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Request for Video on Development

Discussion in 'Info, Requests, etc.' started by Paul T McGraw, Dec 17, 2018.

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  1. #1 Paul T McGraw, Dec 17, 2018
    @Mike Verta I commend you for your teaching on musical composition. Many books and composition teachers address the subject, but few are of any value. Your teaching has value. In the area of orchestration, your Orchestration 3 video is a classic. Every composition student should be required to watch that video. I think I own just about all of your videos and I like just about all of them, but Orchestration 3 is the most educationally effective in my opinion. OK, enough flattery.

    Why not use the same formula as Orchestration 3 for some additional topics?

    I have a feeling that you believe you have already covered every element of the art of composition. However, in my opinion, you have yet to create your masterwork on several other topics. Here is my wishlist:

    Development Skills - I sometimes get confused because you do not use academic vocabulary. Things become more clear when you give examples. In academic language, what you call vertical development is called variation by timbre or orchestration. This is perhaps the easiest form of variation or development to accomplish, but can still be effective if not overused. Anyway, I humbly suggest a video in which you create a melody or motif, like Orchestration 3, then give examples of many different ways to "develop" that motif. I believe many would benefit, including myself. (In this case, I am using the word "develop" as you use it, not as it is used academically.)

    Emotions - by which I mean happy, sad, romantic, comedic, heroic, magical, fantasy, spooky scared, tense, etc. Once again, you could have just one melody, then show how you could use that melody to convey different emotions based on changing harmony, rhythm, accompaniment style, etc. The more specific you can be in the examples, the better.

    Supporting Lines - No one has written or done much on this topic. OK you have your melody, you have used a "preset" from Orchestration 3 for that melody, now what to do with the rest of the orchestra? This could be called Orchestration 4. Most of us might tend to fall back on ostinato figures. That is certainly valid and sometimes used by the classical masters, but what other choices do we have? Counterpoint, ostinato, harmonic pads, independent bass lines, are just a few quick ideas of things to discuss. This could also include woodwind runs and flourishes, trills, and other woodwind twiddly bits (my term). Once again, using the Orchestration 3 formula. One melody line, with lots of different types of supporting lines to go with it. Brilliant, right?

    Bringing it Home, or the Big Ending - What makes a piece of music sound "finished?" How do we bring it home so that our audience knows, OK, that's done. Soft, loud, perfect cadence, pedal tones, etc. As above, one melody, lots of different ways to take the melody, or a motif from it, and create an ending. I would really, really, really like this one. It is something I struggle with on every piece.
     
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  2. #2 David Healey, Dec 17, 2018


     
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  3. #3 Mike Verta, Dec 17, 2018
    Boy, academia sure is turning out a lot of Mozarts these days, huh?

    This thing in particular, the idea that variation of timbre or orchestration is considered or called "development," is like 90% of why music is so tedious and forgettable now. It is best to think of orchestration and composition as inseparably linked, so one doesn't make the mistake of using orchestration in place of composition. Changing the way we say something isn't a substitute for what we are actually saying. I use metaphorical terms like horizontal and vertical development to try and present the concept in a different way than is traditionally taught, because traditional teaching has utterly and miserably failed. I mean, clearly.
     
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  4. #4 Paul T McGraw, Dec 17, 2018
    @David Healey thank you for posting these videos. While I like these two videos, it isn't what I was talking about. I was specifically requesting and suggesting a presentation similar to Orchestration 3.
     
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  5. #5 Paul T McGraw, Dec 17, 2018
    Last edited: Dec 17, 2018
    I can only think of a handful of university-trained composers who have gained a wide audience. Eric Whitacre and Karl Jenkins come to mind. There are some famous composers given honorary degrees, but that was after they already became famous. So I am not suggesting academic training as a better way to learn composition.

    Vocabulary has little importance in and of itself. What counts is whether or not the information is being understood. For me, examples make anyone's points easier for me to understand.

    Finally, I sense some antagonism in your response to me. If I offended you in any way with something I wrote, I apologize. I did not intend to offend you.
     
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  6. #6 Martin Hoffmann, Dec 17, 2018
    This kind of expressing things so that I can understand them is incredibly useful for people like me. I'm getting so much more out of your videos than out of the kinds of music theory videos that take a more academic approach.
    I don't think Paul wants you to change anything about that approach, it's just that hands on examples really make things click, for me too.

