Critiquing your work and beating the blank page

Two enemies lie in wait for every composer. The first shows up before you write: the blank page, that paralysis in front of endless possibilities. The second shows up after: being unable to judge your own work, either because you think it's brilliant or because you think it's worthless. This final lesson of the course teaches you to beat both, then launches you into your capstone project.

1. Getting some distance

Right after writing a piece, you don't really hear it: you hear your intention. To hear it as a listener does, you need distance.

• Let it rest: sleep on it, or better, wait three days. The flaws will show themselves.
• Listen without playing: have the piano roll or the ABC editor play it back. Freed from the effort of performing, your ear becomes critical.
• Listen "from a distance": from another room, while doing something else. Does the music hold your attention? At what point do you drift off?
• Compare with a model: just before, listen to a piece in the same style (a Bach minuet, a Satie Gymnopédie). The comparison is cruel but instructive.

2. The self-critique checklist

3. Before and after: a concrete revision

Here is a beginner's phrase. It isn't "wrong", but it goes round in circles: uniform rhythm, identical waves of movement, no climax, and it stops on D, as if left hanging by accident.

M:4/4
L:1/4
Q:1/4=96
K:C
%%staves {RH LH}
V:RH clef=treble
V:LH clef=bass
[V:RH] C D E F | G F E D | C D E F | G F E D |]
[V:LH] C,4 | G,,4 | C,4 | G,,4 |]

Let's run it through the checklist. Rhythm: add half notes so it can breathe. Climax: make the line rise to high D in bar 3. Cadence: end on C with ii–V–I. Harmony: chords that change more often to support the rise.

M:4/4
L:1/4
Q:1/4=96
K:C
%%staves {RH LH}
V:RH clef=treble
V:LH clef=bass
[V:RH] "C"E G c G | "F"A2 "C/E"G2 | "Dm"F A "G"d B | "C"c4 |]
[V:LH] C,2 E,2 | F,2 E,2 | D,2 G,,2 | C,4 |]

Same length, same technical means, but now the phrase has a direction, a climax and a conclusion.

4. Beating the blank page

The blank page almost always comes from the same mistake: wanting to start at the beginning, and wanting it to be perfect. Here are five ways in that get round the problem.

Door 1: start from a rhythm. Tap a rhythm on the table, any rhythm, then give it pitches. In the example below, the first two bars are just a rhythm on a single note; the next two turn it into a melody.

M:4/4
L:1/8
Q:1/4=92
K:C
C3 C C2 C2 | C3 C C4 | "C"E3 G c2 B2 | "F"A3 F "C"G4 |]

Door 2: start from a title. "The Old Lighthouse", "The Chase", "A Letter Never Sent": a title immediately suggests a tempo, a register, a colour.

Door 3: improvise over a backing track. Start a ballad in C or a modal track in A and improvise for five minutes, recording everything. There will always be two bars worth keeping.

Door 4: borrow a progression. Chord progressions belong to nobody. Take Pachelbel's Canon progression or a pop progression from chord progressions and write your own melody over it.

Door 5: start at the end, or in the middle. Got an idea for a climax? Write it first, then build the road that leads to it.

Your workshop: the capstone project

1. Choose a way in (rhythm, title, improvisation, borrowed progression) and find a 2- to 4-bar seed in one session. Write it in your sketchbook.
2. Draw up the plan for a 24- to 32-bar piece (ABA, short rondo or verse/chorus) in a table: sections, keys, climax, cadences.
3. Write the complete piece in the piano roll, with an idiomatic accompaniment, an introduction and an ending. Give yourself a deadline of one to two weeks.
4. Let it rest for three days, then run it through the self-critique checklist. Fix the three biggest problems, no more.
5. Make a clean copy in the ABC editor, give it a title and a character marking, and play it to at least one person.
6. Success criterion: the piece is finished, playable and shared. You are now a composer. Start the next one.