# Which of your own pieces do you enjoy listening?.



## aleazk

Do you listen to your pieces often?, do you enjoy them as you enjoy the pieces of other composers?. What's your favorite piece composed by you?. 
I listen to my pieces sometimes, but, for some reason, maybe I "burn" them (I overlisten to the sections I'm interested), I don't feel anything, despite the fact that I enjoyed them the first two or three times.
Lately, I have enjoyed my piece "the journey of the comet".


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## Sonata

What kind of piece is Journey of the Comet?

I don't have any compositions. Sometimes I just "noodle" on the piano when I don't know what piece or exercise I want to work on. And I do occasionally record them or practice pieces to listen later, but more as a developmental thing for my playing, listening with an outside ear so to speak. I can't say I've played anything yet that I'd be inclined to listen to over again.


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## Head_case

aleazk said:


> Do you listen to your pieces often?, do you enjoy them as you enjoy the pieces of other composers?.


I'm learning how to play the harp and lute....a friend records my playing from time to time (I don't have the facilities). When she brought some of her recordings out, I was mesmerised by myself :lol:

Okay, I think I got over me by now  That took about 20 seconds. But I do like listening to my own practice. Mostly, I'm learning how to play by improvisation. I never progressed beyond Grade VI theory so I'm learning by Elvis Costello's famous 'crab method'. Now improvisation on harp is quite fascinating, in that if it is tuned via arpeggio in diminished chords, it can rarely sound dissonant or fractured. My rhythm is particularly weak since half the time I'm still trying to figure out how to suppress my own internal rhythm to beat to another one. For that reason, listening to myself is very enjoyable: I'm learning from my own practice recordings.



> What's your favorite piece composed by you?


I don't actually have names for anything I improvise. This is one of the pleasures of recording improvisations; I know that I will never improvise exactly the same way or manner as I have just done. In that respect, each piece I create is original and a one off, never to be replicated. That makes me feel special lol :lol:



> I listen to my pieces sometimes, but, for some reason, maybe I "burn" them (I overlisten to the sections I'm interested), I don't feel anything, despite the fact that I enjoyed them the first two or three times.


The artistic detachment from the routine repetition of the piece....is mindnumbing you? Well perhaps, the art of being a performer, is different than the art of being a listener.

I know I am a better listener than a better performer. I know I am a better talking headstand than a better listener :rofl:


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## Ramako

My favourite piece by me is usually the one I am writing. When I have finished them, the imperfections become glaring and sometimes slightly painful to me, whereas when I am still in the process of writing the piece, it could yet become a perfect creation 

I also enjoy some of my very old pieces, partly for reasons of nostalgia.


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## Praeludium

I don't listen to them, because the pieces I have finished are strictly written on manuscript paper, and I always lost them once they're finished. 
Maybe I should use Musescore or whatever to compose, but the midi sounds is grating, and it feels a bit like cheating. And I find manuscript much easier to manipulate - if you want to use a drawing or whatever, you can just do it. That's not really the case with softwares/
To put it in a nutshell, I just use a piano when I want to know how it sounds, so I never really listen to my output.


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## Crudblud

My personal favourite of my works so far is Sailin' Tuns!. I would apologise for the shameless plug, but if not here, then where?


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## Mahlerian

Praeludium said:


> I don't listen to them, because the pieces I have finished are strictly written on manuscript paper, and I always lost them once they're finished.
> Maybe I should use Musescore or whatever to compose, but the midi sounds is grating, and it feels a bit like cheating. And I find manuscript much easier to manipulate - if you want to use a drawing or whatever, you can just do it. That's not really the case with softwares.


MIDI is also very inexpressive, and can mislead you into thinking something wouldn't work when it just needs to be nuanced right. You can work with it to make it sound better, but if you can play it yourself, why bother?


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## BurningDesire

I like to listen to some of my music, I try to write music that I like X3 How else can an artist be sure that what they wrote is any good at all if there isn't anything in the piece that satisfies their own love of the medium?


