A Sampling of Ideas and Techniques for Composing

SCALES:

1. Modes of limited transposition (Messiaen’s term), 
2. Non-Messiaenic modes of limited transposition (e.g., modes that repeat every 2 or 3 8ves)
3. Non-Western scales (e.g., pelog, slendra (Indonesia),  Hejaz scale (middle east, and flamenco; AKA Phrygian dominant scale, Jewish scale), Indian scales, etc.)
4. Octatonic scale (A.K.A. “diminished scale”)
5. Pentatonic scales (i.e., anhemitonic (e.g., CDEGA), hemitonic (e.g., EFGBC), hirajoshi (e.g., ABCEF), etc.
6. Whole-Tone scale
7. Any other made-up, or synthetic, scale

RHYTHM and METER

1. Added-Value Rhythms
2. Additive Rhythms
3. Cross Rhythm
4. Eastern European (asymmetrical; 2+2+3, 2+2+2+3, 3+2+2+3, etc.), West African, and other world rhythms
5. Free (“timeless”, no sense of pulse)
6. Isorhythms
7. Jazz (?)
8. Mixed meters ( 3/4 | 5/8 | 2/4 | 7/16 |, etc.)
9. Motor rhythms (continuous motion)
10. Non-retrogradable
11. Nonretrogradable Rhythm
12. Polymeters
13. Polyrhythms
14. Polytempo
15. Rhythms or phrase lengths based on Fibonacci (or other) Numerical Series.
16. Tempo fluctuations (i.e., sudden/gradual tempo changes, metric modulation)

MUSICAL CHARACTER, IDIOMS/GENRES

1. Various programmatic moods, such as aggressive, pretty, wistful, playful, demented, nervous, sad (various kinds), numb (catatonic), angry, fearful, etc.
2. New jazz, third stream
3. Fusions; combining popular music genres (rock/electropop/trance/hippety-hop, etc.) with various post-tonal art-music devices
4. Minimalism (repetitive (trance-inducing); sparse and static (trance-inducing))
5. New simplicity
6. Borrowing/adopting elements of music from other cultures: Japan, Eastern Europe, India, etc.
7. Expressive (romantic) versus Non-expressive (mechanistic)

TECHNIQUES

1. Any systematic (or non-systematic) approach to harmony not rooted in tonality
2. Clusters
3. Extended and non-tonal tertian harmony (e.g., Scriabin’s “mystic” chord)
4. Extended instrumental and vocal techniques (multiphonics, prepared piano, etc.)
5. Graphic notation
6. Hindemith’s approach to harmony (from The Craft of Musical Composition)
7. Indeterminacy, aleatorism, controlled aleatorism
8. Klangfarbenmelodie, texture-based organization
9. Microtones
10. Mixed media
11. Modulation
12. Motivic unity; set theory (post-tonal); using a limited number of specific intervals
13. Music without melody
14. Nihilism, Antimusic, Decategorization, Biomusic, (what the heck do these terms mean?)
15. Non-Tertian harmony (secundal, quartal, quintal)
16. Planing
17. Pointillism
18. Polyrhythms
19. Polystylism
20. Polytonality, polymodality
21. Quotation
22. Saturation (Ligeti, industrial music)
23. Serialism (“total;” creating series of dynamics, articulations, registers, timbres)
24. Serialism (pitch)
25. Spectral music
26. Any combination of the above