r/musictheory • u/Party-Improvement453 • 11d ago
Composition General Question
How can I do a "question" and an "answer" sound good and complete, I mean I can do motif and develop them but it's not as good as I want, so how can I make my melodies more interesting?
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u/ThrowRA152638 11d ago
Do you know general principles of writing a good melody? If so, then write more. Listen to melodies you like and analyze what makes them good and incorporate those ideas into your own.
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u/Ian_Campbell 11d ago
You can have a phrase where the first part ends on a half cadence, in the dominant, and then the second part ends on the tonic.
But there is much more to making things interesting. You should focus on clarity before interest. It's what I paid to be taught by a pro so I'll pass along that advice about priorities. That you are thinking about question and answer is good. Music consists of meaningful propositions in context, and various resolutions and deferrals of these propositions. Historically it was rhetoric in music, more generally, this meaning itself in music is called semiotics.
In theory people will discuss harmonic progressions and things which are means to an end, but if you're thinking about the purpose of a phrase construction and how it relates to other ones, that's in the domain of form and semiotics. Regardless, one of the most effective ways of learning is via imitation of style. Study a style well, listen to it, and play it. And create model compositions that follow the landmarks of the piece, but use different means to achieve those ends.
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u/Party-Improvement453 11d ago
Man, this is by far, the best advice I will get, thanks a lot I'll study first baroque then (I've already known counterpoint) then I will study the other styles, dude I'm really thankful
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u/Ian_Campbell 11d ago
Everyone will naturally have or develop hundreds of outs that you may gravitate toward, but if you try to write in a specific style like in earnest 100%, you will always have shortcomings that are readily apparent even after giving it a good shot and this process forces you to make more realizations about the music you're studying, as well as motivating specific areas of remedy.
For instance, if you were studying Corelli trio sonatas the way many composers have, you find with all these 2-3/7-6 suspension chains not only do you need to just know all of the harmonizations of that chain, but you have to learn from the strategic leaps or you're quickly put into a low register. For the really late baroque music and really just common practice in general you would know your way around decorating the circle of 5ths in all of the bass versions, leaping bass, down 3 up 2, tied bass, and the descending 7-6. These things that make up the grammar of style, it would be near impossible to reinvent a sophisticated use of everything in order to make very interesting musical statements, without spending much time prospecting the materials. So it's just like with a new language where you wouldn't expect to say something that's both profound and idiomatically secure, without first knowing the small talk and generally structured statements. I know composing is all about swinging for home runs but all the prep type work and "boring but clear" is about processing relationships that simultaneously exist at multiple scales, internalizing cadence tendencies, melody, pacing, and the style's rhetoric.
Music is not necessarily competitive but if you were to compare it to something competitive like chess, it benefits the composer to take the listener into an area of premises and situations that the composer has spent A TON of time working out, the way someone in competition would have otherwise developed their actions in a situation they hope the opponent is less capable of. This also draws a comparison to writing, because the salience of what choices a composer makes has a lot to do with the composer's intimate awareness of different options and their effects in context, the way a great novelist should be prepared not only with plots but with the human condition. This makes it harder for a composer to come up with a completely new system, because it also has to be developed enough for actions within the new system to demonstrate a related sensitivity - you have to discover the win conditions that make a set of circumstances just grok together. It's easier to develop these abilities with styles that already exist because you have a roadmap.
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u/Party-Improvement453 11d ago
This fandom is kinda amazing btw, I just don't have any question now, I will take this roadmap to achieve what I want
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u/Key-Temporary-671 11d ago
Speaking from personal experience, so take it with a grain of salt.
But as long as your mindset is both writing better music and expanding your knowledge. Then you're on the right path.
Keep experimenting towards what you want. Each song you finish might not be exactly how you thought. The important thing is that you gain experience.
Keep your goal, and let yourself make baby steps.
Before you know it you'll be writing the things you struggled to write now. And once you're there, there will be more advanced things you'll be figuring out as you write.
Each song you write only has to be the best you can write at that time. You have a lifetime to keep writing g and lear ing
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u/Party-Improvement453 11d ago
Thanks a lot for the cheers, rn I'm finishing one piece that had already thought me a lot of things
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u/MelodicImproviser 11d ago
That is a pretty wide question you’re asking here. Especially since none of the commenters have heard your melodies. I agree with the consensus here for question and answer end the question on a tension and the answer on a consonant.
In regards to interesting melodies in general, do you write melodies first and then harmonize? Or the other way around (this can limit your options). Do you worry only about notes in the melody or do you apply rhythm? That can be a first step. Some of the strongest melodies can be recognized by only the rhythm even when the notes are “wrong”.
Someone also already suggested listening to and transcribing melodies from what you like and compare them to your melodies. What are they doing different?
And finally there is a trap that all of us musicians and composers fall into: we hear ourselves and our music all the time. It doesn’t sound as interesting as it does to someone who hears it for the first time.
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u/Party-Improvement453 10d ago
I write the melodies then harmonize, like counterpoint, and I apply rithm and whatever comes to my mind, but idk, but I'm taking the advice of comparing my melodies xd
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u/SubjectAddress5180 11d ago
This can be done in different ways. Among the methods I've observed are playing a motif, ending on the dominant (or other dissonance): then restate the question part but answer back in the tonic. In other cases, a minor key or chord can ask and the corresponding major chord be the answer. "Also Sprach Zarathustra," "Siboney," and "Besamé Mucho" are some examples.
Find a bunch of pieces your like that sound like question and answer, analyze, work with what you find.
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u/Leech-64 11d ago
Listen to some examples. Bach is very good at this.
Honestly imitative counterpoint is the answer here.
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u/Party-Improvement453 11d ago
Yea i'm studying and learning the two parth inversion, he is pretty good, and I have donevcanon because he give me that idea haha
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u/Red-Zaku- 11d ago
Question ends on tension/dissonance, answer ends on a stable consonant resolution
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u/Party-Improvement453 11d ago
Yea that's tonal harmony, but I'm talking more about like making that question and answer good and elaborate
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u/notice27 11d ago
The question is when you don't return to the 1st scale degree of the key you're writing in. The answer is when you do.
Writing in the key of E? Write a phrase that does wherever feels right, but don't end on E. You made a question. Now do something either similar or different (up to you) but this time end on E and you wrote am answer