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## BurningDesire

Mahlerian said:


> MIDI is also very inexpressive, and can mislead you into thinking something wouldn't work when it just needs to be nuanced right. You can work with it to make it sound better, but if you can play it yourself, why bother?


MIDI isn't a medium of expression, it is a protocol by which electronic musical equipment communicates with other electronic musical equipment. If you mean electronic versions of pieces that use sampled or synthesized sounds of acoustic instruments, it really depends. I've heard such means achieve greater expression than some composers get out of a full symphony orchestra with some of the best musicians in the world.


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## Mahlerian

BurningDesire said:


> MIDI isn't a medium of expression, it is a protocol by which electronic musical equipment communicates with other electronic musical equipment. If you mean electronic versions of pieces that use sampled or synthesized sounds of acoustic instruments, it really depends. I've heard such means achieve greater expression than some composers get out of a full symphony orchestra with some of the best musicians in the world.


True. What I meant is that plugging notes into a score editor and having them read back via MIDI without any further adjustment tends to sound inexpressive.


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## clavichorder

None of them anymore. I play them on the piano and they are miniatures, and I have played them so much to the point of being annoyed by them even after a month of rest. 

Different things may or may not be at work in my compositional ideas these days.


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## violadude

I listen to my own pieces all the time because I'm a narcissistic a**hole.


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## Couchie

Yes. I particularly enjoy Lohengrin.


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## Jord

I think it's necessary to enjoy listening to your own compositions, i write what i write because personally i think it sounds amazing and i think it should be the same for any composer, because the way i look at it if it doesn't sound good to you then it shouldn't be written at all


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## jani

Jord said:


> I think it's necessary to enjoy listening to your own compositions, i write what i write because personally i think it sounds amazing and i think it should be the same for any composer, because the way i look at it if it doesn't sound good to you then it shouldn't be written at all


I agree with you BUT, if you are experimenting with new stuff it might not always sound good but you might learn something.


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## PetrB

Almost always the one I'm in the middle of working on, and then only for the duration until, like, maybe one day after the double bar has been drawn... then it fades... the problem solved being less interesting I suppose than being in the middle of solving that problem.

... or, as that old Cunard Cruise Liner advert copy says, _"Getting there is half the fun."_ I'd say maybe better than half, actually.


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## neoshredder

I wrote a song called from Out From Nowhere which was played in my jazz band years ago. Not recorded but the chord progression was interesting.
Dmin //// Gm //// Dm //// Bdim7 //// Cm //// Fmin //// Abm7 //// C7 //// Repeat once. Cmin //// Bb7 //// Cmin //// Ddim 7 //// Cmin //// Bb7 //// Cmin //// Ddim7 ////. Anyways that's how it starts out. Definitely Baroque/Jazz influenced.


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## Igneous01

Hard to say, the one that i enjoy the most is the one that I hear in my head, before the conversion to score. One aspect of composition that seems to push me away is the detachment you get from working on a piece, especially if it drags on for a long enough time. I typically start to forget what the original intent and feeling was behind the piece, and never go back to finish it. Where as something that takes maybe 2-3 days can get finished quite quickly and sound good and fresh. Perhaps I need to start documenting my writing so as to know why I made the choices I made to still have that 'picture' in my mind when working on the piece.

I seem to have this issue with playing at the piano as well, practicing the same piece for months: I loose the feel of the piece, and the playing just sounds mechanical and sometimes hate listening to myself play. I suppose this is just a skill that needs to be developed.

Somewhat off topic, but at the same time related to my experiences.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

aleazk said:


> Do you listen to your pieces often?,


No, not often unless I am preparing it for performance.



aleazk said:


> do you enjoy them as you enjoy the pieces of other composers?.


No because I know my own work too well. My ears are attracted to the unkown and my brain enjoys learning what music by other composers has to say.



aleazk said:


> What's your favorite piece composed by you?.


Very difficult, but the two pieces that gives me the least amount of discomfort when listening back on them are "Ode to Marxism" and "Guitar Quintet."


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## Schubussy

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https://soundcloud.com/kimjonggenerator%2Ftomb-raver
 This one, because it has harps and crazy drums. Apart from that I don't really listen to anything I do.


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