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Philosophies of Music Composition with Richard Russell

Composer Richard Russell is a philosopher at heart. In his mission to become a better composer, he went back to school to study the big questions surrounding aesthetics, music, and beauty. He has dug into both existential and practical composing topics in his podcast Creativity and Composition (one of my favorites). I'm pleased to bring you this Composer Quest podcast interview with Richard, in which we discuss everything from feminist musicology to Plato to getting performance royalties from ASCAP.

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Season One Finale: Dmitri Tymoczko on Music Composition

Composer and Princeton professor Dmitri Tymoczko shares some excellent composing advice in this season finale episode of Composer Quest. Dmitri says that working on music theory as a composer is like lifting weights as a football player - it helps improve your intuitive composing. We also ponder the morality of exposing babies to only atonal music for experimental reasons.

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Social Media for Songwriters with John Anealio

In episode 20 of Composer Quest, Sci-fi songwriter and composer John Anealio shares tips on getting your music out to the online world without seeming like a narcissistic party-crasher. For example, following the 80/20 rule for Twitter and Facebook posts will keep your self-promotion in check. John also gives some helpful pointers on writing melodies, and he explains how even a simple song can employ one of Mozart's secret weapons - the Rondo form! John has also set forth a challenge to those who would accept: finish 23 pieces of art in 2013. He believes that if you don't finish and present your songs to the world, "you're just the guy talking about your art, you're not the guy doing it."

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Crowdfunding a Creative Bender with Tim Cheesebrow

As a dad of two young kids, songwriter Tim Cheesebrow has limited hours in the day for music. But he recently wrote an album's worth of material in a self-imposed solitary confinement at a cabin in northern Minnesota. He's now in the midst of a crowdfunding campaign to produce this new album, Home in the Heartland. We talk about his three main sources of inspiration: his family, the concept of home, and a Carl Sagan-inspired philosophy of universal connectedness. Oh, and we also talk about extraterrestrial music.

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Composing Your Way Out of Plato’s Cave with Ted Moore

In episode 18 of Composer Quest, electroacoustic composer Ted Moore enlightens us about coding music to interact with human performers. He also shares his ideas on choosing a musical form for your piece, like sonata form (ABA) or binary form (AB). We also talk some philosophy when I bring up Ted's piece "Eyes May Be Impaired," which he based on Plato's allegory of the cave.

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A Composition Seed with Dr. Brian Campbell

I felt like I was right back in a composition lesson with Dr. Brian Campbell, my former CSB/SJU music professor, when I interviewed him for this episode of Composer Quest. As always, he imparted plenty of wisdom, this time about writing music from a single "seed" and developing that idea. We also talk about form, writing melodies, "robot composers," and using the Japanese aesthetic of "ma" - silence.

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Composing for iPhone Games with Whitaker Trebella

In this episode of Composer Quest, I chat with video game musician and coder, Whitaker Trebella. He shares his words of wisdom on writing for games, producing chiptune music, and getting composing gigs through Twitter. He also composes an on-the-spot "quickprov" using Logic Pro. Finally, we ponder what would happen if Beethoven was given a laptop. Would he be making dubstep tracks?

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