Hello again. Long time, no see! Hope everyone is well. Unfortunately I haven't made the time to update the site in a while. Family, summer, work, all those things have pushed Motif City down the list of priorities. Hopefully that is changing now as the kids head back to school (whew!)
I haven't written any music in quite some time. During my hiatus, I have been thinking about streamlining the song composition process. As a cartoonist and sketch artist, I often read books on drawing, anatomy, etc. I have read several over the summer. One that has really resonated is from the Marvel Comics team. Not only are they great cartoonists, they are great educators on the craft of cartooning. I own their DVD (Drawing Comics the Marvel Way), as well as several books.
I have found quite a lot of synergy between the process of drawing cartoons and composing music, and I thought I would share a system I am going to begin employing when this inferno-like weather subsides, and I have a bit more inspiration to compose.
Marvel Comics recommends the following process be used for drawing (summarized)..
Create basic shapes for the objects (there are only several-- such as squares, ellipses, etc)
Sketch lines and connect shapes
Ink
Color
Add effects
What if we were to apply this to the songwriting process as follows.. with MEASURABLE progress written out on paper in a step by step fashion..
(Basic shapes)Choose a few instruments that will provide the familiar timbres for your given genre
(Sketch lines) Record your basic melody and basic chords
(Ink) Embellish your chords and add substitutions and arrange
(Color) Add processing like compression, panning, velocity, etc
(Add effects) Add effects for coloring the sound further to make it sparkle
Doable?
I'm going to find out and I'll report back with my result.
mj