Music and Education

I have a three-month-old son, and I work in education. You would think I would accept whatever help I could get to make kids smarter.

Not quite.

Some products claim to make kids smart. One popular product line is Baby Einstein, but there are many others trying to fill the baby education niche market.

Here's the problem - educational videos and software are not designed to effectively improve the intelligence of children; rather, they are designed to look good to adults who purchase them. Parents, especially new ones, are a sucker-rich environment for sellers of educational products. We feel guilty if we aren't giving our kids the extra edge to get ahead in life.

Guess what? Fostering a happy home environment, reading and conversing with our kids, and turning off the TV will benefit them much more than a video designed to cram facts into their little noggins.

Consider Einstein. Yes, he was an excellent thinker. But was he a human calculator? No, he had assistants work many of the calculations for him. This was in the age before computers, so it was a common practice. Einstein didn't grasp everything at once, and he was not forced to learn.

Einstein knew how to connect known facts and concepts in order to extrapolate into the unknown. This is the essence of creativity - walking to the edge of that which is known, and extending it beyond its current ending point by combining truths from various spheres of knowledge. Does your educational software teach kids how to do that? Probably not.

Teach your kids how to learn and how to make connections. Save the twenty bucks on the DVD and take them out for ice cream instead. Time with you is the real magic bullet.

In my Ten Commandments for Piano Arrangement, I mentioned a technique I called mapping the harmonic rhythm. As a composer, it’s very valuable to see where the chords are changing and where they are not. Basically, if you find your harmonic rhythm too predictable, or perhaps too unpredictable, the composition will be less effective than it could be.

To start such a map, you need a basic understanding of music, especially of chords and keys. I assume that if you’re still reading, you have passed or could pass Freshman music theory, because you should really get the basics before you go any further in your composition attempts.

I have to insert at this point that this is my own method of harmonic mapping. I don’t know of any other composers who do this process in this specific way, but it works.

You probably want to start this with a piece of sheet music, but you could do it with music you have not yet notated.

You will also want some colored pencils. Any colors will do, but I will suggest a few for ease in talking about this process.

Here we go.

1. Two ground rules. First, we ignore most nonharmonic tones: passing tones, neighbor tones, appogitura, etc. This makes it simpler to see the broad brush strokes of harmony rather than nitpicking each note. Second, we only mark on chord changes. If you have an uninterrupted series of C minor chords that lasts for 18 bars, only mark it once, at the beginning.

2. ONE is black. It’s usually the most common chord. Every time you are on one, write a big I or i under the chord. (In case you don’t know, capitalized roman numerals are major chords, and lowercase roman numerals are minor.) So in the key of C major, every C major chord gets a black I underneath it.

3. FOUR and FIVE are green. These are most common besides ONE. Write their numerals in green.

4. All other major chords are red. All other minor chords are blue. Write their roman numerals.

5. Key changes get circled in orange. Short passages utilizing secondary dominants get circled in yellow.

6. Optionally (extra credit), put large purple parentheses around cadences.

Now look at your harmonic map and answer the following questions:

* Are you visiting I, IV, and V almost exclusively? If so, your composition is almost certainly boring.

* How often do you change chords? Once every measure on the first beat through the entire piece? Consider changing it up. It is possible to use interesting chords and change them at uninteresting times, and the result is not favorable.

* Do you utilize secondary dominants and key changes? Accidentals, when used properly, are our friends. They take us out of a stagnant key area and move us somewhere interesting for a moment.

* If you did the extra credit and put parentheses around your cadences, do you vary the types of cadences you use? For example, do you always end a line with V - I? If so, try to broaden your horizons a bit and expand your vocabulary in harmonic punctuation.

Now, here are a few resources to improve your skills.

For cadences, look at the definitions at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_(music) and try writing a few.

For secondary dominants, look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_dominant

Additional information on improving harmonic rhythm: http://www.musique.umontreal.ca/personnel/Belkin/bk.H/H4.html

Copyright 2008 Nathan Howe - all rights reserved. Reposting or reprinting without permission is prohibited. For permission, contact the copyright owner through http://nathanhowe.net.

One of the joys of composition and arrangement is discovering beautiful sounds and placing them in a usable form. I love to sit at the piano and play various combinations of notes, writing down the most unique for later use. However, this activity can lead to “That’s a Cool Chord” Syndrome, or TCCS.

TCCS occurs when a well-meaning composer or arranger finds one beautiful chord that he or she simply must use. The composer thus begins work on a new piece, specifically designing it to work with the one cool chord. The problem? So many times, a song that is written for the purpose of showing off one thing is not skillful in conveying anything else. This is especially a problem if you have only one chord to show off.

