A Step-by-Step Approach to Conveying Ideas with Music – Audio Premium

In this week’s Audio Premium content, Ryan Leach explores how you can use music to express feelings and ideas in a completely intangible way. He takes a detailed step-by-step approach, with full examples including notation and audio examples.

To learn more about what you get as part of Audio Premium, read this. To take a peek inside this tutorial, hit the jump!

One of the greatest things about music is it’s ability to express feelings and ideas in a completely intangible way. Music can convey ideas as disparate as water, springtime, machinery, melancholy, and exuberance. When you’re just starting out as a composer or songwriter, using instrumental music to express specific ideas can be a daunting and overwhelming task.

The purpose of this tutorial is to present a step-by-step process you can use to convey a non-musical idea in musical terms. It is by no means the only approach, and often times pure intuition is the best way to go, but it’s a logical and easy way for a beginning composer or songwriter to get started.

I’ll begin by briefly discussing the basic idea of program music, and then go on to the step-by-step process, followed by a few examples of putting the process into use.

Here’s the kind of music you’ll be able to create once you harness the knowledge inside:

Download audio file (example.mp3)

Table of Contents

  • Absolute vs. Program Music
  • Program Music Today
  • Step 1 – Know What You’re Trying To Say
  • Step 2 – Rhythm
  • Step 3 – Harmony
  • Step 4 – Melody
  • Step 5 – Orchestration
  • Example – Step 1 – Sorrow
  • Example – Step 2 – Rhythm
  • Example – Step 3 – Harmony
  • Example – Step 4 – Melody
  • Example – Step 5 – Orchestration
  • Example – Filling out the piece
  • Conclusion

Existing Premium members can log-in and download. Not a Plus member? Join now.


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *