To get in touch with me for Zoom composition or piano lessons, commissions, collaborations, or just a friendly chat, you can use the email jjayberthume@gmail.com
This videos' serie is so criminally underrated. So many good tips and theory condensed in 3 ( hopefully 4 if it comes out ) videos, I seriously can't understand how this has not at least 50-100k views
"The fine line between order and chaos" What is this, a Jordan Peterson lecture? On a serious note, thank you so much for making these videos. They're extremely helpful and the thought and effort you put into them is way more than we deserve for free haha. Loved all the tunes you wrote in the beginning.
JoeyKastelic Do you want a catchy melody? You've got to rescue it from the belly of the whale, roughly speaking. If you happen to find your father there, bring him too.
Holy shit I've wondered for weeks now why the very first melody I composed was still my catchiest after 5 or 6 small compositions. IT HAS SENTENCE STRUCTURE, every bit of it. The question twice, slightly different he second time, and a longer answer that includes part of the question and it ends on the tonic... The answer was in me all along and you shined a light on it. Thank you! Your videos are gold. I searched youtube pretty deeply for music theory and composition channels and yours is in my top 3! Keep it up!
He said that there are three topics he wants to cover in the series: Originality, Catchiness, & Emotional Impact.... and I just realised he already covered it all!! So I'm not really sure what topic's Part 4 going to be...
I really enjoyed these three videos, and appreciated the numerous examples, the clear structure and the level of detail (especially in this one). Did part 4 ever get made? It's not listed in the playlist.
When you brought up Defending Our Homeland it reminded me that that was the first video of yours I ever watched. That must have been what almost two years ago? My how much your videos have grown in production, it's been super cool to watch! Thanks for making these your videos, they've been a huge part of my growth as a composer too.
Two of my favorite songs have exactly the same eight measure melodic/rhythmic structure of abac abbc, (in the first four measures they repeat the a, but in the second four they repeat the b instead). They are Somewhere Over the Rainbow and I Didn't Know What Time it Was.
When that dog gif popped up I just cracked up. So unexpected. And of course, dogs. Going to watch the other videos - just came up on this one randomly.
Lol this hilarious. Last night I said to myself. Man JJ hasn't posted in a while and I know he has got a lot of good stuff coming... I hope he post soon
I really enjoy watching your analysis of music since its always been very similar to mine. I think you could really do a video on deception or deceiving the mind in particular i think that's a really strong form of drawing attention to the "deceptor" as in this case the music.
In tvhaikovsys concerto in b flat minor I think, the beginning gives an example of what you called question in answer the Dun Dun Dun Dun “question” and the large orchestra strike or whatever it’s called being the answer and by repeating that solidifies the question and answer concept.
I would really love to hear you talk about song structures or form, how do you form the entire piece from an idea. That is something I haven't found, even Bernstein didn't touch upon it in The Young People Concerts except for Sonata form. I have written so many 4-8-16 even 32 bar ideas but I always struggle to make a structured piece out of it. Like how do you write a 6 minute orchestral piece? There must be some structure to it, I can't imagine it is just make it up as you go along since every other part like melody, harmony, rhythm and orchestration has been methodically worked out with theory and whatnot.
This episode made me realize I've been using too many question type phrases without enough resolutions in my melodies. On the topic of timbre in your chart timbre section really interested me. Any way Could you say the answer sections generally have a harsher more dramatic timbre. Since saws tend to be more dramatic with the sudden leap to the peak rather than the more common arching towards a pitch? I know its very common to add saw waves during D&B drops. Is there a relationship to how a saw wave leaps and notes leap? What about effects I a casual peice of mixing advice I was given was pull back any effects that make a sound that makes the sound more complex during really clustered sections but that may have just been for clarity sake, but it would fit with the idea of answers being more refined than their questions. I am not any were close to a pro but I have spent a large portion of the time I've been making music screwing with synths and designing sounds.
