Composing with Constraints: 100 Practical Exercises in Music Composition provides an innovative approach to the instruction of the craft of music composition based on tailored exercises to help students develop their creativity. When composition is condensed to a series of logical steps, it can then be taught and learned more efficiently. With this approach in mind, Jorge Variego offers a variety of practical exercises to help student composers and instructors to create tangible work plans with high expectations and successful outcomes. Each chapter starts with a brief note on terminology and general recommendations for the instructor. The first five chapters offer a variety of exercises that range from analysis and style imitation to the use of probabilities. The chapter about pre-compositional approaches offers original techniques that a student composer can implement in order to start a new work. Based on lateral thinking, the last section of the book fosters creative connections with other disciplines such as math, visual arts, and architectural acoustics. The one hundred exercises contain a unique set of guidelines and constraints that place students in a specific compositional framework. These compositional boundaries encourage students to produce creative work within a given structure. Using the methodologies in this book, students will be able to create their own outlines for their compositions, making intelligent and educated compositional choices that balance reasoning with intuition.
"Composing with constraints proposes an innovative approach to the instruction of the craft of music composition based on tailored exercises to help students develop their creativity. The fundamental premise of Composing with constraints is based on my previous book on algorithmic composition, which-in a few words-states that all compositional approaches are algorithmic and can be reduced to a formal process that involves a series of logical steps. When composition gets condensed to a series of logical steps, it can then be taught and learned more efficiently. With this approach in mind, Composing with constraints proposes a variety of exercises in the form of algorithms to help the student composer and the instructor create tangible work plans, with high expectations and successful outcomes. The book is structured around the parameters of melody, rhythm, harmony, texture and pre-compositional approaches. All chapters start with a brief note on terminology and general recommendations for the instructor. The first five chapters offer a variety of exercises that range from analysis and style imitation, to the use of probabilities. The chapter about pre-compositional approaches offers original techniques that a student composer can implement in order to start a new work. Based on lateral thinking, this last section of the book fosters creative connections with other disciplines such as math, visual arts, and architectural acoustics. Each of the 100 exercises contained in the book proposes a unique set of guidelines and constraints intended to place the student in a specific compositional framework. Through those compositional boundaries the student is encouraged to produce creative work within a given structure. Using the methodologies in this book, students will be able to create their own outlines for their compositions, making intelligent and educated compositional choices that balance reasoning with intuition. Depending on the class in which it is adopted, Composing with constraints can be a priceless aid for the instructor. When used to complement a music theory class, the exercises can be used as compositional projects, to provide creative frameworks to the theoretical concepts studied in class and even to trigger group discussions. In a class on analysis, the book can be an invaluable tool for stylistic understanding, appropriation and imitation. Finally, when used in individual and group composition lessons, the book can provide an enormous palette of concrete assignments that the instructor can use to guide the students' compositional development and practice. The grading rubric provided in the book is an invaluable tool for both the instructor and the student. Divided in four categories (i.e. followed guidelines, orchestration, idiomatic use of the instruments and "open spaces"), the grading rules clarify in detail the grade awarded to the student, showing the aspects of the work that can be improved. Through the quantization of "open spaces", the rubric also helps the instructor ponder the students' creative use of the aspects of the exercises not constrained or left "free" in the guidelines. In sum, Composing with constraints is an excellent tool for the instruction of music composition offering clear organization, a helpful grading rubric, and a versatility that makes it applicable for a myriad of courses and levels"--
An invaluable introduction to the art and craft of musical composition from a distinguished teacher and composer This essential introduction to the art and craft of musical composition is designed to familiarize beginning composers with principles and techniques applicable to a broad range of musical styles, from concert pieces to film scores and video game music. The first of its kind to utilize a style-neutral approach, in addition to presenting the commonly known classical forms, this book offers invaluable general guidance on developing and connecting musical ideas, building to a climax, and other fundamental formal principles. It is designed for both classroom use and independent study.
In Composition and Cognition, renowned composer and theorist Fred Lerdahl builds on his careerlong work of developing a comprehensive model of music cognition. Bringing together his dual expertise in composition and music theory, he reveals the way in which his research has served as a foundation for his compositional style and how his intuitions as a composer have guided his cognitively oriented theories. At times personal and reflective, this book offers an overall picture of the musical mind that has implications for central issues in contemporary composition, including the recurrent gap between method and result, and the tension between cognitive constraints and utopian aesthetic views of musical progress. Lerdahl’s succinct volume provides invaluable insights for students and instructors, composers and music scholars, and anyone engaged with contemporary music.
