TME Tuesday: Purposeful Composing

I have to write several songs today. I have a self-imposed and totally arbitrary deadline of tomorrow for sing about october, and I have a couple of ideas that need songs to go with them. It is time to get to the keyboard and start to write songs.

I have the rough ideas started already. I used my project book for brainstorming and came up with several new ideas for the month. Now it is time to put the finishing touches on the edition and release it out into the world.

This is the part of being a music therapist that I love the best right now - writing songs and finding things to do with those songs that support typical goals and objectives of clients from all sorts of populations! There is something really satisfying about writing music for clinical application that just fills my cup.

I will grab my songwriting kit (more about that kit here) because my composition process always starts by writing songs using a pencil and paper of some sort. I will sit down with the keyboard and just play a bit with words and melodies and rhythms. As the song becomes more solid, I will write it down to take it to the computer for transcription into the notation app. The notation app helps me solidify my rhythmic transcription since that is my weakest link when it comes to dictation. Thank goodness for "play" functions which allow me to hear if I got the transcription correct or horribly, abysmally wrong!

After I finish my composition tasks, I want to make some visual aids for a subscription box idea that I have. Before I get to that, though, I have to finish the sing about october edition so I know what to include in the box! So far, I need a Frankenstein paper doll and some fall leaves. It is time to figure out how to include visuals in the song ideas that I have developed in the past two weeks.

The next part of my purposeful composing day will include using my notation application to make official sheet music for my use later. I want to update my thematic calendar to include less countries and more social emotional concepts since I no longer have to do a country of the month session block. It is time to organize things a bit more. I want to move my monthly boxes downstairs pretty soon, but I also need to open up space in the downstairs to accommodate those boxes.

Lots of things to do today, so I am going to get going. What is on your to-do list for today? Are you writing your own music? If so, what are your essential tools for composition?

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