# My Compositions



## Majed Al Shamsi

Hello,

Allow me to begin with a disclaimer. I am not advertising my compositions, mainly because they're awful. That's not me being extra humble, or a matter of taste. That's just a fact.

With that being said, I am new to composing. Every time I compose something, I am not very pleased with the end product.
I either feel like it's missing something, or I heard it from somewhere, and unintentionally stole some bits.

If you could all be so kind as to harshly criticise my compositions, tell me what they're missing, or if I'm doing it wrong, I would very much appreciate it.

Here's the link, and I hope I'm not breaking any forum rules by doing this...


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## Aramis

Welcome, Majed Al Shamsi, were the winds of desert severe on your way here? I must say that your art indeed would not win you many women from my harem, even those less educated maidens that came here as slaves from the south would see it's bitter faults that bite the ears, as if snakes crawling in hot sands... in first of them, there is most awkward rhythmic occurence in the right hand, did you truely write it in desolated garden, in peaceful shadow of date-palm, exactly as you have played it on your instrument?


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## Rhombic

B minor is a magnificent key. I absolutely love it.
Your pieces seem quite minimalistic, tonal and simple. Most of us started like that  . My first suggestion is that you listen to Stravinsky and Philip Glass, to get the atmosphere of what is being composed now or has been composed recently.
on't guide yourself by what the Wikipedia says. Instead, look yourself for what a key conveys to you. That way, you'll make the most out of it.

General tips on composition:
*Tip number one*: Never ever try to imitate another contemporary composer's style unless you perfectly know that you want to compose in that style. Never ever, ever, ever, ever try to imitate a composer of the 19th century or before. It gets nowhere, since if anyone wanted to play a Baroque-style fugue with nothing new to it, they may as well play Bach.

*Tip number two*: Look for a way to find your place in composition. Try to think about the way YOU understand music, whether it's like a mixture of colours, like many random sounds that are collocated, etc. If you have this pretty much clear, you'll get on a style that you will never regret, and your composition style will develop in a suitable and interesting way.


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## Majed Al Shamsi

Hi there, Aramis.
My camel is equipped with an air-conditioning system, and my four women would love me either way, or get stoned to death.
I joke, of course (Or do I?).
Thank you for the warm welcome.

You say the right hand has an awkward rhythmic occurence? I don't even know what that means. Could you perhaps elaborate? Tell me where I messed up?
I could show you the sheet music if that helps?

EDIT: I should also add that that's not me playing. I used a software called MuseScore, which allows you to write your own sheet music (or sh** music in my case) and then save them as .wav files.


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## Majed Al Shamsi

Thank you, Rhombic.
I shall always remember those tips, as they do ring true.


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## Guest

Here's a question that might help clarify things for you:

Why do you compose?


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## Majed Al Shamsi

To win over the women from Aramis's harem.
No. I would like to learn how to compose for many reasons. I'd like to move people and move myself. I'd like to create the music I love, which seems to be in shortage these days. And, not afraid to admit it, I would like to be praised and remembered for it.


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## Aramis

> You say the right hand has an awkward rhythmic occurence? I don't even know what that means.


It means it sounds "wrong", if we assume that you want to learn to write in tonal, traditional idiom of classical music. Otherwise it could pass.



some guy said:


> Here's a question that might help clarify things for you:
> 
> Why do you compose?


And another: what do you know about Fluxus?


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## mmsbls

I have merged two essentially identical threads from different forums here.


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## Majed Al Shamsi

Well, classical is what I had hoped for my compositions to sound, but they ended up sounding like background music from a Pokemon game. I guess I'll have to do some research on that.

As for Fluxus, I did some reading. Sounds interesting.
But I imagine one has to be good with composing music in both past and present styles to be able to bridge the gap, no?


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## Mahlerian

It's very difficult to tell whether or not, if you practiced and developed technique, you would be able to create interesting music. Everyone's first compositions are bad. In fact, they're usually terrible.

Problems that strike me from the beginning:
- Static-sounding harmony
- Lack of variation of register
- Melody consists mostly of repetitions and near repetitions.



Majed Al Shamsi said:


> Well, classical is what I had hoped for my compositions to sound, but they ended up sounding like background music from a Pokemon game. I guess I'll have to do some research on that.


Learn more about harmony and counterpoint. Study scores of composers you admire and try to learn from those who are respected though you may not personally understand why. And, just keep composing. You'll never improve if you don't practice.


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## aleazk

some guy said:


> Here's a question that might help clarify things for you:
> 
> Why do you compose?


