Composing music (1) |
Using the composition libraries [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] This lesson and the following will help you to take the first
steps in computer-assisted composition. You must have read and
understood the lessons about the composition libraries and to
have done the practical steps of these lessons. We will not
explain here the practical details on how to handle the
libraries. If you need it, read these lessons again. Please note that this lesson and the following are based on
the music composition libraries as designed in Pizzicato releases
1 and 2. A more user friendly and intuitive approach is now
available in Pizzicato 3. You will find these lessons further in
the manual (Composition tools). The lessons about composition libraries
explained the practical operations of the Pizzicato
composition tools. It is, in short, a division of music into
basic blocks constructed with rhythms, melodies, themes and chords. These elements
can be used and combined in thousand and one ways. Now we're going to examine the use of these
tools to really start composing. The suggested examples and
exercises form an approach to composition more than a very
well structured composition course. They give you raw
material to work and show a systematic method to help you
structure this raw material as you like it. Pizzicato is delivered with several
documents containing construction blocks with which you will
be able to work out your first exercises. These elements are
there to help you to approach the use of libraries. We will
start by analyzing the contents of these documents.
Contents of the Pizzicato libraries [Professional] [Composition Light] [Composition Pro] Start Pizzicato and open the Chords library - 1.piz document
located in the Music folder, inside the DataEN
folder. The main view appears as follows: Each folder contains chords of a different type, i.e. of a
different sound colour. Inside a folder, you find the same chord
on each note of the scale. Double-click for example on the Major
folder and you get a window displaying the following chords: Double-click on the C Maj chord, a score view shows you the
notes contained in it: Close this score view and the chords folder. A chord is made
of several notes. The way in which notes are distributed in the
chord gives it a particular colour. There is a very easy way to
locate the type of chord. Count the intervals (in half tones,
i.e. in black and white keys of the musical keyboard) which
separate the notes one from the other. Let us take the example
above with the notes C, E and G. 4 half tones separate C from E.
3 half tones separate E from G. The combination (4,3) thus
characterizes the Major chords. All chords located in the Major
folder have this structure. The only difference between them is
the starting note (here C). This starting note is called the
fundamental or root note, because it is on this note that the
chord is built. Here is a table of the chords contained in this document, with
the number of half tones separating each note from the other: 3 notes chords : 4 notes chords : 5 notes chords : By using all chords of this document, you already have a very
large variety of sound effects. Each chord itself offers a sound
colour, but the sequence of two chords also creates a sound
effect which depends on the two chords. We will further see an
exercise allowing to create chords sequences. For the moment, we
will listen to the sound colour of each chord and will observe
that they are quite different. For each chord folder, do the
following: You can also listen to several chords of the same folder. You
will notice that the sound colour is similar, but that the chords
of the same folder have different pitches. A chords progression forms the basis of a musical work. The
chords of this document are classified by types. We will further
see the Chords by tonality.piz document which contains a
classification of chords by tonality rather than by types. We
will use it for the composition exercises. As we have seen in the
music course, a tonality is a context of notes used at a specific
time in a musical piece. The set of white piano keys form a
context called the C Major tonality. A musical passage written in
C Major will primarily use the notes of this context. So that
this passage keeps coherence, we will thus use chords that
contain only the piano white keys. Close this document and open the Chords library - 2.piz document.
The main view appears as follows: It contains a series of folders with less current chords,
formed by 4 or 5 notes. Listen to them as you did with the
previous document. Most of them have a very pronounced and
expressive colour. They will be used especially to create
contrasted and coloured sound effects. They are not appropriate
for all uses. Close this document and open the Chords library - 3.piz.
The main view contains 20 chords progressions in the form of
folders. They are the example progressions of the 20 Pizzicato
accompaniment styles. Each folder bears the name of the
accompaniment style from which it was extracted. You may use
these progressions in your exercises and compositions. You can
also modify them. Double-click on the folder Chords-Bossa. A
window displays the chords which it contains: Close this window as well as the main view. Now open the Melodies library.piz document. Its main
view appears as follows: Each folder contains melodies. In the library composition
system, a melody is defined as one or several sequenced notes.
Here is a description of the contents of these folders: C 2-C 6 They are melodies with only one note. Open this folder and
you will find all notes corresponding to the blank keys of
the musical keyboard, from C2 to C6. By double-clicking one
of the melodies in the folder, you display the note. As for
all folders of this document, in the options dialog box
(opened with a double-click on the folder by holding down the
CTRL key), notes are random. If you combine them with a
rhythm, you will get very varied melodies (even too much) on
a very broad range. We will see that to exploit them better,
the range will have to be limited. C 2-C 6 Chrom. Same as the previous folder, but it also contains the
black keys (accidental notes) of the musical keyboard. 2 notes up It is a series of 2 consecutive notes forming a melody
going up. Double-click this folder. The first element is
named C-D2. By double-clicking it, you can view these two
notes in a score view. By using these melodies in your
exercises, you will be able to notice that the resulting
score will contain groups of 2 rising notes, distributed
between C-2 and C-6. 2 notes down It is the same principle, but with 2 consecutive notes
forming a melody going down. 3 notes up It is a series of 3 consecutive notes forming a melody
going up. 3 notes down It is a series of 3 consecutive notes forming a melody
going down. 4 notes up It is a series of 4 consecutive notes forming a melody
going up. 4 notes down It is a series of 4 consecutive notes forming a melody
going down. Melodies 1 to 15 These melodies folders contain various mixtures of
melodies which you find in the folders previously explained.
