The new digital download version with a file size of 103 MB is now available at Amazon This edition has 266 MP3 examples playable right off the page – no CD required – and hyperlinked contents and cross references in the text. Books in this format can also be projected on-screen during lectures, together with […]
Tag: arranging
The Composer/Arranger Book:
What People Say… Every aspect of composing and arranging is examined in great detail supported by more than 600 diagrams and musical examples. In one of the most comprehensive and wide-ranging studies of its kind ever written, the text of this book moves from basic principles to advanced techniques with an authority drawn from over […]
Scales/Chords…Chords/Scales
It sounds like an attempt to spam the search results but please read on… One of the features that causes the music of modern ‘masters’ to sound so fresh and different is the use of scales and chords that get away from the beaten track. Not only do they make use of unorthodox scales and […]
Orchestral strata
We sometimes hear about orchestral, or harmonic, strata. As so often happens, in any field of endeavour, seemingly obscure and complex ideas actually exist all around us. The idea is this: by treating large groups of sound as collections of smaller layers we not only achieve a more controllable method (especially of combining instrumental sections) […]
Rhythm is my business
A while ago I was standing in a bar with my son and a group of his friends. The juke box was pulsing out its message at very high volume. Now, I have very wide musical tastes and sitting in a trombone section right in front of five trumpets for much of my musical life […]
Musical Taboos
I believe many young composers are constrained by unnecessary inhibitions that develop during the learning process. I know I was, in my early days. My previous posts have dealt with some of these – parallels etc. – but there are others. Again, it’s important to establish an ‘overview’ which is where one of my favourite […]
THIS is an Orchestra
I would like to warn the reader that this blog contains opinions that may not be shared by all. The habit of joining together with other musicians during performances is as old as music itself but the systematic arrangement of instrumental groups, that we now call ‘orchestration’, is comparatively new. It is a feature of […]
Where’s the tune, pal?
In the book I make the following claim: In the main stream of conventional music, a composition that is expected to have popular appeal will fail if it does not possess, somewhere during its development, an expressive melody. Melody is the outer contour or shape that musical rhythms and harmonies present to the world. People […]
So what ARE the ‘rules’ of music?
I could open this blog by making a slick comment such as ‘Well, there AREN’T any, actually’. This isn’t too far away from the truth but, as always, the matter is a little more complicated. I think I’ll probably be correct if I say that the majority of people approach music theory, especially the theory […]
Key Issues
When I began my musical journey I used to believe that tonality is an indispensable part of music that had virtually always been with us until ‘modern’ composers tried to take it away from us. And yet a moment’s thought would have reminded me that, until the campaign in favour of equal temperament gathered strength […]
