When I write or speak, I always carry in mind a piece of advice I received from a teacher: “Transition sentences are really important. The reason people get bored is that they lose your train of thought.” That advice is equally applicable to musical compositions. If listeners can’t follow what you’re doing, they will zone out. But if they can follow your ideas, they will stay engaged. Transitional material is the glue that connects your diverse ideas into a unified work. It’s the stitches that bind your quilt into a coherent pattern.
My “transition sentences” are usually the last thing I finish in my compositions, and they are usually what give me the most trouble. I remember with one particular piece, I knew exactly how I wanted to end the piece, and I knew exactly where I was coming from. But crafting that transition from the middle section to the ending section took several weeks of fiddling around, and some 30 written-out iterations before I settled on a transition that convincingly connected at both ends.
I often find investing this kind of time into small spaces of music quite frustrating. But ultimately, I have to remind myself that the investment in these transitional places is a high-reward investment, because the attention given to these connecting moments are what make a disjointed piece coherent and accessible. It’s what makes the piece of one fabric and not merely a patchwork. It’s what enables your listener to follow your train of thought.
So composers, attend to the transition sentences. It will give you headaches, but it’s what makes your ideas belong together It’s the alchemy that turns your raw materials into gold. It’s the valley that pulls together disconnected puddles into a connected river that that your listeners would be delighted to follow.