How to Compose Music - Lesson 1 - How to Write a Melody

Learn how to compose music, from start to finish.

In this course, you'll learn about melody, harmony, form, accompaniment, dynamics, articulations and how to make your music generally sound good.

Study the ways in which Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven all made their music work.

Lesson 1 - How to Write a Melody - Learn about how to write a Basic Idea, the real building block of classical music. The easiest way you've ever seen, to write a convincing melody.

Lesson 2 - Harmony 101 - Learn about harmony, and how to make the basic idea you wrote in lesson 1, fit to different harmonies.

Lesson 3 - The Musical Period - Learn about the musical period, the first of the small theme types that classical composers use in their music.

Lesson 4 - The Musical Sentence - Learn about the musical sentence, the second of the small theme types that classical composers use in their music.

Lesson 5 - Functional Harmony - Start to get in depth with your knowledge of harmony. Find out what you've been missing that will make writing chord progressions easier than ever.

Lesson 6 - Harmonic Progressions and Chromaticism - Learn even more about how to use harmony to get the effects you want in your music. Learn about the different types of chord progressions, sequences and how to easily use chromatic harmony.

Lesson 7 - Your First Complete Piece - Learn about small ternary form, and how all the previous lessons fit together to create a complete piece of music.

Lesson 8 - The Details - Learn how to use your accompaniment, articulations and dynamics to create a great sounding, convincing piece of classical music.

[contrapunctusmammalia]

composing is 1% inspiration and 99% perseverance.

[iraqidinar]

As a student of linguistics who's recently been trying his hand at music playing and composition, it's fascinating to note some of the parallels between language and music as expressed in this video. Notes seem roughly equivalent to phonemes (basic sounds); scales = phonology (total set of sounds in a language); motives = lexemes (words/phrases); ideas = sentences...and in that sense an entire piece can be thought of as a speech or monologue/dialogue, what-have-you. Idk, it helps me to think of it in that way, at least as a starting point. Thanks for this video; I found ut helpful.

[smmmyes]

Self taught composer of 22 years here. This is really amazing what you're doing for free. And how you are explaining things to people is very well done. I am INSANLEY happy to see this. I am curious tho, where do the funds come from for this? Or are you just THAT wonderful of a human being?? Kudos.

[Diddldance]

Thank you so much, I have been self-taught and just went by feeling. Your tools are awesome and will help me out when I get stuck.

[balbino]

Very very very very good!
Thank you very much!

[agastful]

I am grateful someone tries to explain this arcane stuff to laymen. When I asked around for some guidance on how to add bass line to a melody, I typically heard either 'forget it; it is way too complicated' or 'just give it to me and I will do it for you.' Neither was of much help for someone who wants to be independent.

[Jason-bgjc]

I didn't know you started a youtube channel. I listened to the podcast a few years ago. Oh man, thanks a ton!

[cej]

So glad I found this course; it's exactly the kind of information I needed.

[cnano]

I love Die Walküre. Beautiful piece of music.

[JPcoil]

Your music experience has definitely spilled over into your teaching style as you are very easy to listen to. Thanks.

[sakurasky]

Thank you. With just this one video, I managed to complete my first piece. I know I sound like a liar who's full of BS but its true.

[curtpiazza]

Great lesson! Learned a lot in 10 min.! Looks like an interesting series!

[sdjnwhyNZ]

Hey, thanks a lot! I've been playing trombone for a while and finally I found those basic practise are deeply related to the basic units of composing. :D

[rilkiev]

Thank you...such generosity of spirit is inspiring!

[HarmoniqMusiq]

Please add subtitles for each course on your official site. Bless!

[SaarangP_]

Nice explanation and great guidelines that will propel a lot of aspiring musicians to compose music! And thanks a lot for the free course because creating such valuable stuff requires sufficient time :)

[yuxuanchen]

This is better than the composition class that I am taking in UCB

[fredquin]

This video is fantastique!!!everything has been clearly explained, thank you so much!!!

[DarknessPixelz]

1. 0:46
2. 1:34
3. 1:46 - 2:29
4. 8:42
6. 5:27
7.6:26 - 6:47
8. 8:48
9. 9:15
Someone will know what I'm talking about. And you're welcome.
And, of course, thanks art, this was really helpful :)

[Fredigundis]

The specific reason why the main theme from Mozart K545 sounds incomplete in Jon's revised version is because it ends on scale degree 7 (which strongly implies dominant harmony), and therefore does not undergo tonal closure. You COULD remove some notes and still obtain tonal closure - it depends which notes you remove and which you retain. (This doesn't mean that you might not have horribly disfigured the original, although this is more to do with aesthetics than implied harmony.)