Just a random note, but could the theme for your piece "Defending Our Homeland" be considered to be in a period form, as well as in ABB'C form? (At least with the continuation of the melody which goes on for another 4 bars) Love that piece, by the way
Also, this wasn’t touched upon in the video, but could time signatures be another axis on which Question and Answers contrast? E.g. using “odd” time signatures in Questions, and (say) 4/4 in Answers.
Thing about this... I'm not sure I expected it to be this rich from the title and the context. There are things in here about how musical sentences work, much clearer and wider in scope than the way they were taught at least to me at University. I feel like maybe some keywords or some better advertisement for your channel somehow might help more people who are looking for these things find this video. I'm not sure. That's the only thing I can add.
Thanks! Tell your friends! It’s viewers sharing my channel that is the most effective advertisement. I’ve already grown a substantial amount in the past year (from 2k to 13k), so I’m quite happy with the progress and plan on never stopping making quality content or upping my production value. The reason I titled this video as such is because it’s a very common search. In fact, if you type in “how to write a melody” mine is the second result. I don’t want to turn off newbies by being too theoretical in the title or tags. Thanks for the concern!
in my personal recent studies, the best melodies can always be sung and/or hummed. And another thing about the "great" composers is that they wrote for voice more than once. That includes Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Grieg, and even Bach. Thus, if one wishes to write for voice, you should be able to sing it and enjoy it or the designated singer won't. The same can be applied for instrumental, but it's not as strict because there are more limits upon singers than instrumentalists.
Sung Studios Or you can use thinking to build a telescope and see the glory of the heavens even past the moon. Feeling points you in the right direction; thinking plots the course. :)
What I’m pulling from your table is that Question/Antecedent = Tension, and Answer/Consequent = Release. Is this a useful way of thinking about it or completely irrelevant?
probably not That’s definitely the case most of the time! However, some tunes lead into their B section, so the consequent would contain tension in that case. But generally speaking if the sentence or period is self-contained it’s tension and release - especially in the common practice period.
Some of my favourites -Rite of Spring opening bassoon solo -Pretty much any melody from Dvořák 9 -Beethoven's Ode to Joy -The opening flute solo from Peer Gynt -Ride of the Valkyries -The beautiful slow section in "Jupiter" from The Planets -Tchaikovsky's Sugar plum fairy melody -The Toréador from Carmen -Symphonie Fantastique's Dies Irae -The Alto sax solo from Ravel's arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition To name but some :)
Liszt symphonic poem 6 especially near the end of the piece and hes huguenots, don juan and de norma and back to the future theme by Alan sivilstri. Firebird by Stravinsky.
Just a few suggestions: - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Main Theme (Ennio Morricone) - Star Trek: First Contact Main Title (Jerry Goldsmith) - Slave Children's Parade from Indiana Jones II (John Williams) - This Tune from Dvorak's 9th Symphony (Dvorak) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_9RT2nHD6CQ.htmlm52s - Jyn Erso's Theme (Michael Giacchino) - Annie's Theme from Candyman II (Philip Glass) - Main Theme from Krull (James Horner) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CwQZ9UrnyJw.html
18:47 Is that your own composition or just a tune that is well known but I have never heard? The composition is incredible. You didn't mention its title and the composer, so I assume it's yours, first. Haha.
William So I said in the video “Check our this delightful little tune of Schubert.” - it’s from his unfinished symphony. I think I’m going to list all of the melodies and their pieces/composers in the description this evening.
@@JJBerthume Wow thats awesome! I hadn't finished the video yet, didn't expect such a quick reply! Thank you for your great videos, can't wait for part 4!!!
Heard his piano pieces and I don’t think he’s lacking any sense of originality! But it is a bit hard to breakdown the concept of originality into theories.
I wish I had the resources to translate all of my videos into as many languages as possible! Perhaps there's an AI way to do it, maybe you could download the video, there's a free AI somewhere I'm sure that can convert the audio into text, maybe then paste the script into chat GPT, and have it translate to Spanish? Just an idea.
Can you point out specifically what concepts confused you? I’m happy to try to re-explain anything you don’t think you understand and contextualize it in application.
