Over the years I’ve noticed that little has been written about Music Composition compared to other areas of music. That’s not to say that you can’t find good books or texts on compositions – just that in a relative sense less has been written about music composition. I think it has something to do with a concept that psychologists call meta-cognition which is concerned with what people think about when they are doing something. I have been keeping a music composition journal for many years. I don’t mean a music sketch book – I’m talking about a journal where I write down my observations about compositing while I am composing. This can be a great way to document what you are doing while you compose so that you can figure out what you were doing at a later time if necessary.

Okay, so you start keeping a journal. You take more time to reflect on your individual creative process. But you still want to learn more about music composition. There are some excellent orchestration texts. Composers such as Schoenberg and Hindemith wrote books about composition. While I searched for books about music composition, I would often find books about creative endeavors that described the writing process (writing in this case refers to writing with words, or prose). The more I read about writing, the more I found parallels with music composition: You should have a plan when you start writing. You should outline how your story will go. You introduce characters, scenes, and settings to the reader. You have transitional material that links sections. The more you write, you become aware of how prose flows better when you use things like introductions and transitions. The same can be said of music. Music flows better when it isn’t abrupt unless, of course, abruptness is what you what to convey. The incorporation of introductions, transitions, re-transitions, and codas can breathe life into your music. Your music will have more flow and it will seem more polished at the same time.