Exercises from Composing Music: A New Approach/Chapter 1: The Cell, The Row, and Some Scales
Exercise 1
Result: I Hang Up My Harp
Exercise concept: Pitch limitation, using a restricted set of tones for a composition. This will be the basis for many exercises.
Rules:
- Compose a melody. Use only the tones E4, G4, A4, and B4.
- Use 5/4 meter and only the rhythm quarter, quarter, quarter, half.
- Choose measures to use more than once, either separated or adjacently. This will unify and shape the melody.
- Omit one or more tones in some measures. Study the melodic relationships between all the tones.
Title concept: Russo gives this exercise a backstory. Your captor, Edrevol, ruler of the Lorac, will let you live if you write a melody for the Imperial Flute that pleases him. The flute can only play the four tones of the exercise. The tune ended up kind of mournful, so I imagined the player consumed by longing for home. That reminded me of Psalm 137 where the Jewish people are lamenting their exile. The title is a reference to verse 2. I'm not sure Edrevol was pleased.
Observations:
Exercise 2
Result: Dance, Lydia!
Exercise concept: The cell, a limited set of pitches, available in every octave.
Rules:
- Compose a melody. Use only the tones F, A, B, and C, in any octave.
- Use 4/4 meter and only these rhythms: (a) four eights, two quarters; (b) two quarters, two eighths, quarter.
- Use some measures more than once.
Title concept: I pictured an extended family gathering where a father is playing a lively tune on his violin while his young daughter dances around the room. The exercise is in Lydian mode, so ...
Observations:
Exercise 3
Result: March of the Marmots
Exercise concept: The row, a strict sequence of a limited set of pitches, available in every octave. Each pitch may be repeated one or more times before the next pitch in the sequence.
Rules:
- Compose a melody of 6 to 10 measures. Use the sequence D, A, F, E, C, in any octave.
- Use 4/4 and only these rhythms: (a) quarter, two eighths, half; (b) quarter rest, three quarters.
- Near each note, write its number in the sequence.
Title concept: The melody sounded like a foreboding march. But I also felt there was a bit of comedy there, and I imagined it was an army of something small. So I looked for rodents that would alliterate with march. Mice seemed a little cliché.
Observations:
Exercise 4
Result: Josephine's Picnic
Exercise concept: Melody from the C major scale.
Rules:
- Compose a melody. Use only the tones in the C major scale, in any octave. Conceive of it as a single melody rather than a set of discrete measures.
- Begin and end on C4.
- Use 4/4 meter and only the rhythm quarter, two eighths, half.
- Use some measures more than once. Write out all the notes individually in these cases. The extra effort will make you decide whether you really want the repetition.
Title concept: This tune turned out to be another lively one, but after exercise 2 it felt uncreative to put dance in the name. Luckily the melody brought to my mind a frolicky scene of woodland creatures, and I imagined Peter Rabbit's mother hosting a picnic for a group of friendly, energetic animals.
Observations:
Exercise 5
Result:
Exercise concept: The Dorian scale, a scale that uses the same tones as the major scale one step below it.
Rules:
- Compose a melody of 6 to 10 measures that expresses the idea of some form of water.
- Use only the tones in the D Dorian scale, in any octave. To establish the key, since the melody is unaccompanied, begin and end on the tone D, and return to D often.
- Use 4/4 meter and only the rhythm quarter, two eighths, half.
- Use some measures more than once.
Title concept:
Observations:
Exercise 6
Result:
Exercise concept: The Phrygian scale, a scale that uses the same tones as the major scale two steps below it.
Rules:
- Compose a melody of 6 to 10 measures that expresses a dark and ominous mood.
- Use only the tones in the E Phrygian scale, in any octave. Center the melody on E.
- Use 4/4 meter and only the rhythms (a) quarter, two eighths, two quarters; and (b) two quarters, half.
Title concept:
Observations:
Exercise 7
Result:
Exercise concept: Phrygian mistake exercise.
Rules:
- Base the exercise on exercise 6.
- Break the rules everywhere. Especially break the rule about maintaining a tonic of E.
- Label your mistakes. You can do this by writing a numbered list of the rules you've broken and writing the number from the list near the places you've broken it (see the example on p. 12).
Title concept:
Observations:
Exercise 8
Result:
Exercise concept: The Basic Note Values.
Rules:
- Compose 8 to 12 measures for an unpitched percussion instrument. You can use the second space from the top. Use X for the clef. Use only the Basic Note Values. Repeat some measures. Make each rhythm flow into the next (see the comments on p. 12).
- Don't use an eighth rest followed by three eighths or the same pattern in sixteenths.
- Don't follow two eighths or four sixteenths with a rest. These patterns are hard to perform.
Title concept:
Observations: