Lan’s First Piece: A Look at Her Process
Here is Lan's first ever composition, The Day Before Lunar New Year:
Lan's Process
Lan followed CCG's four step process that gives you a very clear method to compose. You can use this formula again and again, whether you have no composing experience or if you're a seasoned composer.
Step 1: Plan
Lan started by studying the beautiful melody of Leo Brouwer's 'Un Dia De Noviembre', taking it apart by separating the melody and accompaniment.
Notice that Lan also wrote out the passage into a notation program.
Copying out music was how composers like Bach, Beethoven and Mozart learned their craft.
You can download a free notation program called Musescore at https://musescore.org/en
Separating the melody and accompaniment gives you great clarity as to what to project.
I like to say that melody is the heart of a song - it's very important that you project it at all times. The first step to projecting a melody is to know precisely which notes form the melody and which form the accompaniment.
By writing out a piece and separating the melody and accompaniment, you'll internalize and understand the piece more.
Do you find that a lot of pieces you play are "half-finished"? Maybe you've been playing a piece for months or even years and it's still shaky and not memorized after all that time and hard work.
Nothing you do seems to get you any progress. Give this process a try and see if it helps improve your understanding of the piece, which will then help you internalize and ultimately memorize the piece.
Understand - Internalize - Memorize
- Copy out the score
- Separate the melody and accompaniment
Step 2: Compose Melody
Lan then took what she studied and composed her own melody. Notice all of the details in the plan, which help guide your creativity. It's these details that help you unlock your creative ideas and form them into something amazing, intricate and well crafted.
Don't forget that these crucial details are based on Brouwer's music - the music of a very highly regarded and thoroughly trained composer. It's almost like having the composer sitting next to you and guiding you!
You could use this same plan to compose your own beautiful 8 bar melody.
Model composition is like having Bach, Brouwer or Barrios (whoever you're modeling) sitting next to you and guiding your work.
Step 3: Harmonize Melody
Lan used a clever process here, combining it with the assigned task. She took the chords from 'Un Dia De Noviembre' and used those as inspiration for her chords.
(Note that Lan also chunked (or stacked) the notes into chords and identified them with Roman numerals).
Many pieces share the same chords, so a shortcut you could use to add chords to your melody is: use the same chords that the model piece uses.
You can always modify the chords slightly - that combined with a new melody will result in something sounding very different to the model piece.
Shortcut: harmonize your melody by using chords from the piece you're playing.
Step 4: Edit and Refine
This is where you can put everything together, refining your piece into a full composition.
It helps to think from large to small:
- Form: are the sections balanced and contrasting? Are they too repetitive, or containing too much variety?
- Phrase Structure: Are your phrases of equal duration? If not, why and what is the effect? What types of phrases are you using?
- Harmony and Texture: Are the chord voicings comfortable for you to play? Is the texture too dense or too thin?
- Fingerings: What positions are you using and why? Are there any other details like slurs, slides, etc. that you want to incorporate?
- Formatting: Is the layout clear and uncluttered? Are the voices (i.e. distinction between melody and accompaniment) clear in the notation?
Want to create your own special piece?
Imagine if you had a piece of your own in just 1 month from now.
Lan was able to compose her own piece, with hardly any composition experience, in just 1 month. She worked hard, but produced an amazing result and now has the ability to do it again and again.
By following the process, you also learn how to understand the pieces you're playing in much greater detail - everything you learn is directly related to what you're playing. It will help your memorization, understanding, interpretation and ultimately your technical command of the piece.
Like CCG members Gill and Paula, you might find your pieces being published or performed by renowned guitarists (see below).
Join CCG or take my online composition course and in just a month or so you could have your very own beautiful composition to play.