Notes on J. Jay Berthume's Composition Guides

Extra Vocabulary

• Melody - Any type of linear musical line
• Theme - A small motive designed to be open-ended and incomplete for purpose of development
• Ostinato - A repetitive figure designed to support other musical material as a rhythmic and/ or harmonic backbone
• Bass/ Contour Line - A musical line the serves other musical material and doesn't generally stand out on its own
• Tune - A melody that is or 'feels' complete and is often very catchy or easily remembered and emotionally powerful, clearly displaying specific ideas or emotions.
• Cell (Motif)- A very small melodic idea generally first displayed in the beginning of a theme or melodic idea, that is used again with or without variations and developed to create that idea

Melody Writing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jz6i9l1adb0&t=1039s

Principles of Melody - Not rules, but general ideas found commonly in many great melodies

• Question/Answer Structure (Between two phrases, or in one phrase)
• Motivic and Rhythmic 'Unity' (Use of motifs and identifiable rhythmic figures)
• Balanced Melodic Contour (Melody moves so as to stay within a range)
• Climax Placement (The Placement of the highest note serves as the climax of a phase, or whole melody usually towards the end [Plot])

The Melody Checklist

• Original
  • Tips for originality
    • Don't rely solely on your ear
    • Find some sort of inspiration from another work to avoid pulling sounds out of your head that you use very often
    • Don't rely on 'lucky ideas'
    • Figure out what ideas or emotions you want to convey through your melody
  • Extra Ideas to help apply originality
    • Make either the contour/melodic ideas or the rhythmic figures original, and make the other cliche to help maintain the sound you're going for while being original
    • Start with an original cell and develop it with a unique chord progression that only pulls from cliche ideas to establish the intended emotions and ideas being conveyed
    • When writing go with the best and very unique solutions to any problems, not the most obvious
    • If you use cliche, it is best that it is used only used after other material and only if it relates to the preceding material in a more obvious way, such as sequencing to a cliche cadence from an original melody
• Catchy
  • Tips for Catchiness
    • Write something that's easy for you to sing
    • Use Motifs - they help give listeners ideas to catch on to. You can comfortably break a motif if something like a neighbor tone is an easier option and is easier to sing
• Emotionally Coherent
  • Tips for emotional coherence and impact
    • Use Neighbor Tones - They are a step above or below a main note
    • Use Passing Tones - They are dissonant notes moving in one direction as part of a figure (like a scale)
      • They can be (as they normally are) unaccented and placed on off beats or accented and place on the beat for different effects
    • Anticipate Notes - Arrive at the next chord before the change
    • Suspend Notes - Arrive at the next chord after the change
    • Use Appoggiaturas - Usually they are grace notes played very short and quickly on or before the beat; melodically they are dissonant neighbor tones approached by a leap
  • Extra Ideas to help apply emotional coherence and impact
    • Harmony puts emotion into melody
    • Use Function Change - This is the idea that you can use different chords under the same melodic line or fragment. Using this in the melody is very symbolic depending on how you use it and is a great way to convey any emotion or change in emotion
    • Use internal Modulation inside of a phrase or external modulation between phrases to achieve an emotional lift
    • Clearly state the climax in your melody (it's usually the highest note and has some build up). A melody-phrase should follow the narrative arc with the Exposition as the opening statement or motif, the Rising Action as the development of that motif, which stretches for a while and then builds up to the climax and then sizzles down to a resolution. So this means, especially for the climax, don't abuse the highest note in your melody; use it sparsely to give it room to stand out.

Contrapuntal Melodies (Counterpoint) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiFzLzDKZe8&t=771s

• Write contrapuntal melodies just like regular melodies and with the same ideas but with some more rules/limitation
• Use these rules to simultaneously write 2 melodies at the same time [His Counterpoint Rules document below]

Harmonic Relativity

A Cool way of his to make modal chord progressions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt5_LPC8epM

1. Think of two Chord Qualities (like Major and Minor, or Minor and Diminished, or Major and Major)
2. Put an interval in between them (like III or iii, V, or any interval)
3. Play the first Chord move up the interval you wrote and then play the next chord (Or vise versa it's the same)
4. Figure out how that chord progression/relationship makes you feel emotionally, or what it makes you think of
5. Write that somewhere else and use it in a list or bank of many of them (As you repeat the process)
6. Figure out what kind of music you want to write
7. Pull out the chord relationships that carry the emotions or ideas that go with what you want to write
8. List some or all of those in a separate list
9. Pull from that list and put them in any order (try to avoid repeat chords)
   • Example: M iii M, and M iv m, may make (I did all going upwards): [Maj] iii [Maj] iv [min] iv [Maj] --> C, E flat, A flat minor, D flat
10. Add extensions to make guide tones that help better relate chords
    • Example: C (add flat-seventh), E flat, A flat minor (add sixth), D flat (add sixth), then repeat
      • C7 to Eb has a G, and Bb in common. Eb to Ab-6, has Eb. Ab-6 to Db6 has Db, F, and Ab. Db6 and C7, have Bb and there is a tritone-sub present.

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