Composition Assignments

These are exercises I’ve used for years and give to students studying composition with me one-on-one. Many of the tunes I’ve recorded and released started in these exercises.

Nothing is more frustrating than wanting to write a tune and staring at a blank page because you think inspiration has to strike before you can put down a chord or a note. Exercises like these get the gears turning. Usually, somewhere in the middle of one, your instincts take over and you start following the tune that’s forming in your head. That’s always the goal, so give yourself permission to abandon the rules of the exercise if you reach that moment.

And if no tune shows up and instinct never takes over, finish the exercise as written anyway. You’ll have something complete to come back to later and retool.

Spelling Tempo BPM

Melody

Contrafact

Tone row melody

Melody of only 2 notes per bar

Pentatonic scale melody

Invent your own pentatonic scale and compose a tune with it

Each four-bar phrase explores an increasingly colorful chord tone

Cell melody

Completely diatonic melody over chromatic chords

Harmonic major melody

Alphabet melody: map the letters to pitches and write a melody from a word, name, or phrase

Number melody: map digits to pitches and write a melody from a phone number, birthday, or address

Harmony

Reharm ladder (work through in order): Happy Birthday (target 9ths, 11ths, 13ths) → folk tune → blues → standard

Tone row as harmonic source: roots, or bass notes

Compose a tune using only 1 or 2 chord qualities

Compose a tune in standard 32-bar form using: modulations to ii, iii, IV, vi; backdoor ii–V

Rhythm / Form

Compose a 10-bar blues

Compose a tune with head changes and blowing changes (write the blowing changes first, then a head that obscures them)

Compose a tune whose harmonic rhythm contracts or expands

Compose a tune in odd-length phrases (5- or 7-bar)

Compose a tune built from one rhythmic motif displaced across the bar

Write the melody as pure rhythm first, add pitches last

Compose a tune in 3 or 5 that hides its meter

Harmony & Melody

Reharm a tune and write a new melody over it

Arranging

Three-horn tune with harmonies and hits

Groove

Find a tune with a compelling groove and build your own tune out of it

Metronome