# How do composers like Debussy write their music?



## peterh (Mar 10, 2012)

I mean he flagrantly disregard many harmonic conventions. When he was writing the music down it's not like he could "follow the rules" to know that it'll sound good without him hearing it. It seems like the music is to complex for him to just hear it in his head, although maybe not.

Did he just like play some nice sounding weird chords and improv a melody over it and then maybe refine that melody and write it down or what?


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Uhhh, are you sure you aren't Gondur? 

You can see from his Preludes etc. that he was a pretty good pianist, and how much composing he did in his head vs at the piano is fairly irrelevant as he clearly had an idea what he was going for. Music is not about following rules as much as following your inner ear and artistic vision. languages change or we'd all be speaking Dr. Johnson's English.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

He did it very well.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

GGluek said:


> Uhhh, are you sure you aren't Gondur?


I'm know he isn't.



GGluek said:


> You can see from his Preludes etc. that he was a pretty good pianist, and how much composing he did in his head vs at the piano is fairly irrelevant as he clearly had an idea what he was going for. Music is not about following rules as much as following your inner ear and artistic vision. languages change or we'd all be speaking Dr. Johnson's English.


It's interesting how conventional some of Debussy's earliest pieces actually are. Although he found his distinctive voice relatively quickly, his first works sound more or less like the salon music of the time.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

*How do composers like Debussy write their music?
*
With a pen, dear fellow.

Today, however, many composers prefer software programs such as Finale or Sibelius.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

> How do composers like Debussy write their music?


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Well, Wagner, Chopin and *Liszt* (and the Russians and some other composers now forgotten) had already done a great deal of exploration in the realms of color, tonal ambiguity and exotic modes/scales. Improvisation as a experimental procedure was probably an important part of it. Trying out things at the piano, with or without consideration of 'the rules' is a common 'youth' exercise. He may not have 'harvested' all his melodies and chords from it though, and once he found his voice he probably just heard it in his head. However, composing is still a bit mysterious even to the professionals and surprises (say writing down a 'non-existing' chord) aren't that rare when one is concentrated on it. ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

peterh said:


> I mean he flagrantly disregard many harmonic conventions. When he was writing the music down it's not like he could "follow the rules" to know that it'll sound good without him hearing it. It seems like the music is to complex for him to just hear it in his head, although maybe not.
> 
> Did he just like play some nice sounding weird chords and improv a melody over it and then maybe refine that melody and write it down or what?


_You are laboring under a monumentally fatal misconception that any or all composers 'use' theory and follow its 'rules' when they compose._

There just _are no rules_, and that is a fact about music theory. There are only premises which have been found to help make this or that composer's music "work," and from those pieces which worked, theory was extracted -- well after the fact of the music being written.

*NO RULES: ONLY TOOLS.* Studying theory should help you understand most generally "how music works." and from then, _You take the tools to make what you want, using the premises you have learned via the study of theory, and not thinking about theory itself, or "rules."_

The most true tool, and the best "rule" if you are composing _*is to use your ears.*_

*Composers are composers! They don't need no stinkin' rules.* :lol:


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

OP: very carefully, I would hope!


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## peterh (Mar 10, 2012)

PetrB said:


> _You are laboring under a monumentally fatal misconception that any or all composers 'use' theory and follow its 'rules' when they compose._
> 
> There just _are no rules_, and that is a fact about music theory. There are only premises which have been found to help make this or that composer's music "work," and from those pieces which worked, theory was extracted -- well after the fact of the music being written.
> 
> ...


Ok well that was what I was asking. I thought theory was often used for composers to know what the effect would be without having to hear it out loud or in their head, but for something that breaks these conventions they would have to hear it in their head or out loud.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

peterh said:


> Ok well that was what I was asking. I thought theory was often used for composers to know what the effect would be without having to hear it out loud or in their head, but for something that breaks these conventions they would have to hear it in their head or out loud.


I guess that's partly true. But composers can still hear stuff in their inner ear that hasn't been "theorized" yet. That's what ear training is for.


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## mikey (Nov 26, 2013)

I think Schumann's rules for young musicians are relevant here.

-Perhaps genius only understands genius.
-A perfect musician must be able, on first hearing of a complicated orchestral work, to see it as in bodily score before him. That is the highest that can be conceived of.
-There is no end to learning.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

mikey said:


> I think Schumann's rules for young musicians are relevant here.
> 
> -Perhaps genius only understands genius.
> -A perfect musician must be able, on first hearing of a complicated orchestral work, to see it as in bodily score before him. That is the highest that can be conceived of.
> -There is no end to learning.


That last one becomes more and more true the longer you study music (or anything really).


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Ear training is the one thing music students do, and in conservatories that study is fairly rigorous. Without its being the highest standard, for example, taking a four-part dictation of something written in chorale style, writing down all parts, SATB, the rhythm; sight-singing an atonaly line and also writing one of those down as taken in a dictation -- are all standard elements of undergraduate required ear training (solfege) courses. I think that most closely answers your 'how' question.

Debussy was a virtuoso pianist, and he did, at least in his conservatory days, like to outrage the professors by playing sequences of parallel ninth chords and such  He also won the gold medal for piano performance, which means his playing level was already that of someone who could go on to be a concert performer.

He also had the complete array of usual studies in harmony, *ear training*, counterpoint... I have not read of his relying upon a piano to compose, and it seems he could also compose at a desk.

Thinking in terms of just 'melody / chords' sounds very much as if learned from or as is practiced in pop music. By the time most have completed the rigor of conservatory level theory and ear-training (solfege), _many who do compose are usually able to think of / hear the music in their imagination more all at once._

Debussy did "disregard many harmonic conventions."

Other composers who disregarded the conventions: Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, Chopin, Wagner, Mahler, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Ives, Cage, Carter. They all knew the theory of their day, and in each case it was enough that they also learned principals of music theory, _and in addition, composition,_ to forge their own way.

ADD: P.s. A colleague told me of his master's level final exam in modal counterpoint at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag:
The students assembled in a room, sat at a desk, had manuscript paper, pencils and erasers, and were given a handful of hours to compose a six-part motet. "No humming allowed" is always a rule of these exams


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> Well, Wagner, Chopin and *Liszt* (and the Russians and *some other composers now forgotten*) had already done a great deal of exploration in the realms of color,


Like who? I'm always curious about this argument. Of the russians I can think of Rebikov, I don't know if there was someone else doing something like that in the nineteen century. Smetana, but maybe he's not who you were thinking of with that "other composers now forgotten".


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