Chapter 3: Designing Music with Themes, Leitmotifs, and Scales
In this chapter, we discuss music theory for composers. We will give a foundational background for how to apply music theory for film and game composing. We will discuss how the concepts of motifs, themes, and leitmotifs can be used to come up with musical ideas. We will discuss what scales are and how to use them. We will use scales to explain what modes are and how to use them. Finally, these concepts will allow us to use the Circle of Fifths chord wheel tool to show how scales relate to each other and how to smoothly transition from one music key to another within a song.
We will cover the following topics in this chapter:
- Toolkit of the composer
- Understanding and using themes, motifs, and leitmotifs
- Understanding scales
- Understanding and using modes
- Understanding sharps and flats
- Using the Circle of Fifths chord wheel
