# Your composition experiences



## Aurelian

Would you be interested in giving us an overview of your experiences composing?

I write very short pieces, usually on paper first, then on the computer. My main issues are:

1. I have had trouble developing melodies.
2. My knowledge of harmony, and theory in general, is lacking.
3. Am I only copying what I have heard somewhere before? I *think* my music is original, but there is music everywhere.

Still, I think I do OK considering I never formally studied composition. What I have learned is from (formerly) playing the violin and following the scores when listening to performances. I never share my music, either!


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## ricardo_jvc6

I'll be honest with you. Melodies are everywhere, grab your instrument and come up with a nice tune, if it is catchy even better. Lacking knowledge in harmony in theory, is a bit hard to progress but your inspiration is even superior, so if you have the knowledge but you don't have the inspiration... it is even harder to come up with good ideas. You need atleast the basics of scoring. Knowing extra things like counterpoint is not necessary. (This doesn't apply if you are composing anything else besides baroque.) Don't worry, you are copying no one. Wagner stole a few lines of Liszt, since Wagner was married with his daughter. So the cromaticism that wagner got, mostly was influenced by Liszt. Everyone does it. Life is full of stealing, you need to accept that fact.


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## DaDirkNL

Aurelian said:


> Would you be interested in giving us an overview of your experiences composing?
> 
> I write very short pieces, usually on paper first, then on the computer. My main issues are:
> 
> 1. I have had trouble developing melodies.
> 2. My knowledge of harmony, and theory in general, is lacking.
> 3. Am I only copying what I have heard somewhere before? I *think* my music is original, but there is music everywhere.
> 
> Still, I think I do OK considering I never formally studied composition. What I have learned is from (formerly) playing the violin and following the scores when listening to performances. I never share my music, either!


My advise is to study the score of Schubert's Symphony 5. This piece is not too complicated, but the melody is still really catchy. When you're looking at the score, you'll notice all kind of harmonic tricks that are not melody-bound. That means you can use them on many different melodies. If you do that, it'll probably be a lot easier to write down music. You don't need to know everything in the beginning, just enough to get something good on paper.


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## Crudblud

You can't steal ideas because ideas cannot be owned.


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## aleazk

Crudblud said:


> You can't steal ideas because ideas cannot be owned.


Unless you are Apple and you patent even the color of your products!.


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## juergen

Crudblud said:


> You can't steal ideas because ideas cannot be owned.


Then I better keep my ideas to myself.


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## PetrB

It sounds to me as if you are very stuck within the context of your instrument, what is most often idiomatically written for it, and that means _Single Line_ and to you anyway, single line = _Melody_.

My experience, and what led my curiosity more and more toward composition, is piano based. From the very first lesson, it was Bartok and Bach, both contrapuntal, a minimum of two independent lines. Often enough, whether it is Bach or Bartok, while any of those lines is distinctly independent of the other, many of us would still not call one of them -- solo -- in anyway what most people think of as "Melody."

The majority of the western music most people think is great is not really wholly about either melody or harmony, but the confluence of both, whether its texture is counterpoint or homophonic.

I'd suggest trying things in the computer, and when starting out, develop two or more parts "at once" instead of first trying to come up with a melody and then a harmony.

*Avoid using your instrument as a tool for composition!* If there are other instrumental sounds available to you within the computer, try using those -- until your ear first directs things, the player trying to compose with their instrument is often the victim of motor habits, coming up with the configurations with which they are most familiar (in fact ingrained) -- ergo -- and more often than not, going at composition that way they generate non-interesting cliches by the truckload.

Since you are not "trained" in harmony or theory, I would think that exploration might find you looking at and hearing a bit differently, and it might give you another perspective which will help, even if you go back to writing 'just' tunes 

P.s. ADD.
Look at / listen to the Bartok violin duets. These have a peculiar history, having been commissioned by an amateur player, the first lot were for that player "too difficult" the second batch easier but still "too difficult," the third collection, "just right." There are, if memory serves well, forty four of them, the simplest in the last numbers of sequence. Why? because they are two lines making harmony, and they are not the more typical melodic stuff of older western classical, while being both lyric and of real interest.


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## Wicked_one

I want to compose lovely stuff, but then again I want it catchy, powerful and interesting. So, I turn to Carmina Burana: melody and rhythm. That's it. Eventually some 3rds over there. 

And a big chorus...

...orchestra too...

Oh, and yes, I do hear it in my head before writing down the idea. Also, I kinda see it written on the score for this and that instrument, I don't deal with piano/guitar reductions. If I do that, I see how simple my idea is and I become worried and I throw in distant chords, weird intervals, a black kitten and then it stops making sense and it's too contemporary for me..


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## Tomposer

juergen said:


> Then I better keep my ideas to myself.


You cannot even do that. People will come up with the same ones anyway.


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## Tomposer

Music-wise...