Usually, the one cool chord is quite colorful, containing some nonharmonic tones that give it a certain zing. The problem is that most amateur composers who find such a chord have no other unique chords with similar effect. So we hear ones, fours, fives, maybe a minor six, and then some crazy Neapolitan 6th with an added major 7th and 9th. The composer says, “Cool!” while the rest of the world says, “What was that?”

“What was that?” is not usually a good question to hear about your composition. At the end of a good performance of a good composition, the audience knows exactly what that was. They have felt it. Conversely, TCCS destroys whatever that was in a piece by stealing the show for a brilliant 2.4 seconds.

This is not to say that composers should stop trying to find or use innovative harmonies. Rather, they should each build a personal toolbox of unique harmonies and use them to build a context of beautiful chords in which the most brilliant will seem both astounding and appropriate. The best composers of the Romantic period did this, but somehow most composers today seem unwilling to expend the effort to make their own interests interesting to the listening audience.

May we squash TCCS. May it happen today.

Copyright 2007 Nathan Howe - all rights reserved. Reposting or reprinting without permission is prohibited. For permission, contact the copyright owner through http://nathanhowe.net.

In Kindergarten

[Note: “La Fiesta de la Posada” is a song about the festival celebrating Mary and Joseph looking for a room at the inn.]

Me: We’re singing a song called “La Fiesta de la Posada.” What’s a fiesta?

Kids: A party!
I went to a fiesta once!
And you hit the thing with the candy. . .
etc.

[At this point, every child has something profound to say about the fiesta experience. I refocus the discussion.]

Me: That’s right; a fiesta is a party. What is a posada? Have you ever heard that word? If fiesta means party, then La Fiesta de la Posada would be the party of the. . . ?

[awkward silence]

Kid in Green Shirt: Chainsaw?

Nathan Howe’s Ten Commandments for Piano Arrangement

Some people have asked me for advice on composing and arranging music. This is the first in a series of practical advice columns for musicians.

1. Choose a good original. An arrangement cannot be good if it is based on a bad original. It’s good to pick something memorable, possibly familiar, but not overdone. Also, your life will be easier if you are arranging something in the public domain. Unless you sell a significant number of copies, it’s not worth arranging a song for which you have to pay royalties.

2. Don’t consider yourself an “arranger.” The title of arranger implies that you reorganize somebody else’s work. Consider yourself a composer and write like one. Although you use the original song as a resource, you must add your own themes and other creative elements.

3. Play the piano. This may seem obvious, but you have to play your arrangements on a piano, preferrably a real piano with hammers and strings. Too many composers just click notes onto the staff without any regard for performance practices. Some of them may accidentally become famous, but they will not become respected among musicians.

4. Don’t copy. Okay, so you are arranging somebody else’s work. That doesn’t mean you can safely use the same chords the original composer used. You must bring something new to the arrangement:

* Change the rhythm
* Apply a recognizable musical style
* Change the chord structure
* Add key changes
* Combine songs into a medley

5. Don’t forget to change. Once you think you have a nice motive going, use it with variations. 1, 5, 1, 5 might be a nice bass line for a few measures, but it will become aggravating after two or three minutes. No matter how nice your original idea is, you can’t do the same thing for the entire song and expect people to listen.

6. Don’t change too much. Although lack of variety is a problem, modern music is essentially built on repeating patterns. If you change so often or so drastically that nothing repeats, the music will also seem boring. Find your most effective patterns and repeat them tastefully.

7. Map your harmonic rhythm. This is real work, but it’s very helpful. With a red pencil, mark the chord changes in your music. Perhaps you change chords once a measure every measure. Maybe you change twice in a measure and then hold the next chord over two measures. Mapping helps you see if your timing between chord changes is too tame to be interesting or too erratic to be listenable.

8. Find an honest friend. A decent musician, if possible. Play your piece (or have him or her do it) and ask for suggestions. It is vital to have a sounding board who isn’t already in love with your piece. Always seriously consider suggestions from such a source.

9. Listen to piano music. This is an ongoing assignment, not just a one-time project in preparation for one arrangement. Listen to the type of music you would like to make. Learn to play in the style of those you admire. Don’t copy, but glean all you can from recordings and sheet music by professionals and good amateurs.

10. Don’t distribute your music until it’s right. Some pieces come in a matter of hours. Others take years of occasional editing and sitting in desk drawers. Until you are satisfied with the music, don’t try to get others to play it. That will just hurt your reputation and frustrate you. Always have more than one project in the works so you can move to something different when you are sick of a piece.

Copyright 2007 Nathan Howe - all rights reserved. Reposting or reprinting without permission is prohibited. For permission, contact the copyright owner through http://nathanhowe.net.