Setting musical parameters is important for students who are learning to compose. When there are no parameters and the “skies the limit,” students have trouble focusing and often produce directionless music. I love what Janet Lanier recently suggested on Twitter (@jlanier). She said, “My favorite melody exercise is pretending to be marooned on an island where natives give me a flute with only 5 notes…make a song.”
I think setting parameters are important, but setting interesting parameters (especially for youngers students) is sometimes challenging. I was trying to think of other interesting exercises like Janet’s.
Here’s my first attempt:
“Pretend someone bought a drum for you at a garage sale, but it can only play these rhythms…make a little song.”
I obviously need a little help! Other ideas?
I’ve found that this one is really fertile —
Write four bars – a seed of an idea. Then start a loop — say that bar 5 points to bar 1, and you can’t use any notes or rhythms in bar 5 that weren’t in bar 1. Bar 6 points to bar 2, bar 7 to bar 3 etc. You’ll soon start running out of choices as you recycle material further and further, and the phrase tapers off naturally. When you’re stuck, start again with a new seed.
You can play with different numbers of bars, different sized loops, different rules for what you can extract — for example, say you have to use pairs of notes, or preserve notes with their rhythms, or something like that.
My piece Ouroboros was written this way.
Another idea:
Write a short melody. Then spread those notes out across many bars, with lots of space in between. That becomes your skeleton structure around which you have to write the music.
For me, when I turn the project of writing music into a puzzle to solve, rather than a Vision to Realize!, the music is more interesting and the process more energized.
Good luck with your students!
Absolutely. No more than 4 eighth-notes per measure (tweak as needed). Or no leaps of more than a 3rd allowed. Or melody has to end at least an octave away from starting point (max 2-3 measures or so). Or must write against a drone note (can be a lot of fun in modal settings for students).
One I use quite a lot is:
‘compose a 3 minute piece for piano where the performer isn’t allowed to touch the keys’
It challenges the students’ concept of music and invites the to explore the different sounds worlds offered by extended techniques. It also encourages the exploration of alternative forms of notation, different approaches to the score etc.
I LOVE these ideas, Jamie, Aaron, and Elliot. I’m going to have to try them myself first. They sound like the start of some great ideas!