Random sketch of the day.

I can only assume that, after a rousing rendition of “C is for Cookie, That’s Good Enough for Me”, he promptly devoured his lute, with pieces flying everywhere.

The creators of the site asked that I create a simple, catchy tune, so I did. Beware, though… if you listen to it too much, it will get stuck in your head for days.

1. _ _ XI _ _ – Country south of the United States
2. _ XI _ – Leave
3. _ XI _ – Planet’s center of rotation
4. _ _ _ _ XI – Mississippi city
5. _ _ XI _ _ _ – Nervous, experiencing worry
6. _ _ _ _ XI _ _ – Hydrogen ____, hair bleaching liquid
7. _ _ XI – Cab
8. _ _ XI _ – Poisonous
9. _ _ XI _ _ _ – Upper limit
10. _ _ _ _ _ XI _ _ _ – Die from lack of oxygen

Answers:

1. MEXICO
2. EXIT
3. AXIS
4. BILOXI
5. ANXIOUS
6. PEROXIDE
7. TAXI
8. TOXIC
9. MAXIMUM
10. ASPHYXIATE

Yep, I finally got around to coloring it. Thanks to everyone who encouraged me that it should be a Jellyfish in Armour toon!

Last year, I attended a concert in which an orchestra was about to perform Beethoven’s Symphony #5. Now, I’d already been composing music commercially for a few years, and I was feeling pretty confident about my own skills as a composer, thinking that I was a pretty awesome composer, if I said so myself.

However, any pride in my own abilities was pretty much crushed as soon as the orchestra started, though. The entire symphony was absolutely beautiful, and I sat in my seat amazed by the skill in what I’d heard. “Beethoven was able to come up with something this beautiful? 200 years ago? Without computers? WHILE DEAF?!?”

Clearly, I still have a lot to learn.

You do too. Beethoven¹, Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Bach… we will likely never get the point where we’re considered a master like they were. In some ways, that’s kinda depressing.

But on the other hand, we also have advantages that they could never have dreamed about. We have access to instruments that weren’t even invented when they were alive. Every major song created in the last 200 years can be instantly available to us to learn from. Musicians are paid more than they ever have been in history.² And, most importantly, we have tools at our disposal capable of almost perfectly recreating the sound of an entire orchestra… by ourselves!

There has never been a better time to be a composer. I hope that the articles I’ve written so far have helped to inspire you, and I imagine I’ll be writing more in the future. If there’s a song you want to share, put it online³ and post about it in the comments! I’d love to hear what you’ve made.

Previous: Chapter 13: How to Get Noticed

Footnotes:

Now, honestly, I don’t know how to answer this question for you, specifically. The answer for every artist is different. But I do have some advice, and while it might be a bit boring to read, if you understand it, it should help you. (By the way, unlike my other chapters in this series, this advice can easily apply to all artists.)

There are two keys to long-term success in an art form: what you know and who knows you.

What you know is all of your skills, your talents, your work ethic, your creativity, and your commitment. You should already be trying to get better in these areas. If you’re not, and you just assume that becoming a successful artist requires no work whatsoever, stop reading now. You will never be a successful artist (and if you don’t at least improve your work ethic, it’s unlikely you’ll be successful at anything… sorry to be blunt, but it’s true).

Who knows you is the part that I’ll be mostly talking about here. These are your contacts, the people out there who remember how awesome you are as an artist. This group includes your friends, your classmates and your coworkers, but due to the Internet, it could potentially include any of the seven billion people on this planet. It is due to the people who know you that you will find fame.

You need both of these. Simply being talented is not enough. Emily Dickinson was a poet from the 19th century who wrote her poems in privacy, hardly ever sharing them with anyone. It was only after she died that her poems were revealed to the world by her relatives as the masterpieces they were… she was a woman of much talent, but had an extreme case of making sure no one knew about her.

Being known by millions of people isn’t enough, either. William Hung was a man who auditioned for the reality TV show American Idol in late 2003. When his audition aired on TV, he became known around the world by millions of people… for how bad he was at singing. He got signed to record deals, he appeared in TV commercials… he achieved a higher level of fame than most artists ever will, and is now living in obscurity. He was well-known, but had an extreme lack of talent.

I’m fairly certain that you do not want either of these things to happen to you. Chances are, you know you have talent, and want to work to have even more, but you’re just having trouble finding the audience.

