Break the Rules! (photo by Scott Kleinberg) via Flickr Creative Commons
The second of my four posts is up at New Music Box, the website of New Music USA, as part of my September guest-blog. It’s 12 things I’ve learned about composing from writing church music, so there are three in each of the four post (they say composers are good at math; that’s as much proof as you’ll get from me).
The first three, which you can read here, are:
1. Start Where You Are
2. Write What You Know
3. Write for People You Know
(Just to be clear, just because the title says I’ve learned it doesn’t mean I’ve learned it. I might better have titled it “tried to learn” or “learned about” or even “I’m still trying to learn,” but I hope the point is clear that these are things particularly from my work in church music that I’ve learned which I believe translate to composition as a whole.) In any case, this new post has the next three:
4. Make Them Sound Good
5. Follow the Rules
6. Break the Rules
Next week will be, unless I change my mind:
7. Write Faster
8. Hear It, Change It
9. Churches Do Tons of New Music