Composition Techniques by Brett M Walker

What is Formal Structure

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:51:03 UTC

Formal/Song/Overall structure is how the entire song comes together. Certain songs have specific structures. Pop songs use Verse-Chorus, Waltzes use Ternary, and baby's first song at the piano or violin uses binary.

What is melodic structure?

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:52:17 UTC

Melodic structure is how you build your main idea of a song. There are generally 2 accepted ways melodies are built. Phrase structure and sentence structure. Regardless, most of these are broken down into 4-bar ideas.

What is harmonic structure?

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:53:57 UTC

Harmonic structure is how you use chords to support your melody. While block chords are acceptable in certain songs, knowing how your chords work, even at a basic level, will help you use compositional techniques to make your music more interesting to play and listen to.

Drone

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:57:02 UTC

A drone is a technique for creating an unchanging pitch, which is the foundation of the harmony of the song. Typical in Celtic and Hindustani music, a drone is typically one or two notes (usually a perfect 5th in Celtic music) that is sustained for almost, if not, the entire piece.

Pedal Tone

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:57:07 UTC

A pedal tone is similar to a drone with one clear exception. The duration. While a drone can last the entire piece, a pedal tone is short-lived (only a few measures). Typically used in classical pieces, the pedal tone is only a few measures long. Bach's Prelude in C Major BWV 846, is a great example of a pedal tone (played in the left hand)

Alberti Bass

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:57:13 UTC

Albertie bass is an easy technique to add motion to a piece of music. Simply but, once your chord progression is decided (after using good chord inversions to minimize movement in the left hand) and you arpegiate the chords using the following pattern (Bottom-Top-Middle-Top).

Arpeggios

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:57:20 UTC

Arpeggios are a very easy technique where you break up the chord and play it from bottom to top or top to bottom in order. This technique adds motion to the harmony without needing to use other complex techniques. This is a perfect technique for piano, harp, and harmonic strings

Homophonic

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:57:40 UTC

Homophonic music is music with a clear melodic line and a clear accompanying line. This texture is popular in the classical and romantic periods. It is also found in the Baroque period

Heterophonic

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:57:44 UTC

Heterophonic music is when many people play the same melody in different ways.

For those of you who know chinese music think of a traditional chinese ensemble. While everyone plays the melody the Dizi will play it differently to the erhu, who will play it differently to the Guzehng.

For those of youi unfamiliar with Chinese music, think of it like a group of musicians singing Happy Birthday. One person sings it like a pop song, another person sings it like a country western tune, while others are singing it like a german lieder, or Wagner Opera.

Monophonic

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:57:50 UTC

Monophonic means 1 melody. Doesn't matter how many instruments or singers there are, everyone is singing the exact same part, on the exact same notes (maybe in octaves if your fancy) in the exact same style.

Polyphonic

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:57:58 UTC

Polyphonic music was the product of centuries of architecture and gatekeeping music away from the common people. Poly (many) phonic (voices) is a style of music where there is only melody. The melody is repeated either in canon (at the same pitch) or Fugal (at a different pitch). While you may hear harmonies when listening to this style of music, it is the layering of the melodies that creates the harmonies. There is no traditional harmony line like we would expect from Mozart and Billie Eilish.

Sequences

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:58:25 UTC

A sequence is a fragment of a melody that is replayed with all pitches changing by either rising or falling by the same interval. This technique is best used when transitioning between sections of a song

Inversion

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:58:31 UTC

Inversion, meaning to invert, may have you believing that you should play our melody backwards but this is false. An inverted melody is a melody where the intervals have been switched (E.G., if the original goes up a perfect 5th, the inverted melody would go down a perfect 5th).

Retrograde

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:58:35 UTC

Retgrograde is a big fancy word that means backwards. So a melody in retrograde would be played backwards. You can also combine inversion with this technique to create a melody that is in inverted retrograde (To do this you'll need to change your chordprogression to make sure the new melody doens't sound bad)

Voice Leading

hailbmw — 2025-08-11 07:58:39 UTC

Should you wish to write simple choral music or even simple chamber music where some parts are more chordal (moving in chords) you will need to know voice leading techniques. Understanding these techniques heavily relies on your ability to know your chord inversions.

