Classical Music For Dummies. Scott Speck

this isn’t to say that great composers must be intense. Joseph Haydn, for example, exuded cheerful playfulness in almost everything he wrote. Like all effective composers, he had something significant to say, too.

      They keep your attention with variety and pacing

      Effective composers know how to keep you listening. Their music is interesting throughout.

      One technique that achieves this effect is variety. When composers fill their music with a variety of musical ideas, or dynamics (loudness and softness), or melodies, or harmonies, they’re much more likely to keep your interest.

      In this way, a great piece of music is like a great movie. An explosion near the beginning gets your attention, right? But have you ever seen a movie with an explosion every minute for two hours? Have you noticed how each explosion becomes successively less interesting, until finally you don’t even notice them anymore? You need variety — something contrasting and different between explosions.

      In a movie, one explosion can be thrilling if it’s approached correctly, with a suspenseful buildup. Effective composers know how to use dramatic pacing, too. Their music seems to build up suspense as it approaches the climax. Maurice Ravel’s Boléro (made famous a generation ago by the movie 10) is a stunning example. The entire piece of music is one long crescendo (getting louder and louder) — the suspense builds and builds for 15 minutes, and the climax is shattering. We recommend it.

      Their music is easy to remember

      In the pop music world, the word hook refers to the catchy, repeated element in a piece of music. Beatles songs are so catchy because nearly every one of them has a hook. Think “Help!” or “A Hard Day’s Night” or “She Loves You” (“Yeah, Yeah, Yeah!”). Catchiness is not a scientifically measurable quality; still, you know a hook when you hear it.

In classical music, the same concept applies. A hook helps you remember, and identify with, a particular piece of music. The compositions of Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Frederic Chopin, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Georges Bizet, Antonin Dvořák, George Gershwin, Edvard Grieg, and Franz Schubert have hooks galore — so many hooks, in fact, that several of them have been pilfered for the melodies of today’s rock songs. For example, Maroon 5’s hit song “Memories” is thinly disguised version of Pachelbel’s Canon (that is, Johann Pachelbel’s “Canon and Gigue for 3 violins and basso continuo”); Maroon 5 didn’t write the original tune. Elvis Presley’s hit “It’s Now or Never” is repurposed from the old Neapolitan song “O Sole Mio” by Eduardo di Capua. And “Midnight Blue” is sung to the tune of Beethoven’s Pathétique sonata. The music of the most effective composers is full of elements that stick in your mind.

      They move you with their creations

      The most important habit of highly effective composers is their ability to change your life. Ever walk out of a movie or play and suddenly experience the world outside the theater differently? You know, when the real world just after the movie seems to have a feeling of danger, or sadness, or happiness, or just plain wonder, that it didn’t have before?

      A great musical masterpiece may give you a greater appreciation for the potential of humankind, or enhance your spirituality, or just put you in a great mood. Nothing is more triumphant than the end of Mahler’s Second Symphony; after you hear it, you emerge reborn, refreshed, and somehow more prepared to face the world.