Symphonies and operas are probably the longest complete works in our musical history. By the time you get to the end of the Romantic era (i.e., the end of the 19th century), a typical symphony (or symphony-like work) could be over an hour long. By contrast, songs in the pop genres (pop, country, rock, etc.) […]
A common musical form that classical composers have loved for centuries is theme and variations; a melody is repeated, changed in some way, but still similar enough to the original that it’s recognizable. It was a measure of a composer’s musical imagination, and fun for an audience to hear what might happen next with the […]
There are lots of tricks that composers have used over the centuries to create new melodies based on already-existing ones. Some ideas: Slowing a known melody down so much that it becomes unrecognizable as the original. Example: The first phrase of Mozart Piano No. 16 in C major served as the main melody for “Hey […]
There’s an interesting history behind why pop songs tend to be 3-to-4 minutes in length, and it has to do with the nature of the medium: typically, a 10-inch record spinning 78 times per minute, as you would have had when rock & roll was in its infancy. That usually meant that it was not […]
If you’re the kind of person who immediately feels that your life experiences could or should be expressed in song, you’re a natural songwriter. But just because that’s true, it doesn’t mean it’s easy. How do you turn your life experiences into music? And how do you do it in such a way that people […]
Download “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” 6 e-book bundle. Here’s how to get your songs working right away! __________________ Ask someone to sing the theme to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, and you’ll get that famous “da-da-da-DUM” theme. But Beethoven, Brahms, and all other composers realized that most compositions used at least two themes, the so-called “contrasting […]
