Composing with Constraints: 100 Practical Exercises in Music Composition

Composing with Constraints: 100 Practical Exercises in Music Composition is a book that provides an innovative approach to teaching the craft of music composition. It offers a variety of practical exercises to help students develop their creativity and create tangible work plans with high expectations and successful outcomes. The book uses lateral thinking to foster creative connections with other disciplines and contains a unique set of guidelines and constraints that place students in a specific compositional framework. Students will be able to create their own outlines for compositions, making intelligent and educated compositional choices that balance reasoning with intuition.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 160 pages
Publication date: 30 November 2021
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc

Composing with Constraints: 100 Practical Exercises in Music Composition is a groundbreaking approach to teaching the art of music composition. By breaking down the composition process into logical steps, it becomes more efficient to teach and learn. Jorge Variego, the author, provides a wealth of practical exercises to help student composers and instructors create tangible work plans with high expectations and successful outcomes.

Each chapter begins with a brief note on terminology and general recommendations for the instructor. The first five chapters offer a diverse range of exercises, covering topics such as analysis, style imitation, and the use of probabilities. The chapter on pre-compositional approaches introduces original techniques for starting a new work, based on lateral thinking.

The final section of the book encourages creative connections with other disciplines, such as math, visual arts, and architectural acoustics. The one hundred exercises in this book present a unique set of guidelines and constraints that place students in a specific compositional framework. These boundaries encourage students to produce creative work within a given structure, fostering a balance between reasoning and intuition.

By utilizing the methodologies outlined in this book, students will gain the ability to create their own outlines for compositions, making informed and thoughtful compositional choices that blend logic with creativity. Composing with Constraints: 100 Practical Exercises in Music Composition is a valuable resource for anyone seeking to enhance their compositional skills and explore new avenues of artistic expression.

Weight: 416g
Dimension: 215 x 280 x 13 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780190057244