# Average musical output?



## Kopachris

What is your average musical output? I understand that some days, you might get more work done than others, but about how much music can you write in a given amount of time on average, with no other work to get in the way? Or, to put it another way, about how long does it take you to "finish" a new piece?

Just to give me an idea.


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## Tomposer

For everyone, it varies. This is mostly because sometimes you're engaged in a sort of "learning" phase, while other times you're more into producing stuff - in other words, you're working all the while, but sometimes you seem to produce much less (although you've learned a lot). So for me, the key thing is finding X number of hours that you can consistently put in per week. At the moment it is all I do, so I average about 4-5 hours a day, and over the last year or so I've completed about 15 pieces that I'm happy with, and perhaps a hundred that I'm not finished or not satisfied with. At other times (when I was working full time and had really young kids), I could only average about an hour a day. The important thing is to have enough fire in your belly to want to work consistently - fill your average.

At the moment, it usually takes me about 2 weeks to finish an average piece; of course this varies, depending on numerous factors.


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## Klavierspieler

I am a very beginning composer so I take quite a long time to complete a piece. I also do not really have the time to work very much on my pieces. However, if sometimes I get some inspiration I can write a hundred bars in a day.


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## kv466

This varies so much from piece to piece even...it has literally written itself in a couple of weeks and it has dragged out for months and months...right now, I'm adding a lot of new tunes to my performance repertoire so that is taking all kinds of time to memorize lyrics and changes and so writing is almost at a standstill...the best is to be happy with what you do put out and do it at a pace that you feel comfortable with...really reminds me of how much I've been wanting to sit down at a piano, though, and just release thoughts and feelings...ahh, i love tc how coming on has inspired me


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## clavichorder

About 10 petite little nuggets of wannabe preclassical nothing in the past year and a half.


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## Krummhorn

kv466 said:


> . . . the best is to be happy with what you do put out and do it at a pace that you feel comfortable with...really reminds me of how much I've been wanting to sit down at a piano, though, and just release thoughts and feelings . . .


I do that constantly, but while seated at the pipe organ at the church where I'm employed ... called improvising ... I've done many improvisations over the years, most of which I've recorded, but the music still resides in my brain. Always had hope technology would invent a software application that could take a MP3 recording and convert it to manuscript - but alas, nothing like that exists, so scoring for pipe organ is a long long process, much like engraving an orchestral score.

Kh


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## Argus

It takes me anywhere between about 3 and maybe 12 hours at most to compose a piece of music (with pencil and paper). This is often spread out so it's about 1 or 2 pieces a week depending on how much time I put in. Sometimes I can have a piece lying around for a month while I do other things.



Krummhorn said:


> I do that constantly, but while seated at the pipe organ at the church where I'm employed ... called improvising ... I've done many improvisations over the years, most of which I've recorded, but the music still resides in my brain. Always had hope technology would invent a software application that could take a MP3 recording and convert it to manuscript - but alas, nothing like that exists, so scoring for pipe organ is a long long process, much like engraving an orchestral score.
> 
> Kh


I've got about 600 improvisations recorded as MP3s, but I'm not really bothered about turning them into compositions, I just think of them as finished pieces, maybe not as polished as written pieces, but still as a full stop. A chunk of of them are more exploratory because I use a lot of unusual tunings and concepts so I need to have a mess around in them before I feel like I know what I'm doing.


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## Kopachris

Argus said:


> It takes me anywhere between about 3 and maybe 12 hours at most to compose a piece of music (with pencil and paper). This is often spread out so it's about 1 or 2 pieces a week depending on how much time I put in. Sometimes I can have a piece lying around for a month while I do other things.


I'd say that's impossible, but knowing you, I believe it.


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## Argus

Kopachris said:


> I'd say that's impossible, but knowing you, I believe it.


Well, think about how much Telemann wrote, with all those streams of semiquavers to boot, then remember I'm a fan of minimalism. It should make sense then.

Also, my compositions are a lot more experimental than my improvisations. Almost totally different. Ying and yang.


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