Melodic Embellishment

*it helps to write as much as possible in the early stages - turn off the “musical filter”

*”Amatuers wait for inspiration, professionals do it with a headache” - Steven Pressfield

*Composers Job is to refine- Think of composition as carving a statue out of a bing stone block

Melodic Embellishment

• Start with a simple melody

  • Focus on shape and line

  • outline the harmony in a clear way

  • Easier- Creates more material

  • Quantity > quality in the beginning

• Melodic Embellishment

  • Passing tones

  • Neighbor tones

  • Suspension

  • Anticipation

  • Appoggituras

  • Turns

  • Chromatic alteration

  • Arpeggios

  • Transposition

  • Octave jumps

  • Repetitons’s of a single note

  • New rhythms

Essential and unessential tones

• Essential tones are the ones we emphasize

• Chord tones = Essential tones

Neighbor Tones

• A non-chord tone that moves stepwise, either diatonically or chomatically, up or down, then back to original note

Suspension

• Occurs when the harmony shifts from one chord to another, but one or more notes of the first chord are either temporarily held or played again, against the second chord before revolving stepwise to a chord tone

Anticipation

• Occurs when a note is played before the chord to which the note belongs

Passing tone

• Non chord tone that moces stepwise from one chord tone, up or down to another chord tone

Turn

• Starts on a note, moves stepwise ip one note, back to the original note, stepwise down, then back again

Rubato

• “To steal time”

• Push and pull the tempo

• Adds expressivity

Appoggiatura

• Non-chord tone, that occurs on an accented beat and moves by step into a chord tone

*Inspiration will at some point fail you- learn these as a second nature