Melody Archives - Page 3 of 5 - Composer's Toolbox

Steven Maheu’s Elements of Creative Force – Part 5

DanLisMusic Posted on April 24, 2017

Hi All, Here is another image from Steven Maheu’s Elements of Creative Force. This explains how different elements can be contrasting or complementary to one another. We use the relationships between each number and another number to define if the two numbers are contrasting, or complementary. This only applies when using the same color. (We […]

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Steven Maheu’s Elements of Creative Force – Part 4

DanLisMusic Posted on April 8, 2017

Before we proceed with this post, it is worth noting that there have been some small changes in Steven Maheu’s main Elements of Creative Force document. The updated document can be found here: Today’s post is going to be short on my end, because Steven has devised an exercise for you to try, using the […]

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Steven Maheu – Elements of Creative Force

DanLisMusic Posted on January 31, 2017

Steven Maheu, a composer currently based in my home state, reached out to me about an idea he has, for realizing, documenting, and hearing creative ideas: “I felt you may be interested in a type of toolbox I had created for music and art. It has roots in an old ballet notation that has wide […]

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Sight Reading Exercises for Guitarists – Book

DanLisMusic Posted on January 9, 2017

Book available for purchase here Sight Reading Exercises for Guitarists The goal of this book is to provide a large volume of exercises that guitar teachers can use to help students gain facility with reading music. This book is not intended to teach sight reading. It is only meant to make a guitar teacher’s job […]

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Proportional Notation (Tool #59)

DanLisMusic Posted on December 9, 2016January 19, 2019

One trap that is easy to fall into as a composer is the rigidity of rhythm, meter, and barlines. While these are good tools to use when constructing a piece, sometimes a true sense of line requires that you write music that is free from strict rhythm, meter, and barlines. This allows your music to […]

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Meaning in Mahler Symphony No. 1 (Part 3)

DanLisMusic Posted on November 30, 2016

(Chart referenced in this post) Meaning in Symphony No. 1 Titles and Program As we see in the chart taken from Mitchell’s writings, the original title of the symphony was “Symphonic Poem” in two parts. Parts I and II were indicated, but not explicitly titled. The other movements were given brief titles. We know that […]

Analysis Engraving Form Harmony Instrumentation Melody Opinion Orchestration Professional Development Psychology of Music Rhythm Theory Tools for Composers

Meaning in Mahler Symphony No. 1 (Part 2)

DanLisMusic Posted on November 29, 2016

(Chart referenced in this post) Compositional History of Symphony No. 1 Most sources agree that Mahler wrote the majority of this symphony between January 20, 1888 and the end of March that year.[1] At this time, Mahler was a proponent of creating music based on building blocks—arranging and rearranging structures (especially pre-existing ones) to create […]