Composing in Binary Form

Hello and welcome back I'm Joseph Hoffman,
and today we're going to be learning how to compose your own original piece in binary form.
A piece is in binary form when you have an A
section that repeats, then a contrasting
or different B section that also repeats.
"Debka Hora" is a good example of a piece in binary form.
It has an A section that repeats,
then it has a contrasting B section that also repeats.
So we could say the form of "Debka Hora" is A A B B.
Which is binary form.
Or that could also be written like this, with repeat signs.
Today I'll walk you through how to
compose your own binary form piece.
So, let's come to the piano to get started.
Here's a composition worksheet which you can download from our website
as part of the materials for this unit.
And I'll go through these steps which are listed out on this worksheet
as if I'm making the composition,
but then after the lesson is done, you'll just go through and do those same steps
on your own to make your composition.
So, for step one it says: choose a feeling or mood that you want your song to express.
For example, playful, mysterious, exciting, or sad.
Well, today
I think I'll choose sad
and
beautiful.
Because I don't want just something that
is any kind
of sad I want something sad and lovely or beautiful.
So, that's the mood that I
choose. Again, when you do your song you can choose
any mood or feeling that you want.
Then step two is choose which pentascale to play your song in.
Well, since I want to do something sad,
I think I'll choose a minor key,
and recently we've learned A minor, so that will be
what I choose for my pentascale.
Again, you can choose any pentascale you want for your song.
Okay, step three,
decide which hand will play the melody,
then draw a treble or bass clef on the
staves below.
Well, let's see.
I think I'll give my left hand a chance to play the
melody today,
which means I'm going to draw a couple of bass clefs.
So, the clef goes at the start of the staff,
and I'm going to draw a bass clef there and
for my B section as well.
Good.
Now we're ready for step four.
Compose an A section for your song on the first staff.
Okay, now
we get to the real
heart of the
matter: How are we going to compose an A section?
Well, there's so many ways to compose a song.
Some composers like to start with the rhythm and figure out the rhythm first.
Some like to figure out the melody first.
Some like to just mess around on the piano and improvise
until you find something that you like and
then write that down.
I think I'll go with the last one today.
Let's come to the piano
and we'll try and come up with a melody that we like and then we'll write it down.
Okay, so I'm just going to place my left hand here in this A minor pentascale.
Here's my middle C, but I'm down here in the bass clef area since the left hand is going to play my melody.
And now when you compose,
I'd like to really think about the mood or the feeling we're trying to create.
Which in
the case of my composition, I chose sad and beautiful.
So I'm just going to kind
of mess around and experiment until I find something that
feels like it captures that feeling.
Oh, I like that.
I'm going to keep that
No, let's try..
Yeah, I like that. So, I'm going to keep that.
That seems to capture what I want to say in this piece, and then I want something else.
Yeah, I like that.
And then that will repeat: SO SO FA ME DO
RE RE ME RE DO
So it starts on an E, repeat, step down, then skip down.
Now that I'm happy with that,
let's come to the staff and I'll write it down.
I'm going to write down the note heads of the melody that I just composed.
Good, there are the note heads, but I need stems and beams to show the rhythm.
And
so, let's figure out that rhythm. I did:
That is: TI TI-KI
So, and because I'm on or above the middle line,
that means my stems are going to go down.
So I add a stem to the left side of the note head
to each of those notes,
and then I draw one beam.
That makes this one a TI,
actually it makes them all TI's, but these need to be TI-KI, so I need to add a second beam.
There, so now I have: TI TI-KI
And then:
Those were both TA's,
and because they're below this middle line
of the staff, the stem should go up.
So I'm going to add a stem
to the right side of the note head. When stems go up it goes on the right side.
And so now I have:
And now:
You probably noticed that's the same rhythm.
So I need another TI TI-KI
I'll do a beam to connect all of
those and then an extra bea ...