Az A. Samad On Composing

Hi everyone. I've decided to write a little something on how I get ideas to compose music.

I love composing. It's therapeutic in a way and stressful sometimes. Whatever it is, it sure does make me practice so that's always a good thing. How do I write? When do I start? When do I know a song is complete?  

Honestly, sometimes I don't know.

But most of the time, it's about listening to the song again and again. I like to use the word "balance" a lot when I talk about composition. There has to be balance. Another thing I do, even though I write mostly instrumental music, I tend to keep the melodies pretty much singable. In musical terms, the melodies are "conjunct" melodies. (I think I first learned of this term during my foundation class back in May 1998-Thank you Ms. Nicole!)

I do love disjunct melodies but seem to have avoided them in most of my solo guitar pieces to date. (I do like using melodies with weird freaky intervalic things on solos or jazz compositions though.) I also need to write more thing in odd time I think. I haven't written anything in 5/4 for ages. In comparison, I tend to favour 3/4 a lot in my jazzier compositions.

Back to tricks I use for composing. What am I thinking about when I write a piece? Well, most of the time it starts with either the melody or a bass riff. It's only recently that I've tried to base songs on some kind of percussive guitar thing. (Welcome to Eric Roche territory.)

I also tend to sing out stuff when I write. The main focus for me is usually the melody. While playing the melody, I usually play some kind of basic bassline over it. For slower pieces like "Berjalan Bersamamu" or "Penyair", the bassline came together with the melody. For a piece like "Antartika" (which I reworked after coming back from UK last October), I kept the main melody and section and then extended the piece with modulations.(The song starts in D Major, modulates to F Minor then ends in F Major).

This might not make any sense to someone who hasn't listened to the songs mentioned but I think the main thing to take from my examples are:

1. melody is utterly important

2. bassline can be changed in different sections of the song to vary the mood. (Sting does this a lot. This also goes to the topic of reharmonisation.)

3. Modulations can be used to extend songs.

4. Balance is important.

5. Singable melodies are useful because people remember them easier.

Now where do I get ideas for songs? I get them from all around me. Sometimes I meet someone interesting and the initial impression I get from meeting them gives me an idea, a feeling, a vibe. It's good at times to use a first impression, (though it may to prove wrong) as a basis for composition.

At other times, I get ideas when I am at extreme ends of emotions. I either feel very sad, angry, upset, happy or confused. As an artist, my dad always told me that any kind of feeling, experience or emotion does not go to waste as one can always use it as a basis for their creative adventures.

Another thing that is important in composition is:

Repetition. Repetition. Repetition. Variation. Repetition.

People remember things better when you repeat them. This applies for choruses. Even in instrumental music, choruses exist. Variation is important to break the monotony of having too much repetition.

And another thing that my dad taught me was the importance of starting. Most of the time, one is just plain lazy. Starting is the first step, it doesn't matter if some songs suck and others sound great. If one does not start writing, one won't improve.

Lastly, is ending. Once someone starts a song, one should know when is it enough. When it is time to stop. Perfection so be aimed but too much perfection may destroy the beauty of it all.

So here I stop.

Boo!

And have fun composing. =)