Five Ways to Improve Your Music

Composer Samuel Andreyev presents Five Pitfalls in Musical Composition — and how you can avoid them.

[00:57] 1. Optimize Your Workflow
[03:47] 2. Don’t Neglect the ‘Principle of Movement’
[07:35] 3. Attend to the ‘Middle Ground’
[09:38] 4. Learn to Focus Your Ideas
[13:05] 5. Keep Your Ambitions in Check

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Post-production: Arkadiusz Buchala

[samuel_andreyev]

What do you struggle with most in your music? Let me know below, I’m always looking for things to talk about in my next videos.

[fstover]

Good advice for newbies. Me, I'm 70, have composed since my teens. My goal has always been to push myself into 'prolificity.' Sheer volume of work resolves many issues such as sense of movement, what to do next, etc. But you have to put in the time, OFTEN, like several times a week. To get there you need to be a disciplinarian, light a fire under yourself, and compose fearlessly. And during it all, review what you've done a thousand times continuing to forge ahead. Add a pinch of self-delusion for inspiration because it's a mistake to wait to be inspired. On excess ambition, don't try to be Berlioz on steroids. Formal education is fine but guarantees nothing. And what is your motivation? If it's to compose for a living, you MUST be very well connected. If you're not well connected you'll be composing in a bubble like me, and there are very few people living outside of academia and pop culture who can maintain that very long. Have mentors, living and dead muses. Keep your expectations to a minimum and get used to being ignored.

[zan]

I don't compose music. But, I find Mr. Andreyev to be extremely insightful and sincere about creating music. I appreciate him for his sharing greatly.

[alexyuwen]

Bernstein, in the opening chapter of "The Joy of Music", places Beethoven's genius not in his handling of the elements of music but in "the inexplicable ability to know what the next note has to be." I think that's a long-winded way of expressing the principle of movement, which is what I was screaming in my head the whole chapter having just watched this video. I loved the Bach C major Prelude example too! So true.

[brianballinger]

My typical problem is using too many ideas instead of developing one or two ideas. My recent way of dealing with this problem has been to adopt a minimalist approach to one or two ideas (lots of repetition), so now my struggle becomes how to manipulate those repetitions in such a way that there is sufficient movement to the piece.

[javier_mondaza]

Great tips. I have been a composer myself for several years and recently became a music teacher. No doubts the mistakes you point out are the most common ones.

[johnzielinski]

Everybody works differently, but my style of writing consists of sketching out pieces in very general terms, then rewriting them, sometimes several times, with added layers of complexity. It never bothers me that an initial inspiration might be mundane, as it will get reworked many times. The process is akin to a sculptor throwing together big blobs of clay and gradually adding detail.

[ChipsAplentyBand]

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024 to you, Samuel! –Don C. (a 67 year old composer of music written in older tonal styles), Mishawaka, IN

[doricdream]

That part about the middle ground and the drama of the music is EXACTLY what I struggle with! Thank you so much for that advice, I will definitely get to work on viewing things on the middle ground.

[jonasvalfridsson]

Solid advice, it's obvious that you are a experienced composition teacher. It would be interesting to see your own workflow as example if you are willing to share. I have more or less worked full-time as a composer since my master degree in 2008, and my biggest challenge is that I tend to be too brief or quick when I develop my musical material. In a way that was the style I was thought (focus on the essential thing and cut out the pladder), but I usually force myself nowdays to let the music take more time nowadays.

[samuelwnovak]

Related to your last point about excessive ambition, I once heard Thomas Goss describe this phenomenon of composers starting projects beyond their level of ability (and specifically all the struggles of that tend to result from biting off more than one can chew yet) as “Symphonitis.” I can’t quite remember because it was years ago now but his hypothetical example was a fledgling composer with only a few works under their belt trying to write their magnum opus Beethovinian symphony for a Mahler-sized orchestra before they could write a decent piece for a much more modest subset of that orchestra, hence the name. That funny little witticism has stuck with me and I think about it every time I start a new piece and whether it’s really within my grasp or if I need to temper my ambition.

