Music Composition DUMmIES

Chapter 11

Chapter 11: Composing from the Void.........................................................................

In This Chapter


Making music out of everyday movement around you


Checking out the eight different effort shapes


Using effort shapes to compose music


Exercising your effort shape knowledge

T

here’s going to be a time in your life when you want desperately to sit

down and write a song or a piece of instrumental music, but you find you

just can’t come up with anything. Nada. Zip. A complete and seemingly insur-

mountable case of composer’s block. So, does that mean you should admit

you’ve got nothing left and quit? No way!

Never, evergive up.

One of the keys to being a successful and prolific musician is getting through

these creative dry spells and coming out the other end with either a piece of

finished music, some song lyrics and a melody, or even just a solid beginning,

middle, or ending you can work on in the future. There are many ways to

coax your creative juices out from hiding, including beating your head

against the piano over and over again, a la Guy Smiley from Sesame Street.

In this chapter we discuss two ways of squeezing blood from a turnip: using

the environment around you and using a strange science called effort shapes.

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