# When did you start composing and how did it happen?



## Torkelburger (Jan 14, 2014)

When did you start composing and how did it happen?

I began composing at age 10. Almost 32 years ago now. I had been exposed to music with singing and "tah-tah-tee-tee-tah-rest" before that but it had never sparked my interest. What got me interested in music was the first day of 4th grade, elementary school. In my state where I lived it is mandatory to study the soprano recorder at that time and when we began music theory on that first day I knew then and there music would be a major part of my life and that I was a musician. I had a great teacher. I practiced every day and within a few weeks began making up my own melodies and writing them down. It just sort of came to me naturally.

When I showed my parents they were very supportive and I remember my mother asking me, "Are you going to be a composer?" and I asked "What's a composer?" to which she replied "Someone who makes up there own music. Like Mozart and Bach." I thought that was the neatest thing I'd ever heard.

So when did you start composing and how did you get into it?


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

I myself I can't to be honest ,we do have a lot of composers but somehow they are always shy to tell us.


----------



## MarkMcD (Mar 31, 2014)

Well, I started with piano lessons at the age of 8 (that back then cost 4 pounds for 12 1 hour lessons, so you can tell that it was quite some time ago lol). My parents both played instruments, my mum, the piano and my dad played the accordion so they were pleased when I showed an interest in the 8 octave upright that was my grandmothers. After a couple of years I managed to get to grade 3 but the exams made me hugely nervous and I still don't like to play for an audience. But then my dad died and life changed and the piano lessons fell by the way. I never stopped playing though, and it was then that I started to make up my own tunes and attempting to write them down. I still have some the manuscripts from those days. 

I always had a secret wish to be a concert pianist, but we were not in the position to advance my formal musical education, being from a working class family in the north of England, it was always quite out reach in any case. But music has always been very important to me and although I think I am somewhat hampered by my lack of training, I'm still tinkering away at it, it is one of the biggest loves of my life.


----------



## Alexanbar (May 11, 2016)

From a time when I studied at school, I am a music lover. My preferencies were changed from popular music to classical one.
I have a big collection of vinyl disks.
And I never thought that I 'll be compose music himself.
But one night I heard music when I slept, in dream.
And I don't forgot this melody when I woke up.
But many years have passed since I studied in music school and I needed to remember music notation and etc...


----------



## KjellPrytz (Dec 16, 2016)

I started to compose because I had a basic need to balance my intellectual activities. Working as a physics teacher/researcher I was strongly emphasizing the analytical/logical part of cognition and I found that this suppressed my creativity. I realized that creativity demands utilization of all human talents where the analytical skill is balanced by intuitive knowledge. This latter part is stimulated by art, e.g. music, and indeed when I started to compose I experienced an increase in creativity and actually made some fundamental physics discoveries. I have written about creativity in physics here:

https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1080630

Also, there are some common factors between music and physics in such a way that both activities try to work out a wholeness out of details which form my composition technique.
Now I encourage my students to take interest in music, partly to stimulate creativity. But there are also many physics applications in music since our knowledge of sound is basically physics. Both the functioning of musical instruments and that of the ear are standard parts in my physics courses.
A couple of years ago I made my greatest discovery in physics. In parallel to that research I was working on this tune:


__
https://soundcloud.com/user-892939153%2Fceremony

for which I am grateful for all the ideas it gave me.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I started some time in my early teens because I wanted my friends and I to have original stuff to play on our guitars (my "illegitimate" instrument  ), basses, drums, saxes, keyboards, etc. I still write occasional pieces in a kind of prog rockish style for when musically inclined friends visit me in the mountains, sending out parts in advance. Here is one such piece, recorded with MIDI samples, for two guitars, bass, synthesized strings and drums. Haven't gotten "the boys" to learn it yet:


__
https://soundcloud.com/gwyon%2Frun

As you are aware, I mostly write "legit" classical music.


----------