A comprehensive, practical guide to composing video game music, from acquiring the necessary skills to finding work in the field. Music in video games is often a sophisticated, complex composition that serves to engage the player, set the pace of play, and aid interactivity. Composers of video game music must master an array of specialized skills not taught in the conservatory, including the creation of linear loops, music chunks for horizontal resequencing, and compositional fragments for use within a generative framework. In A Composer's Guide to Game Music, Winifred Phillips—herself an award-winning composer of video game music—provides a comprehensive, practical guide that leads an aspiring video game composer from acquiring the necessary creative skills to understanding the function of music in games to finding work in the field. Musicians and composers may be drawn to game music composition because the game industry is a multibillion-dollar, employment-generating economic powerhouse, but, Phillips writes, the most important qualification for a musician who wants to become a game music composer is a love of video games. Phillips offers detailed coverage of essential topics, including musicianship and composition experience; immersion; musical themes; music and game genres; workflow; working with a development team; linear music; interactive music, both rendered and generative; audio technology, from mixers and preamps to software; and running a business. A Composer's Guide to Game Music offers indispensable guidance for musicians and composers who want to deploy their creativity in a dynamic and growing industry, protect their musical identities while working in a highly technical field, and create great music within the constraints of a new medium.
Solving challenging computational problems involving time has been a critical component in the development of artificial intelligence systems almost since the inception of the field. This book provides a concise introduction to the core computational elements of temporal reasoning for use in AI systems for planning and scheduling, as well as systems that extract temporal information from data. It presents a survey of temporal frameworks based on constraints, both qualitative and quantitative, as well as of major temporal consistency techniques. The book also introduces the reader to more recent extensions to the core model that allow AI systems to explicitly represent temporal preferences and temporal uncertainty. This book is intended for students and researchers interested in constraint-based temporal reasoning. It provides a self-contained guide to the different representations of time, as well as examples of recent applications of time in AI systems.
Music Theory and Composition: A Practical Approachpresents a pragmatic, accessible approach to music theory through an emphasis on melody and counterpoint. This focus explains the “why” of musical construction more clearly than the traditional approach of beginning with chords. By starting with a single melodic line and gradually adding voices in counterpoint, the book drills part-writing while simultaneously explaining functionality, first with scale degrees and then with harmony. The text has students learn musical techniques and progressively build on their functions and importance to create their own compositions. With short, digestible chapters, Music Theory and Composition clearly presents otherwise complicated ideas not as strict rules, but as artistic ideals, encouraging the interactive creation of new compositions as a tool for learning. The textbook is versatile and easily customizable, suiting Different skill levels with species counterpoint providing a framework for the beginner while providing an interesting challenge for more experienced students Different curricular schedules with complete exercises in two, three, and four voices, allowing for an optional skip from two voices to four Different pedagogical approaches with species exercises encouraging students to consider harmonic choices and figured bass ensuring functional progressions Instructor Resources: Instructor’s Manual: The Instructor’s Manual includes sample syllabi and student handouts Test Bank: The test bank includes sample tests and answer keys in MS Word format. Student Resources: Companion Website with Downloadable Workbook Sections: http://textbooks.rowman.com/stone Additional Features: complete curriculum for first-year theory courses over 500 musical examples drawn from Common Practice Era compositions as well as more contemporary and popular pieces focus on active composition throughout the text and workbook sections large pop music section to expand student’s application of theory conversational tone to encourage student engagement Designed for first-year college music theory courses, but accessible enough for the interested lay reader or high school student, the text offers a true balance of counterpoint and harmony.
This comprehensive resource features more than 400 projections and colour illustrations augmented by MRI images for added detail to enhance the anatomy and positioning presentations.
Fundamentals of Musical Composition represents the culmination of more than forty years in Schoenberg's life devoted to the teaching of musical principles to students and composers in Europe and America. For his classes he developed a manner of presentation in which 'every technical matter is discussed in a very fundamental way, so that at the same time it is both simple and thorough'. This book can be used for analysis as well as for composition. On the one hand, it has the practical objective of introducing students to the process of composing in a systematic way, from the smallest to the largest forms; on the other hand, the author analyses in thorough detail and with numerous illustrations those particular sections in the works of the masters which relate to the compositional problem under discussion.
“What any body is—and is able to do—cannot be disentangled from the media we use to consume and produce texts.” ---from the Introduction. Kristin Arola and Anne Wysocki argue that composing in new media is composing the body—is embodiment. In Composing (Media) = Composing (Embodiment), they have brought together a powerful set of essays that agree on the need for compositionists—and their students—to engage with a wide range of new media texts. These chapters explore how texts of all varieties mediate and thereby contribute to the human experiences of communication, of self, the body, and composing. Sample assignments and activities exemplify how this exploration might proceed in the writing classroom. Contributors here articulate ways to understand how writing enables the experience of our bodies as selves, and at the same time to see the work of (our) writing in mediating selves to make them accessible to institutional perceptions and constraints. These writers argue that what a body does, and can do, cannot be disentangled from the media we use, nor from the times and cultures and technologies with which we engage. To the discipline of composition, this is an important discussion because it clarifies the impact/s of literacy on citizens, freedoms, and societies. To the classroom, it is important because it helps compositionists to support their students as they enact, learn, and reflect upon their own embodied and embodying writing.