That does not clarify nothing... and I think it's a useless question. I can't think of a more witty answer to that question as this one by Ligeti. ("I compose because I'm interested in doing the thing")

When you are starting composition, the worst thing you can do is to start thinking in this kind of general frameworks (e.g., why I compose?, what's music?, etc.). By now, the only important thing is that you want to compose. And it's completely natural if you don't know exactly why, those answers will come once you have more knowledge to articulate them. If you ask me why I study physics; to be honest, just because the thing always interested me. And in the way, I discovered a lot of things that I didn't know physics was about them, but now I would say they are the things that most interest me. 
My advice, Majed, is just keep studying, practicing, studying the scores of the great pieces, etc. There's no magic, just hard study; the only way to get to the place is by walking (not running!) the way through it.
Start with small pieces and small ideas, concentrate in the technical details. At this stage, the style is not very important (in fact, you must be able to compose something in the style of previous eras), just try to make pieces that work. Only after that you can start thinking at a more big scale (not necessarily in terms of orchestration, I mean in terms of compositional ideas and goals).


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## Matsps

Here's a very worthwhile tip that I saw someone who composes music for the BBC had on their website (I forget who now, it was years ago). Learn the music theory then forget it. It's definitely good advice.


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## Chordalrock

Rhombic said:


> Never ever, ever, ever, ever try to imitate a composer of the 19th century or before. It gets nowhere, since if anyone wanted to play a Baroque-style fugue with nothing new to it, they may as well play Bach.


I can see where you're coming from, but honestly I think so relatively little has been composed in the style of, say, late Beethoven that the competition is tougher if you composed modern music, the field of modern music is more crowded than the field of late Beethoven. There are like a billion modern composers composing in subtly different mixtures of functional harmony and atonality. There was only one Beethoven, and he didn't compose all *that* much.

So if you have the chops, why not try to discover (i.e. compose) a few more masterpieces in that style? Saying you don't want more such discoveries is simply saying you don't like late Beethoven.

It may also be educational to reflect on the attitudes of early Renaissance composers and audiences: they thought that if something was great, it was to be imitated. So, an opposite attitude to ours, as we tend to think if something is great, imitation of it is definitely to be avoided. But is our attitude really the more sensible one? I don't think it necessarily is.


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## Jfong

thats perhaps the most beautiful text I have ever read


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## PetrB

Chordalrock said:


> I can see where you're coming from, but honestly I think so relatively little has been composed in the style of, say, late Beethoven that the competition is tougher if you composed modern music, the field of modern music is more crowded than the field of late Beethoven. There are like a billion modern composers composing in subtly different mixtures of functional harmony and atonality. There was only one Beethoven, and he didn't compose all *that* much.
> 
> So if you have the chops, why not try to discover (i.e. compose) a few more masterpieces in that style? Saying you don't want more such discoveries is simply saying you don't like late Beethoven.
> 
> It may also be educational to reflect on the attitudes of early Renaissance composers and audiences: they thought that if something was great, it was to be imitated. So, an opposite attitude to ours, as we tend to think if something is great, imitation of it is definitely to be avoided. But is our attitude really the more sensible one? I don't think it necessarily is.


"So if you have the chops, why not try to discover (i.e. compose) a few more masterpieces in that style? *Saying you don't want more such discoveries is simply saying you don't like late Beethoven.*" Such utter nonsense and non-logic. We already have great late Beethoven. What your construct says, sub rosa and with a tremendous lack of hubris, is that what we have of late Beethoven is not enough and that someone 'with the chops' could do as good or better. If you have the chops, and are at all like Beethoven, you would not dream of writing a piece which sounds like another composer but yourself. Ergo, the whole 'if you have the chops you would,' scenario is more a notion from a dilettante or wannabe with more than a few delusions vs. an even slightly good beginning composer aware they want to make 'truly new pieces,' no matter how not like late Beethoven those might be.

Learn from past masters, imitate them to learn best how they made music work, then move on and do not imitate or try to replicate any of them. Fact -- you cannot be Beethoven, no matter how much you try, because it is too late to be a 19th century genius with all his native pscyhe, emotional span and outlook. _*Avoid cheap imitations and substitutions.*_

Study it all, then use what craftsmanship you've learned to make the best piece of music from you, not wearing an 18th century costume. You will not, believe me, transcend Beethoven or fully slip in to the ethos of the era enough to be remotely successful doing that.

In general life and as a composer, 
*"Be yourself; everyone else is already taken." *
~ Oscar Wilde


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## Chordalrock

That's a lot of words for saying you don't understand something.


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## PetrB

Chordalrock said:


> That's a lot of words for saying you don't understand something.


It is a lot of words saying, it seems, that you don't grasp / understand something.

Beethoven was anything but an imitator of anything, and never had a concern to "contribute more of the most profound late Mozart we missed out on." If you are going to try to 'be late Beethoven,' you would then not try and write "more late Mozart," as that would be contrary to his basic being.

There is not even a scrap of a sketch to show Beethoven was interested in writing 'more of the late great music by'... a composer who lived one hundred and ninety years ago, and he had many predecessors worthy of 'great' as he himself was great.

"You can't go back home again." Fact. Some people are deluded they can, also fact.

Your proposed scenario, if one had the chops to write more late Beethoven, is common to very young people who do not get, at all, that it is more a sophomoric premise for science fiction, a fun speculation, musically pedantic, and if such work(s) were successfully created, those works would be considered a "Clever Hoax," because that is all they could ever really be. *What they would not be is from Beethoven, i.e. the most important part is missing *


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