumbeat,
vocal track, and other loops together in
advanced.aviary.com make a more polished,
professional song.
Project 3: We can make music with
every-day objects
• 1. In advanced.aviary.com, students record
themselves hitting objects that make a
rhythmic, percussive noise.
• 2. They also record themselves playing an
object that sounds like a musical note.
• 3. They then import other loops and create a
larger song.
Conclusion
• When composing, students consider the following
elements of music:
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–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Tempo
Dynamics
How to combine different instruments
Formal design
Emotional implications
Recording and manipulating their own sounds
Repetition and contrast
…
• Most importantly, students feel empowered, creative,
and more knowledgeable.
Websites/programs that aid in
music composition:
•
•
•
•
GarageBand (for Macs)
Mixcraft (a GarageBand-like program for PCs)
http://advanced.aviary.com
www.ccmixter.org
• Other websites:
– www.jamstudio.com
– www.noteflight.com
Thank you!
Questions/comments?
Jenine Brown
brown211@oakland.edu
Project 3: Using music notation
applications to compose music
• Composing music at www.noteflight.com
• Let’s study a piece of music that I have
composed for a bass, piano, and vibraphone. I
write my music in a software program called
“Sibelius.”
• If time: We’ll look at an example of a piece of
music that a student composed for piano.
Project 3: Using music notation
applications to compose music
• There are many decisions that guide my creative process
while composing:
– What instruments am I composing for? Vibraphone
(melody), piano (accompaniment), and bass
(accompaniment).
– What is the tempo (speed) of the music? 180 beats per
minute, which is pretty fast.
– What is the mood of the music? How do I achieve this
musically? The mood is hesitant, relaxed, anxious. The
melody is slow and relaxed. The piano part is fast an anxious.
– Will I be using chords as an accompaniment to my melody?
I’ll be using chords in the piano part.
– What is the form of the music? In what you’re about to hear,
you simply hear one very long melody and then it is
repeated.
Project 2: Using the “loops” in
GarageBand to write a song
•
There are many decisions that guide my creative process while composing:
– Do you want a regular beat in the music? Like most pop songs, my compositions
have a consistent drumbeat that lasts throughout the composition. So, I usually
find a drumbeat first.
– What is the tempo (speed) of the music? 120 BPM means that there are two
pulses (beats) per second, and therefore 120 beats per minute. That’s a nice,
upbeat speed for a composition.
– What is the form of the music? You may want to write a song in verse/chorus
form.
– When I am finding loops for the verse and chorus, I try to have an
accompanimental instrument (like a bass) and a melodic instrument (like a flute,
piano, violin, singer…).
– In my opinion, the verse should be different from the chorus to create variety in
my composition.
– When I use loops, I use them in groups of 4 because that’s common in popular
music.
– Throughout, I’m thinking about the mood of my composition and how I express
this musically.
Project 2: Writing a drumbeat
• Students take a vocal track from ccmixter.org and
write a drumbeat to accompany it.
• Questions that guide our creative process when
composing drumbeats:
– Genre: What style is your drumbeat: Hip-hop, techno,
rock, country…
– Speed: How slow/fast do you want your drumbeat? This
will determine the mood of the drumbeat.
– When the drumbeat accompanies a vocal track, do you
want it to occur during the verse, or the chorus, or both?
Today’s Talk:
Four Composition Projects
1. Project 1: Compose a song in Verse/Chorus
form GarageBand.
2. Project 2: Take a vocal track that someone
else made and compose a drumbeat for it at
advanced.aviary.com
3. Project 3: Build a song around a recording of
you making music with the every-day objects
around you at advanced.aviary.com
4. Project 4: Choose chords for a short 4-chord
verse in JamStudio.com