    I too would love to see examples of the kind of things that Paul suggested in the first post. However from the two videos David linked I gathered two things (hope I understood this right): a) this would have looked like magic to your younger self, and b) this is the kind of knowledge and confidence that comes from years of transcribing. So would such a masterclass like you doing 3 hours of developmental variations on one melody actually improve my ability in that area, or would it just be "watching 3 hours of awe inspiring magic"? I'd be up for the magic show too, but I could understand if you say this isn't a super useful masterclass to teach because there's no shortcut.

    I've found the unleashed material that I've seen so far incredibly helpful as a context for the lessons from the masterclasses that I've watched. The examples and especially the ones where mistakes are obvious really make the fundamental messages click for me.
     
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  7. #7 Patrick McClanahan, Dec 17, 2018
    I don't think it can be expected to ever have more than a handful of Mozarts around at any time regardless of how well educated (or poorly educated) they may be.
     
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  8. #8 Mike Verta, Dec 17, 2018
    Holy shit, you can kind of ALWAYS detect some antagonism in my posts, don't sweat that, for sure. :) As for being offended, I think I was once, for 15 minutes in 1987. But I was heavily medicated at the time.

    Well okay, can we get ONE maybe? ANYBODY whose music will be cherished to in 100 years? Or have we thrown in the towel on that whole concept as part of the ongoing disintegration of the species? Maybe this isn't a goal anymore, I dunno. We've got our Mona Lisa and our 5th Symphony so we're good. I mean, regardless of how far you want to dial my sentiment back, we're just not discussing basically anybody born in the last 50 years who is anywhere near a torch-carrier for the legacy. So it's either over, not a goal anymore, or whatever we're doing to train people ain't working.
     
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  9. #9 Paul T McGraw, Dec 18, 2018
    Good to know it wasn't something I wrote. Thanks.

    You nailed it. With the possible exception of the music of a very few film composers, I don't think much from today is destined to survive long term. And as you have previously discussed, much of that has to do with our eroding culture. And yes, obviously, educational institutions have contributed to the decline. Once teachers take the view that everything is just a matter of personal preference, and there is no absolute standard by which one can judge quality compared to trash, then the game is basically over.

    I have personally spent a lot of time (and also a lot of money when needed) trying to learn all I can about the art of composition. Often my time and money have been wasted. But I can honestly say that the MV videos are well worth the time and the ridiculously small cost.

    That is not to say that my own compositions are now great, I know they are not. To paraphrase a famous quote, I may not be a first-rate A-list composer, but I am a sort of OK amateur composer. ;)
     
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  10. #10 Patrick McClanahan, Dec 18, 2018
    50 years.. no I can't really name anyone off the top of my head. However, that may be because I'm a little out of the loop at this point regarding modern classical composers. If you go back 60, 70, 80 years I would argue there are several composers that will stand the test of time.

    There's younger talent out there, it just isn't promoted. I think we'll hear it eventually.
     
  11. #11 Martin Hoffmann, Dec 18, 2018
    I think bands like the beatles or slayer will be known still 100 years past their inception, but neither make the cut for born in the last 50 years. I don't know... maybe people who are capable of long term thinking (seems to have become rare) are more worried about whether any of us are gonna be left in 100 years. Academia - the way I know it from the side of visual arts - certainly isn't even trying to knock out geniuses, not even close.

    I'm curious if you have read this book and if so, what do you think of it?


    Code:
    https://www.amazon.com/Craft-Musical-Composition-Theoretical-Part/dp/0901938300/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1545121201
     
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  12. #12 Doug Gibson, Dec 18, 2018
    I have been reading a lot about Richard Strauss lately. Guy had some serious chops.


    One of the few times a topic has me totally lost, and shaking my head. What is this with knocking on music schools ?

    Why would they ? They are from a whole different cloth. Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Liszt etc. are all poster children for "Prodigies" and uber-aggressive home schooling.
    They were all turning heads by age 10, and by the age of what we now would be sending our kids to university they were already cranking out impressive works. I believe
    Bach was 18 when he wrote that D minor toccata we still play at Halloween.

    Prodigies, is a whole topic in and of itself. Lang-Lang is a another proto-type from this "school". His dad said "You are going to practice 6 hours a day" from about age 3-4 on wards.

