Let’s start with his 1st symphony.

He starts with a bunch of dominant to tonic chords that are totally out of key, for you pop people that’s a bunch of V to I chords At that time it was ridiculous to start a symphony that way but bad boy Beethoven did shit his own way. He was one of the first composers to realize that ANY musical phenomena could be a motif, or basis for an entire composition. You see, up to that point the main foundation of a musical piece was its melody, occasionally it was the harmonic skeleton such as in a passacaglia or chaconne.

But ol’ Louie said, “Fuck that”, and used the idea of eluding the main key as a motive! Not only was he so brazen to do this at the very beginning of the 1st movement in his 1st symphony but he brings the exact same motif back in the 2nd movement (bringing any motif from an outside movement was pretty rare as well, more on that in another article). It’s as if he was saying, “Yeah, I meant to do that. What!”

Then after these false-leading chord sequences he gives us this beautiful legato theme. I suppose the listener during those days would be thinking, “Ah, ok. Those first chords were weird but here’s the main melody.” “SYKE!” screams Beethoven. All that was just intro to the fast allegro theme he brings in about 2 minutes later. Dude definitely knew what he was doing and although he was starting to shit over convention he still respected those who went before him, he just preferred to do it his way.

I write this not just to fellate the master and to educate those who don’t really listen to classical music but hopefully to inspire you to be courageous in your own music. So get back to that track you’re producing or that song you’re writing and be bold!