Composing Using the Whole Tone Scale - Music Composition
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Date: 2022-03-28
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Comments and reviews: 10
Amir
Gareth it is always nice to see new installments of your instructions. would you consider teaching how to write for piano .. one thing that baffled me during my few years of music study in college was .. the theory classes always dealt with Bach chorales and writing for voices and since I was an instrumentalist I wanted to know how to write for instruments guitar/piano but it was very difficult because no light was shed on the subject. So since your instrument is piano maybe you could share what you know about writing for it, for example a short compositions of 18 bars for classical piano student that may be useful for them and for us as composers.
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Gareth it is always nice to see new installments of your instructions. would you consider teaching how to write for piano .. one thing that baffled me during my few years of music study in college was .. the theory classes always dealt with Bach chorales and writing for voices and since I was an instrumentalist I wanted to know how to write for instruments guitar/piano but it was very difficult because no light was shed on the subject. So since your instrument is piano maybe you could share what you know about writing for it, for example a short compositions of 18 bars for classical piano student that may be useful for them and for us as composers.
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Martin
Do you know of any whole tone based compositions that have used a classical sonata structure? Theme A on one whole tone scale, then theme B (a fifth higher?) on the other whole tone scale, development followed by recapitulation that sticks to one whole tone scale. Surely someone must have thought of doing something like that.
An advantage of whole tone is not having to look out for parallel fifths, however without fifths or semitones, I think it is harder to find a sense of resolution in an ending. Although I guess in principle whole tone music is atonal, it is likely to sound as though it contains a lot of minor sevenths looking for a tonic.
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Do you know of any whole tone based compositions that have used a classical sonata structure? Theme A on one whole tone scale, then theme B (a fifth higher?) on the other whole tone scale, development followed by recapitulation that sticks to one whole tone scale. Surely someone must have thought of doing something like that.
An advantage of whole tone is not having to look out for parallel fifths, however without fifths or semitones, I think it is harder to find a sense of resolution in an ending. Although I guess in principle whole tone music is atonal, it is likely to sound as though it contains a lot of minor sevenths looking for a tonic.
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Trevor
Hi Gareth, thanks for your really great video on the topic of writing with the Whole Tone Scale. -
I noticed that you didn't mention the preparation and resolution of dissonance and neither did you talk about any potential cadential structures. -
Could this be because the Whole Tone Scale offers a strange kind of timelessness to the listener, and creates not so much a developing progression, as with conventional harmonic language, but more an unfoldment of a single moment?
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Hi Gareth, thanks for your really great video on the topic of writing with the Whole Tone Scale. -
I noticed that you didn't mention the preparation and resolution of dissonance and neither did you talk about any potential cadential structures. -
Could this be because the Whole Tone Scale offers a strange kind of timelessness to the listener, and creates not so much a developing progression, as with conventional harmonic language, but more an unfoldment of a single moment?
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Jay
Once again, brilliantly explained. I wrote many pieces when I was young that imitated Debussy, never knowing about the whole tone scale. I'm now working on a larger piece where I want to incorporate the whole tone scale. And thanks to you, I have a clearer picture of where I'm going with it.
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Once again, brilliantly explained. I wrote many pieces when I was young that imitated Debussy, never knowing about the whole tone scale. I'm now working on a larger piece where I want to incorporate the whole tone scale. And thanks to you, I have a clearer picture of where I'm going with it.
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oscar
Hi, I am facinated by through composed music, rhapsodies, any way you could do a topic about it, and some of its more famous examples :-) and maybe how to write one (Iv heard its importent to have a very good melody, one after the other if your writing rhapsodies:)
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Hi, I am facinated by through composed music, rhapsodies, any way you could do a topic about it, and some of its more famous examples :-) and maybe how to write one (Iv heard its importent to have a very good melody, one after the other if your writing rhapsodies:)
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Chalk
I find it hard to write a cohesive song using whole tone scale. I'm not a classical musician, more of a pop/rock guy. I've written a few good - riffs-, but I haven't been able to write a whole piece that I'm satisfied with.
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I find it hard to write a cohesive song using whole tone scale. I'm not a classical musician, more of a pop/rock guy. I've written a few good - riffs-, but I haven't been able to write a whole piece that I'm satisfied with.
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SomeKindOfMadman
Great lesson; I-d been racking my brain, on variations of Claire DeLune on Guitar. I ran into a wall when trying to improvise a solo for it. I-m sure this will help me brainstorm some useful ideas.
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Great lesson; I-d been racking my brain, on variations of Claire DeLune on Guitar. I ran into a wall when trying to improvise a solo for it. I-m sure this will help me brainstorm some useful ideas.
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thelonious1234
Cheers Gareth, very interesting and useful as always. I mainly think of whole-tone scales as a melodic option for dominant chords. Basically lydian +5, usually sounds ... not wrong on b13 dominants.
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Cheers Gareth, very interesting and useful as always. I mainly think of whole-tone scales as a melodic option for dominant chords. Basically lydian +5, usually sounds ... not wrong on b13 dominants.
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Dan
Very interesting sounds.
Just found out whole tone supports dom7 (no 5th) chords. So..... we should be able to compose using 12-bar as a basis. Although IV7 and V7 are not in the same transposition as I7.
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Very interesting sounds.
Just found out whole tone supports dom7 (no 5th) chords. So..... we should be able to compose using 12-bar as a basis. Although IV7 and V7 are not in the same transposition as I7.
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Carl
I haven't tried to write anything in whole-tone since first or second year at university. It certainly provides some interesting limitations (definitely worth exploring again). Great video. Thanks!
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I haven't tried to write anything in whole-tone since first or second year at university. It certainly provides some interesting limitations (definitely worth exploring again). Great video. Thanks!
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