If you are careful about what music you expect from which instruments in
your composition, you could write atonally using improvisation as your com-
positional source. You can record your improvisations and then transcribe
them later or, better yet, perform them into a sequencing program such as
Logic Pro or Finale and let the program generate a score (see Chapter 2 for
more). That way you can preserve some of your spontaneous sparks of
intuition, but clean up the messy stuff before you print it all out. When
improvising atonally, remember to be respectful of the nature of the particu-
lar instrument that you have in mind to actually perform the part later. Of
course, you could audition the sounds of many different instrument choices
later if you use one of these MIDI sequencing programs. What might not have
worked for a guitar might end up being a great part for the clarinet.Atonal Music and You ........................................................................
You can use many of the compositional tools that you use for tonal music while
working atonally. You could start with some structural tones and then add
some passing tones, and so on. You could decide whether you want your
melody to ascend or descend. You could make choices regarding step-wise or
skip-wise melodic movement. You could fill in your notes around some rhyth-
mic phrases. You could extract your melodic ideas from language or nature —
after all, most of the sounds in the world around us are atonal.Or how about changing a tonal melody into an atonal gem? To illustrate this
idea, Figure 13-5 shows “Mary Had a Little Lamb” with a few changes to make
it atonal.From here, you can expand the piece by asking yourself some questions:
What would the accompaniment to this sound like? Do chords exist in atonal
music land? Of course they do. Remember that a chord is just a combination
of notes played together.&4
4
œœœœ œb œœ œb œœœn œ# œ œœœœ œb œœœ œb œ œn œb ̇Figure 13-5:
Mary had
a crazy,
disturbed
little lamb.
Chapter 13: Musical Forms 157