Parallel Motion: Voices move in the same direction

Contrary Motion: Voices move in opposite directions

Oblique Motion: One voice doesn't move while the others move around it

The general rule of thumb when writing traditional music using baroque counterpoint (voice leading rules) is to have over 70% contrary motion and NEVER HAVE PARRALLEL 3rds, 5ths, or 6ths. Oblique is also encouraged. But when writing contemporary music unsing voice leading you are free to do whatever you want as long as your artistic intention is uphelp.

Binary Form

hailbmw — 2025-08-12 08:08:40 UTC

Binary form is a musical form in 2 related sections, both of which are usually repeated. Binary is also a structure used to choreograph dance.

In music this is usually performed as A-A-B-B.

Rounded Binary

hailbmw — 2025-08-12 08:08:44 UTC

Occasionally, the B section will end with a "return" of the opening material from the A section. This is referred to as rounded binary, and is labeled as ABA′. In rounded binary, the beginning of the B section is sometimes referred to as the "bridge", and will usually conclude with a half cadence in the original key.

Ternary

hailbmw — 2025-08-12 08:08:48 UTC

Ternary form, sometimes called song form, is a three-part musical form consisting of an opening section (A), a following section (B) and then a repetition of the first section (A).

It is usually schematized as A–B–A.

Sonata Form

hailbmw — 2025-08-12 08:08:54 UTC

Phrase Structure

hailbmw — 2025-08-12 08:11:19 UTC

A musical phrase is an easy way to write a song. It's a simple melody, usually 4 or 8 bars (typically classical music and pop songs use 8 bars), that is divided into two halves. The first half is your main idea, and the second half is the completion of the idea.

If you're stuck for idea you can start the second half with the same 2 measures as the first half (mozart does this alot)

Sentence Structure

hailbmw — 2025-08-12 08:12:50 UTC

A music sentence is a melody that can be best described as "Main Idea - Main Idea repeated on a different pitch - new idea until the end."

Just like a phrase can be divisible by 2, so should a sentence. The main idea and the repetition should be the same length as the new concluding idea.

Canon Imitation

hailbmw — 2025-08-12 08:13:30 UTC

Canon is when you offset your melody and repeat it at the same pitch. The laying of the melody is what will create your harmonies

Fugal Imitation

hailbmw — 2025-08-12 08:15:31 UTC

Fugal Imitation is when a melody is offset and repeated at a different pitch (usually on the fifth). The layering of the melodies will help build your hamonies and the more time you layer the melody the more complex your hamonies can be

Repetition

hailbmw — 2025-08-12 08:15:38 UTC

Repetition... seriously, do I need to explain what a repeat is? If you don't know what a repeat is, then Google it. But I will say this, while repetition is good because it allows listeners to hear the melody multiple times and understand it as important, you don't want to rely on this technique too much. Hearing the same thing constantly gets boring. So you need to change something somewhere, either in what instruments play the melody, or something in the harmony line has got to change, or you've got to add more instruments and harmony to build the music.

While arguably the most important tool, it is the hardest one to get right because it is a gateway into laziness.

Circle of Fifths

hailbmw — 2025-09-11 03:59:02 UTC

The Circle of Fifths is a diagram in Western music theory that arranges the 12 chromatic pitches in a circular pattern, showing how major and minor keys are related through intervals of a perfect fifth.

Intervals

hailbmw — 2025-09-11 03:59:53 UTC

In music theory, an interval is a difference in pitch between two sounds. An interval may be described as horizontal, linear, or melodic if it refers to successively sounding tones, such as two adjacent pitches in a melody, and vertical or harmonic if it pertains to simultaneously sounding tones, such as in a chord.

Diatonic Chords in Major Scales

hailbmw — 2025-09-11 04:03:29 UTC

Here are the chords which are naturally found in all major scales

Diatonic Chords in Minor Scales

hailbmw — 2025-09-11 04:03:58 UTC

Here are all naturally occurring chords in the 3 types of minor scales.

Chord Functions

hailbmw — 2025-09-11 04:07:52 UTC

chord Functions relate to the specific method a chord has in a song. Chords always move in forward motion but generally only move between the 3 groups in specific ways.

Remember it can be hard to create your own chord progression os there is no shame in using AI to help you get started.

Ritornello Form

hailbmw — 2025-09-11 04:09:21 UTC

Ritornello is a composition technique in which a musical theme returns repeatedly, with different music sections appearing between each return