I have a classical background but these days I am also very interested in contemporary pop/electronic music. I like the way this is affecting my writing for acoustic instruments.


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## Musician

Crudblud said:


> You can't steal ideas because ideas cannot be owned.


Didn't any great patent started with an idea ?


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## Crudblud

Musician said:


> Didn't any great patent started with an idea ?


How does that invalidate what I said?


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## PetrB

Patents are only given on physical devices, and those devices must be innovative. You cannot patent a new gear ratio, gears in public domain, or utilize other patented devices in a new configuration even if that device has a new function. The idea, or more accurately, its working parts, has to be really very new and unlike what has gone before if you are to gain a patent.

Arts, music and visual, and letters -- literature, essays, etc. -- can be copyrighted. The basic materials are common, omnipresent, the originality is in how they are assembled. A new synthetic scale is not copyrightable, a piece written using it is.

It takes very little to qualify a clearly taken idea as copyrightable -- a few changes, alterations enough, and it is considered 'new.' 

I am an advocate of copyright and intellectual property because of the current environment where replication and broadcast media tools are widespread on a global scale.

There was a hue and cry when a court decision made the use of samples no longer free, that is the user of a snippet of this recording, that score, if recognizable, was to give credit, i.e. a fraction of a fraction of the royalties that mix was earning. I have no sympathy for those who make such works and expect to keep all revenue for themselves. Call yourself a musician, write your own little snippets and licks, find a player, record them, or use your synthesizer. Use bits of the works of others, unaltered other than dropping them in a mix, expect to pay those pipers,


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## Crudblud

I was just thinking about a piece I'm working on at the moment, how the instrumentation and form have evolved over the past few months, originally it was a percussion piece but now it's something quite different. It occurred to me that this "maturation" is something people might be interested in reading about (and I'll surely talk about it more when I present the finished piece) and this thread seemed like a good place to share an idea or two.

Thought for the day: Unless you're working a strict commission, never rule out expanding or contracting instrumentation to solve a problem, sometimes you might find yourself with a wayward bassoon or lacking an "exotic" instrument that belonged in the piece all along. Of course many of you want to challenge yourselves with strict specifications and that's fair enough, but sit and have a think about it, you just might be preventing the creation of something far better than the piece you originally planned on making.


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## PetrB

Crudblud said:


> I was just thinking about a piece I'm working on at the moment, how the instrumentation and form have evolved over the past few months, originally it was a percussion piece but now it's something quite different. It occurred to me that this "maturation" is something people might be interested in reading about (and I'll surely talk about it more when I present the finished piece) and this thread seemed like a good place to share an idea or two.
> 
> Thought for the day: Unless you're working a strict commission, never rule out expanding or contracting instrumentation to solve a problem, sometimes you might find yourself with a wayward bassoon or lacking an "exotic" instrument that belonged in the piece all along. Of course many of you want to challenge yourselves with strict specifications and that's fair enough, but sit and have a think about it, you just might be preventing the creation of something far better than the piece you originally planned on making.


I advocate your thinking on not limiting the choices, or the palette, of a piece in progress, but their is a world of difference between the practicality of something you plan to have in a midi performance set-up, where any instrument available in your sample library could appear for a very justified and interesting one or two measures -- and nowhere else, and doing the same while writing for a professional group.

That mandolin you used for two bars in the entire work, if the work is programmed on a professional orchestra's typical three pieces for the evening, will occasion calling in an outside player for that mandolin part, at full union scale for rehearsals and the concert, or at least require a symphony member to pick up the mandolin instead of their primary instrument for which they are under contract, that player then getting time and a half for all rehearsals and performances. It is the mere financial practicality of it which often rules it out.

If you are as established as, say Stravinsky, you can then be pretty certain that the ensemble will find it in their hearts and budget to accommodate that extra expense. (Threni: the contrabass Sarrusophone part 

Cost issues apart, asking a player to sit around for rehearsals and the length of the piece to only play one or two measures is asking for a player who resents the part they have to play, maybe discoloring the tone of the performance even if they play it as well as they should.

Midi knows no bounds of the variances and richness you describe... you're a one person show, composer, conductor and performer, often the recording engineer as well, and there are no union fees, additional, time and a half, or otherwise, which need to be paid to performers.


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## PetrB

Wicked_one said:


> I want to compose lovely stuff, but then again I want it catchy, powerful and interesting. So, I turn to Carmina Burana: melody and rhythm. That's it. Eventually some 3rds over there.
> 
> And a big chorus...
> 
> ...orchestra too...
> 
> If doing that is all for your own pleasure, without any other expectations than a few people who like similar from movie scores clicking "like" and commenting, "Awesome" on your Youtube channel, then you'll be alright.
> 
> The slots for those who write like that and are professional, and well-paid, is pretty full up and positions and possibilities of getting that kind of work done are all more than slight.... Too many highly polished and practiced film score and video game composers are writing something very much like for about every other job they get.