    Parents and our environment of course play a huge role. All the studies on "perfect pitch" and other about musical learning point to advantages to learning music before even the age of kindergarten. So "Academia" has nothing to do with this. In a way, if you are only going to music school at 18 you are already behind.


    Well, since this is a film composing forum, off the top of my head

    Bernard Hermann: NYU, Juilliard School

    John Williams: , University of Arizona , Juilliard, UCLA, City Collage (LA). Air Force

    Jerry Goldsmith: Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco , USC, City Collage

    Thomas Newman: USC, Yale

    David Newman: USC

    Alan Siverstri: Berklee College of Music

    James Horner: USC, UCLA

    Michael Kamen: The Juilliard School,

    Marco Beltrami: Yale

    Steven Sondheim: Williams College,

    Elliot Goldenthal: Manhattan School of Music


    That's a pretty impressive record, and I am sure the tip of the iceberg.

    I have been very fortunate to meet a few people, thankfully, made me throw my hands in the air, and just say they have something devine.
    Did they have it before school ? Most likely. Did they learn more else where ? Most likely. Do they have aspects of Academia that make them shake their head in disdain.
    Most likely. Did they all attend a conservatory ....definitely.

    We don't have a universal agreement on what bestows the title "genius" to musicians. It's an art form, not a sport.

    I have posted this before. This is my former next door neighbor, and I approached him to learn improvising within a classical style.
    Again; only the tip of the iceberg does this video show. Sadly, most people don't have the educational exposure to music to comprehend why this is such
    an impressive feat.

     
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  13. #13 Martin Hoffmann, Dec 18, 2018
    I agree with that. I didn't even start to be interested in making music before I was 16 or 17. I'm never gonna catch up on anyone who is persuing this seriously.

    I don't know much about music, so I'll have to stick to commentary on the visual arts related realm of academia: I too have seen people with extraordinary skills in e.g. drawing go through the same academic environment that I went through, but I know for a fact that they didn't get those skills there. There was no one who was able to do it or teach it on that level. I studied "communications design" because it seemed like it was more practical, hands on, applied knowledge with specific tasks in mind, than just studying "art", and yet I've found the whole experience thoroughly lacking in hands-on taught applicable knowledge. I don't exactly regret my time there, because I got value out of it in areas like soft skills, social skills, making new experiences, getting to know interesting people, working with deadlines etc. etc., but in terms of the kind of knowledge that I was expecting to get - the kind of knowledge I'm getting paid for nowadays - I had to get ~90% of that on my own outside of the academic environment. If you take all the things into account that I had to do during my studies that were a straight up waste of time, I'm dead certain that 4 1/2 years of self-taught study with books and practice, or even better as active part of a community like this one, will get you much more demonstrable skill in disciplines like painting or drawing than academia ever could deliver. I think the main appeal of an academic education is the exposure to people with the same interests, but nowadays the internet does that fairly adequately as well, whereas in the past where else could you go for that?

    I don't have a lot of negative emotion towards academia, so I don't want to knock it per se, I was just disappointed by what I got compared to what I expected to get out of it.
     
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  14. #14 Martin Hoffmann, Dec 18, 2018
    P.S.: I've said this before but I still believe that if I had been exposed to a couple of Mike's Masterclasses before I started to study drawing and painting, I'd now be years further along in my development as a digital painter, because of how universally applicable the concepts and methodologies he teaches are, and academia has failed to provide me with this kind of knowledge, which can be conveyed in just a few lectures. I think that's kind of sad...
     
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  15. #15 Mike Verta, Dec 18, 2018
    You can no more learn to write music by going to school for it then you can learn to fuck by reading a book about it. John Williams went to Juilliard; he didn't learn to write because of Juilliard. You could burn Juilliard and every other music school to the fucking ground and the good composers would sprout like weeds through cement sidewalks in the city anyway.

    I've been teaching my masterclasses for something like five or six years now, and 95% of the emails that I get every day say the same thing: "I learned more in 20 minutes than in four years of school." I believe them, and it ain't hard to believe.

    School is a place to go to learn vocabulary to discuss music with other musicians; to get some labels and cable ties with which to organize some of what you should know. It is not the keeper of the music, iTunes is. It is not the place that gives you your life experience, everywhere outside of school is. It is not the source of your discipline and effort, your parents are. What it is, mostly, is a giant waste of time and money helmed by failures and losers. Plus a couple great ones.

