Category: MTMS Blog Posts

We offer this in the lab, but have you considered that composing music is an art all on its own? This is a skill we try to train, by giving small parameters and allowing the student to choose what that looks like.

There are so many interesting things about musical composition. What is the beginning? We hear so much music every day but so many of us with a radio haven’t considered how much goes into the pieces we enjoy so much.

Restrictions, or limits that help define this piece of music, are tempo, time signature, key signature, and instrument(s) that may be playing.

Before you get to melody or harmony – that first note might be high or low, high or middle or low range, loud or soft, and it may change over time.

This will be the same process for following notes. Endless possibilities make beginnings easier than endings for most people. It might always sound different than what’s in your mind, but know that all of us face this problem. Inspiration may strike but it must be saved at inopportune times, and we still need to learn to finish those bits.

Musical theory allows a musician to connect melody, harmony, and form. Composition needs to be broken into pieces to be learned. At MTMS, we break composition down and theory so every student has this opportunity.

Originally I looked into jingles, so that’s part of my main focus today.

Jingles may have started as early as 1600. Before radio and television, some products had sheet music to be part of the branding.

I’m fascinated what that would have sounded like back then.

Depending on the age, if i ask you to name a favorite jingle, you might talk about State Farm Insurance or Folger’s or Oscar Mayer. However, in recent years it’s been changing to more pop song crossover than the older straight forward jingle.

It didn’t just include current pop songs but also classics – I Heard It Through the Grapevine for selling raisins.

Within the last 20 years, jingles have changed from commercials, which were ever-present on tv and radio, to pop songs that might actually hit the charts themselves. Remember I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke?

Even traditional themes have become more subtle to today’s younger generations. Sound Branding has a long history and will likely keep evolving as our advertising needs do. I’m sure we will all hear it when it arrives.

Music History: The Harlem Renaissance was a period in the 1920s that celebrated Jazz. Now 100 years later our music history station is going to be focusing on that. Listen to some very famous examples and meet some of the most famous musicians of the period!

Composition: Matching our Music History station, composition is going to be covering the Harlem Renaissance! Listen to some of the famous music from the time and even try making some of your own!

November Young Students Blurb: This month, we have brand new autumn-themed coloring pages for our young students! We also have a note naming game that has really good practice for students working on the notes on the staff! 

MTMS is extremely proud of all of our music students. Both teachers and students work hard to make their music come alive. Our Halloween Playlist shows what they’ve worked so hard for, and what they continue to achieve. Come watch it with us!

Feel free to share with family and friends. These musical talents are meant to be shared.

I always call this kind of background music “muzak” but I didn’t know until today that Muzak is a brand name of background music. It’s been a brand since 1954 with several different channels that mostly use original artists to create the music.

Do you mind music in a shop or a restaurant while you’re in there? It might depend on volume or the type. I don’t mind it much when I’m out in public shops.

There is pushback for music in public places – some societies are reaching for the quiet instead. I wonder what that looks like. Pipedown in the UK is one such organization and they seem to be marketing it as noise pollution.

The other place we hear a lot of piped music is music on hold – every time we’re on hold for a telephone it feels like we have some sort of music with “Thank you for calling. Your call is important to us. You are number (pause) 6 (pause) in the wait.”

Companies are out there to market this to everyone who needs to keep people on hold. I find that’s more annoying than elevator music, but there is that idea that it keeps the customer engaged while they need to wait. Better than total silence? I think that’s a matter of opinion.

What are your feelings on elevator music? Does it make you want to leave public spaces? Does the music on hold make you want to hang up the phone? Or are you engaged more because there’s something there? I would love to know.