Connecting musical parts in a cohesive way, writing bar by bar

Hello everbody,

I am seeking advice concerning the following problem. I hope some of you guys can help me with my problem.

When I write music I do it bar by bar and by ear (although I know all of the theory as well), so for

example I would loop one bar with the accompaniment (chords, bass..)

and try to figure out one good sounding melodic motive that fits the bar. When I'm done I would do the same thing for the next

bar and so on, without listening to the bars before. I also do that when composing the bassline or drums or whatever.

So every bar sounds good now by it's own, but when I have composed some bars like that and I go

back to the beginning and listen to the whole part (all bars) now in succession the parts (bars) don't

make sense as a whole musical piece. It sounds as if the bars don't belong to each other and the whole piece doesn't seem

to make sense in a logical way.

So I wanted to ask here if somebody knows how to link the small musical units so that each bar

can be written isolated (without listening to the bars before) but so that it makes also sense when listening to the

whole piece with the bars before.

They sound well together because you're not writing them together.

Rather then work the individual phrases/bars try playing the entire piece through, changing things that don't fit that way.

I think the only thing you can do is in fact do listen to the things you wrote, before writing the next part of the song. I don't know of any shortcuts, any tricks or magic formulas to make different parts of a song 'fit' and connect to eachother other than keeping in mind what you wrote and what you are about to write. So I would suggest a change of composing-style: keep in mind the structure/form of the piece you are writing (if you don't want to decide on that beforehand, at least keep in mind the general direction you are taking your piece). Best music pieces are in my opinion those that breath coherence, but still have enough variation with regards to themes, harmonies, instrumentation etc to keep things interesting. You're composing style is great to come up with some melodic material, but I don't think it'll work in the long run. You can still write by ear: just take a look at what you wrote and see whether it would fit the piece as a whole. Don't be afraid to use the delete-key once in a while, or file some parts as possible inspiration for other pieces if they don't make sense in that what you are writing. Writing is rewriting, and not rarely scrapping.

That's some good advice and I have thought of doing it that way as a whole a couple of times too.

But what if the piece is maybe like 5 minutes long then you want to add the next few bars. You would

have to listen to the whole 5 minute piece first and then punch in after taht and if you don't like what

you have played you need to start again waiting 5 minutes to punch in again. If you do that 10 times you have

nearly spent an hour just to fill up the next bar. Could that be right? :hmmm:

I feel like I would like to save some time ;) Anyway, would you recommend doing it that way?

When you have 5 minutes of music, I suppose you do have some different segments in there (otherwise it'd be pretty repetitive...). You can skip parts of your piece obviously. For example, only listen to the segment you are writing. When writing transitions, listen to the 2 segments you are putting the transition in between (or if you are writing a transition without having written the latter part, ie the part you are transitioning to, listen to the preceding segment only). Then, when you have written a couple of segments with themes and transitions etc, listen to the whole. Judge whether it is still harmonious (I am not referring to the harmony, but to the feeling of coherency). Then continue working in segments. If you are developing a theme, ofcourse you need to listen to the original theme a couple of times when writing some sort of variation on it. But I think everybody has his or her own methods and manners concerning composing itself. I usually do like I just said, but someone else might find it horrible. You be the judge of what seems best for you. Experimenting with different approaches could help you get your own method down. Asking someone how to compose, is a pretty hard question to answer ;)

I wouldnt recommend listening your piece over and over again while writing though, not because of the time spent, but to make sure you don't stop noticing little flaws in your composition (pretty akward sentence :P). Rather, write a couple of things, do something else, get back at it (which can range from 10 second to 10 years I suppose) and look at it again. When you have a creative outburst I'd say just some minutes would do fine, but when faced with a mental block, leave it a couple of weeks, or even months before getting back at it.

When, say, you are writing something in minimal music style, it would be (imo) very hard not to listen to the whole composition before adding the next part, because of the little and very gently development. Different music requires different approaches. Other methods I sometimes use: try to remember the feeling/sound of your piece and start composing from there, use your 'inner ear', or use a mathematic approach (pretty much technical composing, I don't like that and am not very good at it too).

Just for the record, I'm not a professional composer :) just a hobby-ist. Hope I could be of help.

I wouldnt recommend listening your piece over and over again while writing though, not because of the time spent, but to make sure you don't stop noticing little flaws in your composition (pretty akward sentence :P).

I run into a slightly different problem when I listen to a composition over and over again, although this may be something that only happens to me: it gets too easy to get "stuck" thinking about the piece in a certain way. That is, I get used to hearing it follow a certain path, and then it gets hard to even imagine it doing something different and still making sense.

It's a similar problem, but has to do with losing imagination rather than becoming "deaf" to flaws, I suppose.

As for the OP, I will repeat royreintjes' advice and say, try to write in larger "sections" instead of bars. You can work on separate sections independently as long as you check their transitions and their overall function in the piece to make sure everything's fitting together properly. Sometimes you can save yourself the time actually listening to a previous section if you can recreate it mentally--or, again like royreintejs said, the "feel" of it, if not the literal details of how it worked. Visual representations can be helpful for this--i.e., if you're writing on staff paper or in a MIDI sequencer, glance over the other sections and try to "hear" them in a rapid, summary sort of way without actually performing them or pushing play.

Another strategy, which I'm really bad at myself, is to plan out how you want the piece to go ahead of time. You might draw a little diagram, maybe something as simple as a line that rises and falls to express tension building and release, and then keep that in mind as you write--think about where you "are" in the piece, where you've come from, where you're ultimately trying to go. (This doesn't need to be set in stone, of course you'll probably revise the overall plan as you write.)