Melodies 1 is a sequence of 4 notes going up or down.
Melodies 15 are notes taken randomly. By passing from
melodies 1 to melodies 15, the notes are gradually more and
more dispersed. All these folders constitute library melody elements which you
will use for the exercises. Close this document and open the Rhythms library 44.piz
document. It contains rhythmic elements for a 4 beats measure.
Here is the main view: The first 5 folders contain 4 beats duration rhythms, with
whole notes (labeled with "1"), half notes (labeled
with "2") and quarter notes (labeled with
"4"). Inside each folder, the name of an element
specifies the type of rhythm it contains. The number are used for
the rhythmic values of notes (1,2,4) and when a number is
prefixed with the "R" letter (for Rest) it is a rests
(R1=whole rest, R2=half rest and to R4=quarter rest). The letter
D is used for a dotted rhythmic value (D2= dotted half note= 3
beats). An element named for example 4+R4+2 thus contains one
quarter note, one quarter rest and one half note, which make a 4
beats measure. Consult the contents of each folder by opening and
closing the folders and the elements in them. The 5 folders located on the second line contain sequences of
4 beats organized so as to be able to create longer rhythmic
sentences. As in the English language, music is often organized
in sentences intersected with rests. The first two folders are
beginning of sentences. The two following continue a sentence and
the last finished a sentence. This classification of measures as
pieces of sentences is rather subjective. It nevertheless helps
to create diversified musical sentences. Consult the folders
contents to have a practical idea of the classification. Some
rhythmic elements are in several categories. The 16 folders located lower are rhythmic sentences of 1, 2, 3
and 4 times a "4/4" measures. Inside each one, you will
find one or more of the previous files. They represent various
combinations of musical sentences built with those. The documents Rhythms library 34.piz and Rhythms
library 68.piz contain the same kind of rhythmic models
respectively adapted for 3/4 and 6/8 measures. The measures in
6/8 also contains eighth notes in rhythmic value (labeled with
"8") and eighth rests (labeled with "R8"). By modifying the options of the rhythmic folders (in
particular division and multiplication factors of the rhythmic
values), you will easily be able to get different rhythms and
different measures. By dividing for example by 2 the rhythmic
values, 4/4 measures become 2/4 measures and instead of having a
mixture of whole notes, half notes and quarter notes, you will
get half notes, quarter notes and eighth notes. We will further
see the practical applications in the exercises. Close the document now. Among the elements which play a part
in the composition of a musical work, there is of course the
choice of the instruments which will perform it. Pizzicato
contains several documents with soloists instruments and groups
of prepared instruments, as well for classical music as for light
music. These documents are available by the Open template item
in the File menu and are classified under various sub
directories. Open the template named Orchestra instruments located
in Orchestral sections. It contains most of the
instruments of a symphonic orchestra, classified by families
(woodwinds, strings, brass, percussions). It also contains
various instruments as the organ, the piano, the guitar as well
as soloists voices and a choir section. Sections of instruments
are also prepared by families. Each score of this document
contains only one measure. The full name, the short name, the
sound reference to a GM standard synthesizer as well as the
position in space (left-center-right) are preset. By using these
templates, you can build an orchestra very quickly. Select the
instruments in the desired order and Pizzicato builds a score
containing all these instruments. We will explain this again in
the exercises. Close this document and open the various templates located
in Orchestras. They contain several configurations of
symphonic orchestras corresponding to various works of reference
(symphonies 2 and 9 by Beethoven, 6
by Tchaikowsky, the Ravel Bolero, Rhapsody
in Blue of Gershwin, The Planets - Holst).
Examine the instruments which compose these various orchestras as
well as the values associated with the instruments view. Explore the Chamber Music category. It contains
various small groups of chamber music ready for use. Explore the Light Music category. It contains 20
groups of light music from the Pizzicato accompaniment styles.
Each one of them contains in particular 5 staves for percussions.
Pizzicato indeed provides a standard template for percussion
encoding. Open each score and observe the various instruments
which compose them. Now explore the Percussion category. The sub-category
named General MIDI template contain the staves of the
standard template provided by Pizzicato. All styles of
accompaniment are based on these templates. They require a
compatible GM synthesizer so that the instruments correspond. You
will find the details of the percussions instrument distribution
on the hard paper guide delivered with Pizzicato. This lesson reviewed the Pizzicato constructions blocks for
rhythms, melodies, chords and instrumentations. The next lesson
will explain the use of the Pizzicato accompaniment styles. These
styles are entirely built on the principle of the musical
libraries. They contain melodic and rhythmic elements specific to
each style. Although these styles are oriented towards light
music, they form a good approach of what can be done starting
from the composition libraries. After analyzing these styles, we
will do composition exercises based on the elements exposed in
this lesson.