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## Crudblud

PetrB said:


> I advocate your thinking on not limiting the choices, or the palette, of a piece in progress, but their is a world of difference between the practicality of something you plan to have in a midi performance set-up, where any instrument available in your sample library could appear for a very justified and interesting one or two measures -- and nowhere else, and doing the same while writing for a professional group.
> 
> That mandolin you used for two bars in the entire work, if the work is programmed on a professional orchestra's typical three pieces for the evening, will occasion calling in an outside player for that mandolin part, at full union scale for rehearsals and the concert, or at least require a symphony member to pick up the mandolin instead of their primary instrument for which they are under contract, that player then getting time and a half for all rehearsals and performances. It is the mere financial practicality of it which often rules it out.
> 
> If you are as established as, say Stravinsky, you can then be pretty certain that the ensemble will find it in their hearts and budget to accommodate that extra expense. (Threni: the contrabass Sarrusophone part
> 
> Cost issues apart, asking a player to sit around for rehearsals and the length of the piece to only play one or two measures is asking for a player who resents the part they have to play, maybe discoloring the tone of the performance even if they play it as well as they should.
> 
> Midi knows no bounds of the variances and richness you describe... you're a one person show, composer, conductor and performer, often the recording engineer as well, and there are no union fees, additional, time and a half, or otherwise, which need to be paid to performers.


Yes, I had tried to consider it from the perspective a typical composer (i.e.: someone who writes for human players) and what you describe isn't what I meant, although if it works for the piece and you can get away with it, I say fair enough. What I'm actually suggesting is adding new instruments and using them for substantial portions or even the whole of the piece in order to solve large problems-an expansion of the building itself rather than something to patch up the brickwork here and there. For instance, this latest piece has a lot of instruments in it that weren't there when I first thought it up (it was initially the same as in the little ditty I made for this thread) and is now even changing shape altogether, but I believe the changes I have made benefit the piece as a whole. That was my intention in making that post, and I sincerely hope anyone who might choose to follow the advice I gave in it would consider first of all the impact new instrumentation would have on the entire piece, and of course other practical issues such as the added cost.


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## millionrainbows

It would really help if you studied theory. Also, artistic creation is a compulsion for most artists; they become obsessed with ideas, and begin to "fetish" them. Know your craft, at least in terms of sound, if not theory; how can you develop a "fetish" for major seventh chords voiced a particular way if you don't become engaged with the pure sound of it? Even Eddie Van Halen was able to create very effective music, despite his declaration that he was "just a kid who loved to play guitar."


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## PetrB

Crudblud said:


> Yes, I had tried to consider it from the perspective a typical composer (i.e.: someone who writes for human players) and what you describe isn't what I meant, although if it works for the piece and you can get away with it, I say fair enough. What I'm actually suggesting is adding new instruments and using them for substantial portions or even the whole of the piece in order to solve large problems-an expansion of the building itself rather than something to patch up the brickwork here and there. For instance, this latest piece has a lot of instruments in it that weren't there when I first thought it up (it was initially the same as in the little ditty I made for this thread) and is now even changing shape altogether, but I believe the changes I have made benefit the piece as a whole. That was my intention in making that post, and I sincerely hope anyone who might choose to follow the advice I gave in it would consider first of all the impact new instrumentation would have on the entire piece, and of course other practical issues such as the added cost.


Something akin to what you have set out is similarly possible if you have the resource of a very full orchestra at your disposal. You can reserve, hold back on the use of some instruments so their color and nature appear later in the piece, effectively changing it -- if you wish as per your directions described.

Smaller ensembles from within the large ensemble can have a role, be added to, have instruments drop in or out, withdraw and yield completely to others introduced and then those taking over.

There is the game of diminishing returns, (Haydn's "farewell" symphony, gradually going from full ensemble to just two violins) or the augmented return, in reverse.

With midi and enough samples, you can drop in, drop out, with any number of instruments, timbres, at your whim or will, or capitulating to what you think the music needs at exactly that juncture. I am thinking 'the process' you have found is a valid one, but one first time through will better tell you how to handle similar with more of a plan and intent - not that the resulting quantity or quantity might be any different, but more as a matter of the time it takes to complete a piece.


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## TudorMihai

Aurelian said:


> 2. My knowledge of harmony, and theory in general, is lacking.


Don't worry if you don't have much music theory knowledge. Vangelis created beautiful, memorable themes and music in general (he even wrote a massive orchestral work with chorus and vocal soloists for "Mythodea") yet he doesn't even know how to read and write musical notes.



PetrB said:


> *Avoid using your instrument as a tool for composition!*


I agree to that. If you compose music that way you fall into clichés and eventually all your compositions will sound the same. Experiment with different keys, just write notes on the score, play around, make it your own. I use this process many times. I just take a piece of paper, outline the staves and let my hand write the notes. Then I enter them into the software and sometimes they sound quite good. Last but not least, have fun and make composing a pleasing activity.


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