# "Fan-composing"?



## brucknerian

In literature, we have the concept of "fan fiction" - pieces composed by fans of a particular author, expressing their love for the author's work, perhaps extending or embellishing the work, etc.

I'm wondering if something equivalent has been, or is being, done in music?

Are there "fan-composers" who compose pieces derived from works of their favourite composers, with perhaps a bit of their own personal style mixed in?

As a die-hard fan of Bruckner's symphonies, I often hear the music in my head, and having a bit of an over-active mind, often can't help but imagine extensions, elaborations, even whole new tangents, from Bruckner's music.

I would love to share some of these concepts, and to hear similar compositions by other fans of Bruckner, who might also have their own directions they would have taken it. A kind of lively "musical interchange" like this would be enormously enjoyable and endlessly fascinating to me.

I have already gotten a big kick out of listening to less-often-performed versions of Bruckner symphonies, less-often-heard conductors, or even entirely new but derivative pieces, such as the various completions of the 9th symphony.

So I want to throw this idea out there and see if anyone else has thought similarly.

Do you desperately wish you could hear an additional work by your favourite dead/retired composer?
Would you be fascinated to hear work by another composer which is inspired by/derived from that favourite composer?
Do you yourself imagine alternate ways in which the music might have flowed?


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## KenOC

This is a wonderful question. When I was younger (much younger!) I'd be riding my bicycle and composing Beethoven in my head. It seemed so easy. Of course I was just recycling chord sequences and such.

But with the arrival of MIDI and other sound programs and computers, anybody can really give it a try. But I have heard precious little of this "fan music." I think people recognize quickly enough that it's not just what it sounds like -- there's gotta be a lot of substance there, not to mention a pretty deep technique. And that's not easy, no way.


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## Weston

I once knew of a web site for a guy who wrote Bach-like fugues, quite a few of them, possibly hundreds. They were in MIDI format. I always found it fascinating, but even he confessed it was little more than a mathematical game or a technical exercise. He felt that no one would want to hear them in this era. I wish I could find the site again.


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## regenmusic

In truth, I think that we could look at much of music as this "fan composing." If you look at how genres change, say the change from straight rock and roll or Prog rock to New Wave/Punk around 1977, people were slowly climbing on the bandwagon of this stripped down sound, which started piling up around 1975 or so and kept going. Granted, there were a lot of original voices, but they started "following each other" in a general way and started "fan composing." Maybe there were about five different main styles from 77 to 83 in this genre, and no two bands would even be able to sound the same, but it's the general drift I think of what happens in music, if you look at it from a bird's eye view. I used to be a cultural anthropology major and used to look at culture's music from an outsider perspective, and then I turned that perspective to Western Culture and it really opened my eyes.


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## dgee

I think "fan-composing" would be a neat way to describe those who turn out classical or romantic era copies (of varying levels of competence and familiarity with the styles)


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## Huilunsoittaja

There's a large number of works titled "Homage to *insert composer's name here*" or similar, and that I think could be considered fan-composing. It's its own artform, I guess.

One reason I'm drawn to the Russian composers is the fact that they all share a similar sound-world. There are definitely differences in taste, but ultimately they all had similar goals. I got about 2 dozen Russian composers I revere, and I treat them as one big extended family. Thus, I've always had new music that still sounds what I want it to sound like at my disposal at any time. It will always meet a certain set of expectations of mine. If I find anyone "outside" of the family, i.e. composers who imitated Russian composers such as Gershwin (who does have Russian origins), Bax, Elgar, Respighi, Debussy, etc. then I'm all the more pleased to listen to them. They are adopted family members who grafted themselves to the Russian tree, and so I love them too. It's a large family tree... I'm no composer, but I like to consider myself a part of that family in one way or another, just by being a fan of their clan.


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## Dim7

Composer's individual "style" can be quite a vague thing. There certainly were composers with very similar styles at least during some part of their composing careers and some even don't really have any specific sound or style. On the other hand fanfiction can be written with a very different "style" from the original author. So I think works based on themes by other composers is more comparable to fanfiction, a bit similar to who fanfiction writers use characters created by other authors.


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## Richannes Wrahms

Obscure7/3 said:


> Composer's individual "style" can be quite a vague thing. Some say your style are your mistakes, which is true for Berlioz. There certainly were composers with very similar styles at least during some part of their composing careers _[see circle jerk]_ and some even don't really have any specific sound or style or personality or anything of value.
> 
> On the other hand fanfiction can be written with a very different "style" from the original author, that is what we call "incompetence". So I think works based on themes by other composers (as in Stravinsky's entire career) is more comparable to fanfiction, a bit similar to who fanfiction writers use characters created by other authors to satisfy their own fetishes.


BananaAppleLycheeLycheeSapote


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## clavichorder

I do this to an extent in that my compositions of the last 2-3 years gravitate around 18th century techniques, if not forms. But I am a fan of mating disparate styles, which is a starting point for some real creativity. Creativity and craft is almost a different thing when you only have one composer as your model, but if you give yourself a little breathing room and have a good number of composers in your mind as something to fuse as seamlessly as you can, you can come up with 18th century sounding music in which you've inserted your own personality. The more you write once you've tapped an area where ideas are more fertile, the more you'll start copying yourself, and building from there. Then you discover that there was a lot of room in those times for great music to made, and theoretically you could fill that space although the motivation to do so is considerably less in our age when styles have advanced and you are unlikely to get noticed. So it is the motivation of a hobbyist/musically and historically inquisitive person, which probably won't take you as high a level of art/craft as something that can make you money or even impact history. 

There is a guy who posts here sometimes with classical era sonatas and other pieces, and some of them are quite well crafted. Some of them are less inspired and I am not so interested, but in his most convincing work, he has a voice right out of the late 18th century. It just comes out of him, he enjoys what he does, and some people enjoy listening to it. 

Sometimes I mess up an just make works that are poorly integrated, and other times the result is passably smooth and listeners are less inclined to say I here Beethoven there, Scarlatti there, Gibbons there, etc. Like I said, you still aren't going to be able to pass this off as serious music, but it can at least be meaningful and personal to a greater degree than the pure fan music, and also provides an arena for developing confidence in your ability to use musical techniques. 

Maybe that's how some people who ultimately wind up trying to compose seriously, start off.


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## clavichorder

According to Wrahms(or his persona whose name seems to be a constantly changing collection of fruits), Stravinsky's quote about how great artists don't borrow, but steal, is just an excuse. He's just faking originality I guess.


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## aleazk

I fan compose my favorite composers (Ligeti, Dhomont, Boulez, Debussy, etc.) and I hope to introduce my voice in the middle of all that.


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## hreichgott

I think those who say they're "recomposing" or "rewriting" loved pieces are the closest to this.
Like Max Richter's Four Seasons.
Or the unfortunate "rewrite" of Beethoven's 7th Symphony that I heard today.


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## clavichorder

hreichgott said:


> Or the unfortunate "rewrite" of Beethoven's 7th Symphony that I heard today.


Ha! What was that like? Who wrote it?


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## KenOC

clavichorder said:


> Ha! What was that like? Who wrote it?


Perhaps Beecham? He once said that the finale of the 7th was like a bunch of yaks jumping about. Maybe he wanted to change them to gazelles.


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## hreichgott

clavichorder said:


> Ha! What was that like? Who wrote it?


Michael Gordon.
It was pretty much just a small excerpt of each theme, played over and over again with slightly different orchestration and slightly different numbers of added dissonant notes.

Fortunately he also writes music of his own.


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