How does Chopin create and express emotion in his music? We delve into the mind of the composer and explore Chopin’s Nocturne in G minor, explaining how Chopin delivers emotional impact through his approach to harmony, melodic...

This music composition lesson demonstrates an idea for alternating inversions and an associated melodic pattern above an ascending scale in the bass line. Ascending scales in the bass can be awkward to harmonise satisfactorily without...

How well do you know your classical composers? Find out with our name the composer quiz! We present ten facts about a random composer, see if you can guess the correct answer by the end of the video.

How to find and choose chords to fit a melody. Have you ever written a melody but didn’t really know how to find chords to fit it? If you have a melody and you’re searching for chords to harmonise with it this music composition lesson...

Discover how Josquin des Prez developed compositional style during the High Renaissance period. Josquin des Prez followed composers like Du Fay and Ockeghem, and prepared the ground for Palestrina and his contemporaries. As a singer,...

We explore the first of Bach’s 15 two part Inventions in the key of C. This composer insights lesson unbolts the imitative counterpoint, explaining the various contrapuntal ingredients and how they are used throughout the piece....

The famous Dido’s Lament from ‘Dido and Aeneas’ by Henry Purcell. Features of Purcell’s style are unpacked and the word painting & emotional life of the music are explored. A Ground Bass is repeated 11 times, while the melodic line and...

Advice for brand new composers that I've learned in my career

Advice for brand new composers that I've learned in my career

Antonio Vivaldi was an Italian composer of the Baroque era and was very well known during his time as a performer and a teacher. One of the types of music that he like to compose was called “concerto”. A concerto is a type of composition...

We examine the first melodic idea that appears in the Overture of Mozart’s ‘Cosi fan tutti’ and analyze the three components of the phrase, showing the characteristics of each, how they contrast and how they fit together to provide...

Is older music better? Is current music worse? Are we as composers and songwriters devolving? I discuss these topics on my first ever music theory vlog.

Learn all about false relation and the two ways in which it commonly occurs. A false relation comes about when there are two notes of the same letter but with differing accidentals that either occur simultaneously or between one chord...

Why do so many horror film scores today sound similar to The Exorcist from 1973? A lot of that is thanks to Krzysztof Penderecki, a Polish composer whose music was used by director William Friedkin to score The Exorcist. Penderecki's...

How to use sequence as a compositional tool to expand a musical idea. This music composition begins with a simple four note idea. It then shows you how to build these four notes into a 16 bar piece using melodic and harmonic sequence....

How to write a piece of music with only five notes. This music composition lesson takes a set of five notes and considers ideas for composing or improvising a piece based on those notes. We then explore how the Australian composer, Peter...

Composer’s block strikes most writers at some point. Sometimes the block is temporary and at other points it can be a more extended barrier. This music composition lesson explores the topic and suggests strategies for dealing with it,...

How to write and compose music with antecedent and consequent phrases, particularly useful when composing melodies. This music composition lesson explains how musical phrases often come in pairs as questioning and answering phrases or as...

Classical melody writing tricks and music composition techniques. We begin with an exploration of how melody notes must either belong to the harmony or be identified as inessential notes. We then move on to consider how conjunct and...

In this episode of composing for the piano we introduce the original Music Matters theme. Over the course of this series, we're going to take the music matters theme and arrange it into different styles, discussing music composition...

In this episode of composing for the piano we talk about writing in a late Romantic style. We take the music matters theme and arrange it into a late Romantic style, discussing music composition techniques and tips when composing for the...

Discover how Alberti Bass works and how useful it is in breathing energy into accompaniments. Often composers write a successful melody but the accompaniment is limited to block chords. Using Alberti Bass is one way of liberating the...

How using traditional elements of music theory is useful to think about when writing a twelve-tone serial piece of music. Examples of using tonal elements and rhythm that isn't too complex are explored in order to demonstrate that...

This music composition lesson unpacks Bach’s Sinfonia in B minor, drawing attention to the three motifs used to compose this piece. The three motifs are unpacked and we explore both the differences and the common ground between them. We...