Composition in Progress (CoP): Harmony, Chords, Motives, and Phrases

Composition in Progress (CoP): Harmony, Chords, Motives, and Phrases.

Barbican Center, London.

Drafted: Friday, March 7th, 2025, Revised and Published: Saturday, March 8th, 2025.

Whenever I think about the four in the title, I can't see any "real needs" to dive deep into. Why? It something you can't teach it to people. It araise with their sense of beauty, and touching the consistency. All what composition moving around, back and forth, is the desire & seeking of satisfaction. In which divergence is always there.

So, what really a guy needs to learn? Without doubts, or hesitation, I definitely, say: The Musical Notation (Reading & Writing). Why? Imagine the following case: You are in a mood, where you want and need to express your will, in terms of pure voice (It vagous and wide range grant an infinite ways for). At that point, you have only two choices: Play & Forget after, or Write it Down & Save it For Later. The second, I think, the human evolution, leads to.

Anyway, after this introduction, I will draw out some points, as "Good To Know":

Harmony, is what we call in Arabic (التطريب), a way to let the audience feels good, consist with the Melody, and catching their souls.
In the western music, to make the Harmony, they used (& I think still?) to use the Chords (Instead of Playing one pitch per time, you could play more at once). E.g. what they call Triads, three pitches, played at once, constructed based on a specific note. The famous one is the tonic triad, the one based on the tonic note.
The most important chords are the Tonic Triads (I) & Dominant Triad (V)(based on the dominant tone). They usually, appears & used with interchange, creating forms like IV, IIV, VI,..etc.
There are some techniques used in applying the chords (Like doubling). It good to know, but not necessary. It tools, developed, over years, and you have the choice.
Motives, the initial of the piece. It a naïve concept, to demonstrate it, imagine the following: You want something from someone. You have to talk to him/her. The initialization of the talks determines what could be after (The consequences). And you can ask again (Repetition), with different ways (Variations). That's the Motive. A group of notes determines the next parts, and usually repeated with (variant) modification. (Hey, I want X - Hey, sweetheart, can I have X please? - YAW! GIVE ME X!) The same idea (Melody), represented differently.
Phrases, a broader concept, more than motives. It a complete melodic idea, where you must present different melody to create that dialogue, and existence crises. A phrase is like a person who said something meaningful in complete, and he's waiting the other parties to respond or what he said is the end of the conversation. The best & clear example for it, is in Beethoven Für Elise, here a clean & easy score.

There are other points, it will help to compose well, for example the Tonality, and the use of the dominant. Each note in the scale, play a role, and the human knowledge developed to the point of putting Best Practice (As they see?). It good to know it, to expand the skills.

One last point:

The More You Become Able to Express, The More You Advanced in Composition.

That's it for today. Next, I'm going to talk about the musical forms.