# What should my first composition be?



## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

Hi. Some time ago I decided to start writing music, to create something and see what happened. I don't really have composition skills, as I only have a license in solfege. So, pretty basic knowledge of theory. I had a theme in mind though and I tried to develop it, quite casually I admit. It's in D minor. My problem is, after 10 bars or something like that, I don't really know what to do and I gave up because I don't even know what type of composition I'm trying to make. A quartet? A sonata? A symphony? I'm pretty sure I don't want a sonata. Also, my composition kinda sounds like a third movement. I don't think it's good as beginning for a small 20 minutes symphony. What was your first composition? What do you suggest me to start with?


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## BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist (Jan 13, 2019)

My recommendation is to try something in ternary form. In terms of form it would help if you shared the theme with us.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Instrumentationwise I'd suggest a piano piece. One instrument.


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

BrahmsWasAGreatMelodist said:


> My recommendation is to try something in ternary form. In terms of form it would help if you shared the theme with us.


Here it is:

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https://soundcloud.com/amadea94%2Ftheme-a


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

pianozach said:


> Instrumentationwise I'd suggest a piano piece. One instrument.


I'm afraid I'd feel bored and wouldn't finish it though.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I'm not a composer, but I would think that a combination of two or three common instruments would at least increase the chance that it is going to be played. So for instance a piece for violin+piano, or cello+piano or piano trio. And probably it would give you some challenge how to combine the instruments, which you would not get with a solo piano work


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

Art Rock said:


> I'm not a composer, but I would think that a combination of two or three common instruments would at least increase the chance that it is going to be played. So for instance a piece for violin+piano, or cello+piano or piano trio. And probably it would give you some challenge how to combine the instruments, which you would not get with a solo piano work


Yes, thanks. I was thinking about it too. That way I won't feel bored and I will practice writing for more than one instrument without doing something too difficult.


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## Enthalpy (Apr 15, 2020)

This piece is simple to play. You could *intend it for beginners*, as an étude or a concert piece. Preferably with more such pieces in a booklet, with eloquent titles if possible. Stay in a similar difficulty but varied style within a booklet, order from easier to more difficult.

No need for a second instrument then. A piano accompaniment is possible but not necessary. The length just fits. The sonata - concerto - whatsoever form falls away.

As is, the piece fits most wind instruments, bowed instruments too. With a second voice, it fits the vibraphone and other mallet instruments. With more voices, a piano.

I suggest to forget the bowed instruments and the piano, which have already far too much music available. Winds and percussions are less rich. Since software makes it so easily, adapt parts to dozens of instruments, including the less common ones like the euphonium, who will welcome new parts.

==========

You don't find how to go on... that belongs to creation. If a phrase results from the past notes, it's not creation, and it's boring. This distinguishes pop music from elaborate one.

Think out of the box. Introduce new rhythms. Start at notes that don't seem logical. Invest work in it.

Processes exist to produce more music with the same amount of invention. The fugue belongs to them, reversing the heights or the sequence too. If well done, they make interesting music (Bach's Chaconne makes 14min out of a single sequence). If not, they are terribly boring: it's a matter of how much process versus how much invention.

Listen to creative composers: Prokofiev, Bach, Bartók, Ravel, Ysaÿe... (less so Beethoven, Dvorak...) Every time the piece is difficult to continue, often at the end of a phrase, check how the composer got further. Grasp that he could have done it differently, and that he too spent time on it. Search what you can find at that place, compare with the original, and wonder how you could have found something as creative.

Rhythms are poor in European classical music. Listen to jazz and to traditional African music.

Your instrument defines very much what music you compose. Most composers are pianists, and their instrument lets them combine interesting height combinations à la Debussy with boring rhythms. Composers should play several instruments of very different nature, including some percussion with no sound height. To the very least, listen music from such instruments.

You can start by writing cadenzas, it's much easier. Take some concerto that has none, pick the themes, rearrange: about every old musician can do it without learning composition. Or write variations on a theme.

How young are you? Fantasy gets easier with age, and composing is easier to someone having plaid much music.


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## Amadea (Apr 15, 2021)

Enthalpy said:


> How young are you? Fantasy gets easier with age, and composing is easier to someone having plaid much music.


Hi. Thanks for your insights, they're very useful. I am 26 years old. When I was a child I attended conservatory for 5 years, with violin as first instrument and piano as second. I got a license in solfege, my knowledge is basic. I then drop out. After ten years, I decided to play the cello, I purchased one some months ago. So that's my instrument now. I'm listening to a lot of Mozart in this period, do you suggest me to listen to more modern composers?


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## Owen David (May 15, 2020)

I suggest you follow your heart: whatever interests you. But be open-minded.

I think at least with Mozart and strings you get more or less what he intended...with Mozart and keyboards, the instruments he played on were so different to ours! 

As for your D minor compositions have you considered playing around with a lift to an E major chord? I'm not trained in composition either but I would be suggesting using combinations of E/F/G#/A/B/C/D# before maybe heading down to an A major chord and back to D minor. 

I hope we hear your composition before too long.


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## Enthalpy (Apr 15, 2020)

If you compose like this after 5 years playing music, then go on. Warning: composers make no money, very few can even live from it.

Listen to music you like, but include music you can like with after a _reasonable_ effort. I believe anything else would be counter-productive. Yes, I suggest to open your horizon beyond Mozart, not necessarily to more recent composers. Bach is one of the very best models for a composer, and his cello suites can enlighten you, his violin sonatas and partitas as well. Vivaldi can be inspiring too. Even older, John Dowland:
mdVQzHtDA3c​(a century older than JSBach, already chromatic, or at least with rapid and unexpected modulations).

To discover what a fuga is, listen to the 24th Capriccio.

Some less old compositions are accessible with a limited effort. The Polovtsian dances, Pictures at an exhibition, the Firebird, Sheherazade, the Carmina burana... Check if you can discover some without maltreating yourself.

Prokofiev is a big model for a composer but his music is less accessible: maybe his suite from Love for three oranges, or Lieutenant Kijé. His flute sonata and his first violin concerto are fabulously creative but less accessible. From Ravel, Ma mère l'oye is more inviting. From Bartók, the Six Romanian dances and the 44 duets.

Some more recent pieces, of radically different style, aren't too hard to discover: Qilaatersorneq, Ionisation. Just relax and try if you can enjoy some. If not now, in some years.

Rhythm is an essential richness of music, but it's extremely neglected by European classical music, and the cello won't open your mind to it, so you must hear elsewhere:
-cLAwAOi-hA​
Jazz would be all-important to a composer but I don't see where to begin with... It ranges from garbage to genial and from dance music to inaccessibly difficult. Among so many others, Charles Mingus can inspire a composer, but coming from Mozart, you'll need intermediate steps.

You can download free sheet music for not too recent composers and check how they obtained some effect.

Bowed instruments won't bring you naturally to refined harmonies. You had begun the piano: electronic keyboards are cheap, and for a composer they're as good - or even better, since some pieces of software write the sheet music from a connection to the keyboard.

If you don't learn a percussion instrument, listen at least to percussion music.


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## adrien (Sep 12, 2016)

When I started composing, I tried writing things for smaller ensembles, string orchestra (e.g. only 5 parts) etc.

I couldn't get it to do what I wanted. I wanted the colour of woodwinds, the power of brass.

So, I gave up trying to write for small ensemble and just went full orchestra.

I could see this theme you have written ending up enormous like a Beethoven symphony. It's very exciting.

It will be a lot easier if you have a decent sound library, e.g. NotePerformer. It's more gratifying.

Some seasoned composers on here probably disagree with everything I just wrote.


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