[FreakieFan]

Your thoughts on Principles of Movements seem very interesting, and you seem to list various examples. I'd love to see a more expanded video on that specific topic where you explain each principle in more detail with perhaps musical examples?

[AdamTorkelson]

This is excellent advice. In Copland's book "What to Listen For in Music" he briefly discussed what he called "The Long Line" which is exactly what you are talking about. A good bit of advice for this flow and inevitability is to write the piece out of order, such as if you know you are writing a climax in the piece, then write the climax first, the starting point second, and the glue last.

[BenjaminStaern]

Great video with many good advices! I've encountered those experiences myself as a student.
In a way, by having too many ideas is like telling several stories all at once. However, if not the piece is dealing with collage techniques like in the case of Bernd-Alois Zimmermann with concept of "Kugelform der Zeit" where he changes styles like changing radio stations at a fast speed. As a professional composer, I do hear clearly when a composer properly works out with the initial idea from scratch that you never heard before and urges to develop that in i.e. 10-minute or 30-minute symphonic work. It's always a process of experience, I had too many ideas myself in the beginning, like a stallion horse jumping around in the field without digging anything deep. It becomes a boring piece whereas the artist don't know what to do with it.

[davidhowe]

I'm not a real musician; but have occasionally written pieces for pleasure (mostly mine!). Your advice about the principle of movement echoes that of a judge's (very kind and constructive) response to a piece I entered into a music competition in the '70s in my teens; which has stayed with me ever since.

[paulwl]

A brilliant and spot on analysis. The same principles apply to many art forms. My interest is architecture. The approach to composition is virtually identical to urban design, just the material differs.

[kendallburks]

You’re a wonderful teacher, thank you! Another way to look at that last issue, is not to check your ambition, but rather to check your realism with regard to the immense complexity of the task. Be ambitious by all means, but recognize that true ambition includes the humility to recognize your own weaknesses and the sheer amount of effort and quality time is required to improve them. Thinking the task is easier than it is isn’t ambitious, it’s naive. There’s an amazing Bill Evans interview on YouTube where he talks about this, and the importance of “truth” and “accuracy”. Changed my life when I saw that roughly 10 years ago. Just my perspective. Thanks again for the video!

[Historyisnotwas]

Samuel- excellent advice and insight. Can you expand more on setting up a proper place/environment to compose? Also, your handwritten images look exquisite! What physical equipment pen, pencil and staff paper ( brand) do you use? What software do you use? Can you reccomend some books on composition?

[jacksonelmore]

I went on a mad spree composing last night til 3:00, I spent all day transcribing Bill Conti’s Going The Distance and then I chugged a Reign and redid all the counterpoint to include Beethoven 9 motifs and Dixie and I had a hell of a time

I have been playing with the Rocky music and the Eroica theme to represent the meme of Donald Trump

I feel like I’m writing the 3rd testament of the well-tempered klavier, but I’m creating a contrapuntal musical Bible based on Dixie

I’m 1500 measures in

I’ve done hundreds of variations on Dixie and Truth, but I’m transcending the clichè of it with sheer will

I’m going to call it “Symphony of the Forgiveness of Northern Aggression” or “symphony of the second coming of Christ” or “symphony of the atonement with the father” or “symphony of the Logos” or “chivalrous symphony”

I’m going to dedicate it to my player grandpa Pete Jackson for always being an old soul optimist

[jenssieckmann]

Very intersting video, thanks for that. I'm a hobbyist composer, producting mostly orchestral music in the style of filmscores since the pandemic. Compared to my initial goals I came quite far without musical education and a firm understanding of music theory. I especially dwelled on the last point "Keep your ambitions in check" and thinking about small projects and lessons, focusing on just one thing (melody, harmony, rhythm and so on). I always wanted to do that but as soon as I started I thought: "this is so unproductive" and rather began a whole new piece.