We don’t expect you to be able to fully compose music yet. The preceding
exercise is meant to show that you can draw inspiration and generally shape
music around it.If you were to stop and think about your choices of notes and rhythms to
represent these scenes, you might also want to consider representing other
unseenelements within them. For example, what other sounds — birds,
waterfalls, insects — might be present, and how can they be represented
musically? What sort of emotion does each scene convey to you? How can
you represent and refine that emotion through tempo, choice of scale (also
called mode), and instrumentation?The visual realm is not the only one from which you can draw melodic inspi-
ration. What does touch sound like? Soft caresses must sound different from
a slap in the face, right? What about taste — can you represent taste through
musical composition? What makes a piece of music bland or flavorful? And
let’s not forget the sense of smell. Can a musical composition smell sweet?
We’ve certainly all heard a few that stink.Music is the universal language, and language is descriptive by nature. Your
job as composer is to describe an emotion through your choice of rhythm
and melody — among other things.Helping Your Muse Help You ........................................................................
One can’t overestimate the value of a good musical imagination. It is the
single most powerful source for making music — ifyou can tap into it. The
imagination is so powerful, in fact, that since long ago it has been personified
as the Muse.Figure 5-9:
This is a kind
of abstract,
sparse
“land-
scape,”
offering
a more or
less regular
pattern.
Chapter 5: Finding Melodies Where You Least Expect Them 49