ThomasJ

Good point. It is definitely important that the lyrics and the melody are connected. But you must be careful that the emphasizing and special musical treatments of certain words doesn't become a gimmick. In my opinion, if you can hear these things on a first listen, it's too obvious. Also, I think this is already a step further from what I was talking about earlier. I would think it's hard to really construct a melody solely from the meaning of the lyrics. I personally would rather use the lyrics to emphasize or maybe alter the melody afterwards, but in my experience, staring at the words doesn't inspire the best melodies.

This is hard... A melody, or at least the start of a melody, is one of the only things that really come from "inspiration", whatever that may actually mean. I really think there's no tools to create a good melody. However, if you are writing pop or rock songs, chances are you fell into one of two traps: 1) The melody isn't catchy because you wrote the lyrics first, and then basically fitted them to guitar or piano chords. Because of this, you didn't really think about the melody seperately. Sometimes this works, but you need to have one hell of a text. Listen to Paul Simon, for example. He usually writes lyrics first, and you really hear it. But his lyrics are good enough to pull it off. 2) You started with writing guitar or piano accompaniment, and you made it somewhat special to the song (as opposed to simply strumming chords). The danger here is that you copy the cool accompaniment into the melody, so your melody is essentially the voice leading of the accompaniment. Try leaving the accompaniment for what it is, writing a melody seperately (or over the same chords), and afterwards put them together. In any case, I would advise to really focus on writing melodies in and by themselves. I'm sure you hear them; write them down when you do. Write chords around the melody instead of the other way around. This isn't easy if you're not used to it, but this way the melody isn't restricted by the chords it's suppoed to fit. If you can't find good chords, just write down the melody, you might be able to use them over a chord progression you think up later. Keep in mind, these are just general tips, mostly from my own experience. I have no idea if you have any of these problems. Melodies just can't be forced out, like you can do with chord progressions, through trial and error. You give birth to them when it's time for them to come out. So when you do, hold on to them.

I'm sorry you feel that way. No, it really isn't :) (and "if anything" were key words in that sentence) I understand completely. And I've agreed with it already, so I guess I'll agree with it again (thanks for rubbing it in) ;) I'm familiar with both approaches to modal jazz. I think maybe I tend to overlook them in this piece. There's a constant sort of uplifting effect going from Gmaj7 to Emaj7 which I quite like, and this maybe makes me concentrate less on making the rest of the solo interesting. When playing pieces that stay in the same mode all the way through, I don't think I have that problem as much. It's weird though, because a piece like impressions doesn't stay in the same mode for much longer. Just my perception, apparently. Maybe the IVmaj7 chord has something to do with it, because it sounds so tonal. Thank you for pointing this out to me.

Hmm, well, there is certainly a contrast between the head and the solos, if that's what you mean. Or are you talking about the polytonal effect in the head itself? Because the head doesn't really have chord changes (though the changes in the solos are based on the melody). If it's the latter, we'll just have to disagree, because I quite the the polytonality, and the melody/changes would be quite boring without it. Maybe the recording quality has something to do with it. (Maybe not.) As for the solo, I'm quite sure I'm not playing lydian most of the time. If anything, I tend to stick to ionian most of the time, except on the IVmaj chord. But I can agree on your comment that I stay inside too much. And of course, that I play too many notes. But hey, us sax players have a reputation to uphold... Thanks a lot for taking the time to comment, both of you.

You must be misunderstanding. Or else I am. I'm not talking about selecting a style to write in. I'm talking about one's personal musical evolution, in which every stage is different (and maybe style is a bad word here, because it's not just about style the way you define it). I have noticed this evolution often seems somewhat consistent from person to person, even with music history as a whole. So it's not something you choose, it's something that happens.

It's happened to me a couple of times: you are at a certain stage in your musical development, and you listen to lots of music that is stylistically in line with what you write or how you play. Then you develop the ideas your working on, which sparks some new ideas, and before you know it, you're doing something very different. You come up with some things that seem completely original, which you've never heard before. Only then, when you start listening to other music that fits your current tastes, you notice some other composer/musician X years ago already did the same thing you came up with on your own. Has this happened to any of you? I'm sure it has. And not just in music, either. What can this mean? Is there a certain (perhaps vague) direction that musical development usually follows? Is there sort of a micro- and macro-evolution thing going? Do the elements of a musical style imply a logical conclusion and succession? Or is it just unlikely you come up with anything that hasn't been done before, because so much has already been done? I'm curious to your thoughts.

^ A term being subjective does not make it meaningless. It only means it needs to be discussed. Not everybody has the same amount of talent for something, and not everyone is equally mature (which I consider a better term than "personhood"). I would only disagree that someone lacking maturity can't be called a composer. If someone is an asshole, but composes good music, he's a composer. And they do exist.

Yes, but him pointing it out is exactly the difference. Like you and I both said, the phenomenon has existed forever. But only when Cage formalized it, it became a work of art. I would say Cage actively "composed" 4'33" by pointing out this phenomenon.

The time signature 4/4 is hardly related to the mathematical ratio 4/4, because a time signature isn't a division. In fact, a 4/2 or 4/8 time signature can be exactly the same as 4/4, even though they are different ratios. Other people have already commented on the comparison with heartbeats etc. These are the things I considered wrong. As for the way I said it, I don't want to pretend you were objectively wrong, I was just being a little spiffy.

It is complex in the sense that in our culture, we count it as 4 and 3 or 3 and 4. At the very least, it has to be tought this way. I don't know what the problem is then in calling it a complex metrum, comprised of several simple metra. I realize the distinction is not "natural" or inherent to music and rythm itself (again, African music), but for our Western music, I think it makes sense nonetheless. You completely right about the symmetry though, I take that back. I'm just thinking aloud. Which I realize some people are afraid to do in order to maintain the impression that they are intellectually superior (and no SSC, I'm not talking about you). Though for some reason all of this waited until the 20th century to happen. Same can be said about harmony. This still doesn't answer the question why 95% of Western music is in 2,3 or 4.

Ah, but it is composed. There have been many time intervals of four and a half minutes in which people have listened to things. It only become art (and arguably, music) when Cage formalized it. That isn't to say you can't listen to other sounds as you would listen to music. But to me, one of the requirements for art is that it was somehow formed by a person, or by people (or by machines, maybe sometime in the future). I think it depends on one's definition of "art" and to what degree they connect "music" with "art".

Well, exactly :) This is why I put "rythmically simple" between brackets, because maybe they're just the same things. Honestly, I don't know. I could call 7/4 less stable because in Western music, it is a complex metrum: we western musicians find 7/4 so hard we have to divide it up into 4/4+3/4 or something. Now it would seem to me that what I would call most stable is simply most symmetrical. And symmetry has always worked for our brains, right?

Then shouldn't the question be why 4/4 is rythmically stable? And why our culture has developed a preference for rythmically stable (or rythmically simple) music? I'm sure I don't have to bring up the comparison with African music. Maybe we should be looking for an answer like Kamen's, only less wrong.

Stupidity it is, then :) Thank you thank you thank you!

Aha, I get it. Good notation programs are great, but expensive. If you ever write for a different band, you'll need it though (or write everything by hand...) Of course, it's completely up to you. Good luck in any case.