    I think school has its place. It's a very small and insignificant place. It is a correlation causation failure to credit school for Michael Kamen's ability, especially because if school is what made him great what about the other 99% of people that school turns out that suck on wheels?

    I was the youngest student in the University's history be granted admission to the film scoring program at USC. It was 1990. A year later I called bullshit on the whole thing, left and got a record deal. So, technically, I'm a product of USC too, I guess... Wait..Okay, nevermind I take it back. School turns out geniuses. :)
     
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  16. #16 Paul T McGraw, Dec 18, 2018
    @Martin Hoffmann yes, I have read both of the Hindemith books. There are some interesting things in his books. Unless you want to specialize in quartel harmony, his books are probably not an efficient use of time. He does have some interesting things to say about the arc of a composition and the interplay of tension and release. (Gee, I think MV said something about that also.) He was once considered a giant among 20th century composers but I get the impression that he is being largely forgotten. His signature work (in my opinion) was "Mathis der Mahler" which still gives me chills. What do you think?

     
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  17. #17 Paul T McGraw, Dec 18, 2018
    @Doug Gibson awesome post. I had no idea of the number of film composers who have university training. Conservatories are more to be expected I think. But you forgot to mention yourself,

    Douglas Gibson, — Victorian College of the Arts, Victoria and University of Melbourne, Victoria

    and website:
    http://www.douglasgibson.com/

    Just for kicks and giggle I looked up a couple of other film composers that I admire:

    Howard Shore - he did that little thing about the rings - Berklee College of Music in Boston.

    Miklos Rozsa - Ben Hur - Leipzig Conservatory

    So, I was wrong, most (all?) of my favorite recent composers have university or conservatory training. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Oh, the humanity!:(
     
  18. #18 Mike Verta, Dec 18, 2018
    Most of your favorite composers washed their assholes in the shower, too. Ergo, washing one's ass makes one a great composer. Boy if there's one thing that really get's the old boy's dander up it's correlation/causation fallacies. :)
     
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  19. #19 Paul T McGraw, Dec 18, 2018
    You make some great points. In the long run, we have to take responsibility for our own learning. Some people learn best by reading books, some by listening to speakers, some by studying examples, and some only learn by trying things for themselves. Sometimes one on one instruction is the best way. I never would have learned to play cello or trombone without the great teachers who worked with me. Sometimes it takes a combination of methods for something to sink in and take hold. If nothing else, a school does provide a place to receive organized feedback. And we all need feedback if it is honest feedback.

    Don't stop doing what you are doing Mike, you are helping a lot of folks. All of this started because I was suggesting some new ways you could help more people (and hopefully make a little cash) which is not a bad thing.
     
  20. #20 Mauro Pantin, Dec 18, 2018
    Interesting topic. I am totally into development as the critical phase of writing a piece of music. But the thing I came to realize when I went to music college is that you only get the names of stuff with traditional education, you have to do in order to get it under your fingers. And you have to do a lot of it.

    For instance, when studying functional harmony you get all of these labels and roman numerals and they mean absolutely nothing UNTIL you go home, sit at the piano or the guitar or whatever and fiddle around with them and use them. I swear to your favorite deity that you can get through an entire degree by understanding the mechanics of music theory and yet have no idea how exactly these chords sound and feel like, I've seen it happen right in front of my eyes. You don't have those resources available to you until you've used them extensively. The presets in Orch 3 are awesome but if you don't put them to use, each one, several times, they are not going to be there when you are in need of a solution to an orchestration problem. And going for a "quick" consultation to the class video or the google sheets we have available is not really going to help much and it's not going to be quick. You can of course go and try one at a time and see what sticks, but there's a difference between knowing in advance and trying new stuff under the gun of a deadline. You should aim to know how it sounds in advance so as to determine if it works in a split second when you are confronted with a problem.

    Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the idea of another masterclass. They are not only informative but very entertaining. But I feel everybody would be better served by just sitting at a piano with a simple melody and trying out different ideas to develop it and take it a step further. Maybe we could have, in lieu of a new masterclass, some kind of thread where we all work from the same starting melody and try to run with it in some direction, with just piano as an instrument so that we are not jumping the shark?
     
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