Product Description

Want to turn that haunting tune in your head into an awesome sound in your ear? You can! Music Composition For Dummies demystifies the process of composing music and writing songs. It guides you through every step of writing your own music, from choosing the right rhythm and tempo to creating melodies and chord progressions and working with instruments and voices.

In this fun and practical guide, you’ll learn how to match keys and chords to the mood you want to convey, work a form without limiting your creativity, and hammer out a musical idea, even when your mind is drawing a blank. You’ll find out how to create popular songs, classically structured pieces, and even film, TV, and video game soundtracks. And, you’ll learn what you need to know about music composition software, including Finale, Sebelius, Pro Tools, and more. Discover how to:

• Preserve and organize your musical ideas
• Work with established chord progressions or create your own
• Develop great rhythms
• Select the right instruments
• Find melodies in your head, your instrument, and the world around you
• Use major and minor scales
• Work with modes and moods
• Build melodic motifs and phrases
• Use the circle of fifths to harmonize
• Write for multiple voices
• Make a demo recording

Filled with creative exercises to build your composing skills, Music Composition for Dummies is the resource you need to get that melody out of your head and into the world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8659 in Books
• Published on: 2008-02-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 360 pages

From the Back Cover
Creative exercises build your composing skills

The fun and easy way to turn the tune in your head into a full–fledged composition!

Wish you could write music? You can! This friendly guide gives you everything you need to start composing, from choosing the right rhythm and tempo to writing with chords and melody to expressing your musical ideas through instruments and voices. You′ll see how to create popular songs, classically structured pieces, and even film, TV, or video game soundtracks!

Discover how to:

• Master chord progressions

• Harmonize with melody

• Select the right instruments

• Write for multiple voices

• Compose electronic music

• Make a demo recording

About the Author
Scott Jarrett is a musician and producer who has worked with numerous artists, including Willie Nelson, Fiona Flanagan, Mary Klueh, and Keith Jarrett. He has served as music director for many live theatrical productions including the Broadway production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. He currently runs Monkey House recording studio in Hudson, Wisconsin. He has released two original albums, Without Rhyme or Reason and The Gift of Thirst. He has taught music theory, composition, production, and/or recording at the Full Sail Center for the Recording Arts in Orlando, The Acting Conservatory in Nashville, and McNally–Smith School of Music in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Holly Day is a music journalist whose articles have appeared in publications all over the world, including Computer Music Journal, ROCKRGRL, Music Alive!, Guitar One, and Mixdown magazines. Her writing has received an Isaac Asimov Award, a National Magazine Award, and two Midwest Writer’s Grants. She is co–author of Music Theory For Dummies (Wiley).

Customer Reviews

A Journey of Discovery
A really good way to learn about how musical pieces are constructed is to try and write a piece yourself. If like me you're less than fully accomplished at this, you probably need all the help you can get and if like me you've never done this before the task seems daunting, but only because it is.

This book explores the whole process from the basic motif and melodic phrase, how to join them up, vary them and set them in the right scale, mode and mood and then to develop them. It then proceeds to flesh out the process still further delving into the harmony and structure of your piece and finally on to arrangements and musical forms. Music Composition for Dummies attempts to take you on a journey from the embryonic idea you have into a more traditionally constructed and well formed piece of music. Of course, it will require no mean effort on your part, but the sense of achievement when you play your own piece is wonderful.

There are several examples of each stage of writing, but I would have liked to have seen more and would like to have seen at least one idea taken from basic motif through to completed piece. So it's not perfect and is probably not of much benefit if you are already an accomplished musician/writer. But if like me you're still learning, would like to set your knowledge of music theory in context, or fancy performing your own pieces, then Music Composition for Dummies is a great start.

This Book Really Helps in alot of Ways
I purchased this book as composing my music was always something I have wanted to do. This book helps me forfill this. It teaches the complete amateur like me how to compose. I have now composed about 30 pieces thanks to this book.I also purchased it when I was doing my O-Level Music and felt it was also a good revision book. It has also came in handy when doing A Level Music aswell. It may be expensive but it is certanly worth it !

gives you a good start
this book is easy to read, and gives you all the basic information you would like to learn when you are new to music composition.
Perfect for starting.