How do you make sure people know about you? Well, there’s no one solution that will grant you this. You’re going to need to be creative. Here’s some ideas (in a very random order):

• Is there a band you like? Make a remix of one of their songs, and upload it to YouTube (giving the band credit for the original song, of course). If you do that, and you do a good job, people who are already looking for their song may find you.
• Make music that other people want to listen to. If the music you make isn’t liked by anyone else, you’re not going to get more famous.
• Become the best at one particular thing. There’s a man named Sam Tsui who sings many parts of the same song on a stage and is hugely talented at it. For example, check out his Michael Jackson tribute. That style is his thing… find your thing, and perfect it. People are constantly on the lookout for the artists that are better than the rest at something.
• Join a musical group. A garage band, a local symphony orchestra, your church or school choir… if you’re around other musicians, you all become each other’s audience. Surrounding yourself with like-minded artists is usually a very good thing.
• YouLicense, and other sites like it, post up job opportunities. In the case of YouLicense, you can submit to one one project per month for absolutely free. If you aren’t doing this, why not?
• Find local contacts. People who know you and actually live near you are, in my experience, far more valuable contacts to have.
• Does the composing program you use have a forum? If so, is there a place on that forum to showcase your work? Put your songs online, and post them! I guarantee that you’ll get honest and constructive feedback, and perhaps even some contacts from it as well.

Will all of these things work for you? Probably not. But you have to try. In the words of hockey great Wayne Gretzky, “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”. The more people who know you, the better your chance will be to score. ¹

Next: Chapter 14 – Humbled By Beethoven
Previous: Chapter 12 – Echo, Echo

Footnotes:

In real life, reverb and delay are the same thing – sound waves bouncing at various distances before reaching your ears – but when composing music, they’re simulated differently. Here are some audio examples of reverb and delay:

Reverb:

Delay:

Reverb and delay generally have different purposes for a musician. When using reverb, it’s all about presence. It establishes space and location in a way that no other audio effect can match. Are you in a cave? Are you underwater? Are you in the second floor of a house where thumping bass music is being played on the first floor? Reverb captures that.

Delay can also establish space when used properly on a whole song, but when used on individual instruments, it becomes a space-filling effect. The electric guitar is probably the most common instrument to use delay… it can be found in everything from U2 to Hillsong United.

That’s reverb and delay… but this post about echoes wouldn’t quite be complete if I didn’t mention a frequently forgotten and otherworldly audio effect; the reverse echo. Here’s a harp melody with reverse echo:

Reverse Echo:

Hear how the sound fades in before the harp strings are plucked? That’s the reverse echo. Creepy? A little bit.² Here’s how it’s done:

• Take the audio file and reverse it in your audio editing program. Go ahead and listen to it, because audio always sounds weird when reversed.
• Add reverb to your reversed audio file, and bounce³ it to a new piece of audio.
• Reverse that new piece of audio. There will now be a reversed echo effect on your original audio clip.

This is a great technique for giving an alien feel to any kind of audio, including people’s voices. Try it!

Next: Chapter 13 – How to Get Noticed
Previous: Chapter 11 – Lessons from a Shark

Footnotes:

Wanna see him in a game? Well, you’ll still have to keep waiting. Mech Mice is consuming most of my work hours right now. But I’m warning you, world, some day he’ll be in a game, and it will be awesome.

The soundtrack for Jaws is filled with sweeping orchestral arrangements, original themes for the main characters ¹, and a high level of musical craftsmanship. However, when you think of the music in Jaws, what is the only thing you remember about it?

Ba-dum.

You don’t have to know a thing about playing a musical instrument to play the theme to Jaws. Just find a piano, pick a note on the far left-hand side, find the note directly above it, and play those notes alternately, increasing in speed and volume. And yet, it’s one of the most famous movie themes in history. Ridiculous, isn’t it?

But what can we learn from this?

Lesson 1: Simplicity

Do you want to make a memorable song? Then make it a simple song.

Simplicity is harder than it looks. As creators, all artists seem to have a belief at some point in their careers that the more complex something is, the more memorable it will be. Usually, this is not true. For example, the Death Star and the Starship Enterprise can be drawn to a recognizable level in about 15 seconds. Simplicity is powerful.

In music, it’s the simple songs you remember. The Beatles had simple themes, and guess what, they’re played on the radio a lot more often than Beethoven. On that note, what’s the most memorable thing Beethoven ever wrote? Ba ba ba bum. Four notes. Noticing a pattern, here?

Lesson 2: Dynamics and speed

The same two notes played over and over in sequence should be boring. In Jaws, it’s not. Why? Dynamics ² and tempo. By playing the notes gradually louder and gradually faster, the message is communicated: “Uh oh, that shark is getting closer. We are in more danger than we were before.” A song that never changes its dynamics sounds robotic or mechanical. In some musical genres, that’s what you may want (dance club music, for instance). Changes in tempo are less frequent, especially if you’re going for memorable songs that you can sing along with, but they have their place, and should be kept in mind. ³

Lesson 3: Intervals

An interval is the distance between two notes. Some intervals are pleasant, such as the perfect fifth (C and G, for instance). Other intervals are unpleasant, like the minor second, which is what Jaws is, or the tritone (C and F#). If you want to ruin a light, heroic, or joyful melody, a bad interval will probably do it.

Knowing what intervals to use where is one of the best places for scales to come in handy. If you’ve learned your scales⁴, you can more easily identify when you’ve put a “wrong” note in a composition.

Next: Chapter 12 – Echo, Echo
Previous: Chapter 10 – Occupational Hazards