The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Composition: Methods for Developing Simple Melodies and Longer Compositions

by Michael Miller

Write the songs that make the whole world sing. A step-by-step guide to writing music, this book shows musicians how to compose simple chord progressions and melodies, and leads them through more advanced compositional techniques and musical forms. Designed for composers of all types of music, it includes instruction on composing stand-alone melodies, using different scales and modes, themes and variations, orchestration, and composing for film, theater, and videogames.
-Perfect complement to The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Music Theory and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Songwriting
-Includes a comprehensive glossary of musical terms, as well as an appendix of various computer-based composition tools
-Easy-to-use oversize trim

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Theory

288 pages, Paperback

First published October 4, 2005

Reviews

[Jeremy Hatch · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a pretty good compendium of compositional ideas, approaches, and tools. I’ll probably be keeping it on the shelf as an idea book and something to draw pedagogical approaches from for my own students. Definitely presupposes some skill in reading and writing music, though not much more than that. The amount of theory you absorbed in piano lessons or whatever is probably sufficient and you could look stuff up as you need it, I think. There was a huge mistake on page 151 where he gives the wrong definition for retrograde inversion, so know that if you get that far. That was the only glaring error that I happened to notice, but several sections I didn’t read in detail (I’m not going to improve my counterpoint with the presentation in this book, that’s for sure.) The section on orchestration is basically a cheat sheet on the orchestral instruments. I’ll still be reaching for my copy of Adler when I need to look something up, but if this is the only resource you have, you could do worse. Very limited presentation of 20th-century trends outside of tonal music, and a very limited presentation of songwriting if that’s your interest. Every chapter has lots of assignments and examples. On the whole, seems like a pretty good book to start with, but nothing especially useful here for anyone who’s been writing music for a while.

[Mihai Cosareanu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good book that gives you an overview of the tools available for composing. It's quite focused on musical notation (which I am not interested in currently). I think it would have benefited of a more comprehensive analysis of song forms and sections. Quite a good book for the start.

[Agnė Pasaravičienė · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tools for music composition described and explained in a plain language, easy to comprehend. Highly recommended for those who want to start expanding their understanding of music creation processes.

[DW · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is not really for "complete idiots" because it requires you to know at least rudimentary music theory. But overall it seems like a good overview of techniques to use. I recently took a composition class where the teacher taught us simply "make up a melody, vary it, plop the variations on top of each other." That can make interesting music, but I feel like most music is not put together that way. I appreciated seeing the basics of working with harmony/melody. It was also good that it touched on topics that I would never seek out on my own, like serial music or microtonal music. Now at least I know what they are.

One thing I thought was weird was that the author said that everybody uses the natural minor ... my theory teacher says everybody uses the harmonic minor because everybody raises the leading tone, which seems more correct to me. And that he calls out *only* the French horn as a difficult instrument to play. I also thought that in the orchestration chapter, it would be more helpful if he listed the ranges that an amateur would be expected to play comfortably on the instrument. Clearly, anybody reading this book is not writing for professional musicians, and it's much easier to look up the absolute range of an instrument than the range of the average amateur.

Also, this book suggests substituting chords by extending the chord or using one that is a third up or down (so that it shares two notes with the original). I suppose that's a good starting place if you don't know theory, but really it makes more sense to substitute chords which have the same function (like tonic or predominant). But then you have to get into a bunch of theory ... so I guess it makes sense. Anyway, a lot of helpful information, just seemed a little uneven.

[Troy Soos · Rating 4 out of 5]

The content of this book merits five stars; I’m deducting one from the overall rating because of the unfortunate title. Before starting this book, a reader/musician should have some basic knowledge of music theory (at least scales and chords) as well as an ability to pick out notes on a keyboard. With that foundation, this book can make the mysteries of music composition understandable and intriguing. Both chord-first and melody-first approaches are presented. Chord leading and chord progressions are explained, with common examples from different styles of music. The author shows how to organize motifs and phrases into complete and increasingly complex compositions. The exercises at the end of each chapter are optional, and I skipped some advanced material which just didn’t interest me (e.g. atonal and experimental music). I definitely recommend this book for anyone who would like to learn the basics of composing music.

[Elisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though I find the name off-putting (as I don't see that music theory has to be difficult to teach or understand), I really liked the casual way of explaining all the relevant concepts in music composition. He goes over all the fundamentals of the way music is put together, and all the possible rules you can use if you want to make it easier for yourself in the beginning. Of course he's careful to mention that once you know all the rules of harmony, you can discard them at your leisure as there is no right way to compose music. Anything that sounds good to your ear is a worthy piece of music.

[Francis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Genuinely phenomenal for any hobbyist who wants to start composing music. Covers the rudimentary theory (scales, tones, chord progressions) without becoming too abstracted from the craft of actually making music. Then, it somehow becomes even better when it delves into the topics of melodic development and co-ordinating different voices; touching on the grammar and logic of composition, revealing the mysteries behind one of the oldest art forms.

One of those rare books that can bring an outsider into a world that once seemed dense and esoteric.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a great basic introduction to the techniques of music composition, as well as a good review of some basic music theory which I once knew. I wish there had been more on how to develop a short melody into a full-length piece, however.

[Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent tutorial/reference on composing melodies to fit chords, adding chords to melodies and understanding the differet chords available to the composer and performer.

[Francois · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book

[B Boy]

talking about how compose