Bloody Difficult to write GOOD MUSIC

[Spatula]

If you guys ever tried to write even a decent prelude or study for piano, it's bloody hard to come up with something original, stylish, yet in the classical era...and not sounding like Britney Spear's latest .... fashion.

Any of you find this insanely tedious and hard...trying to find what harmony or counterpoint works best or what interval to use...and what key to write all this crap in???  

I use that finale software...but it's not all that great in my mind.

[monk]

Yeah, man, right. You have to PRACTICE composing!

If you're quite a beginner, you don't lament "It's so f*cking difficult to play Chopin Etude No. blabla", but you know that you still have a long way to go with hours of practicing.

And now you see that it's the same with composing! So, get a competent teacher (or good books at least) and compose daily, just like practicing piano daily. The great composers of the past did that also! Being able to compose is nothing that comes out of the blue.

Unfortunately, since the advent of pop music, every little 2-bar idea that is repeated over and over is regarded as "composition". Because of that many people think they're entitled to be "composers" when in fact they aren't and just faking around with their tiny little ideas.

Best Wishes,
Monk

[liszmaninopin]

I've always wanted to compose, but I also find it becomes very difficult when I actually sit down with pencil and paper to write something.  Can you recommend any particularly good books that would aid in composition?

[klavierkonzerte]

well if it was easy bach & beethoven wouldn't be that great

[Daevren]

Listen to music, study the greats and learn all the music theory you can.

Also, practice composing. If you learn something new, try to write something using that new technique. Force yourself to write something, its the only way to learn it. Improvise in your instrument, try to come up with melodies, sing and play the improvised melodies at the same time. Learn techniques how to create variations on melody, in your themes, find out way to recycle themes/phrases and use them later in your composition, learn how to enrich harmony, learn about form, the I-V-I poleralisation. Learn modulations, learn how to use non-diatonic notes and chords, learn about prolongation, learn cadences, learn about the instruments you are writing for, maybe learn orchestration, make sure you learn the language of tonal harmony, try to think creatively, experiment, try to reach the goals and accomplish the musical effects you have in mind.

You see, lots to learn. And different ways to learn. You can read a boring book, you can study your favorite works and really steal from them, you can just try and reinvent or even invent some techniques yourself. Of course you need to use all three of these ways to learn.

BTW, I use my computer to write music, works really well.

[DarkWind]

First of all, learn how to invert a chord, learn it's dominant and subdominant, and we already have a place to begin with. If you already know those things, skip it. Now, most composition begins with improvisation. Sit down at your piano for a while, and just start playing whatever comes to your head. If you have some inspiration, it works well too. Anyways, with your basic knowledge of harmony from the last thing, try to come up with something. Write it down if you like it. Continue  the process. Eventually, you will have a whole piece. The only real way to perfect composing is practicing and practicing. You'll start off with some really simple stuff. Then, it will start getting complex, complex, until when you look at the first piece you composed, and the ones you have now, you can just stand in awe and admire yourself. Anyways, for theory, I'd recommend some Walter Piston books.



Also, check out my new piece! It's a toccata! (sorry for the shameless plug )
https://www.sibeliusmusic.com/cgi-bin/show_score.pl?scoreid=57537

[Spatula]

I've done 2 courses of fundimental theory and a beginner course on harmony which was bloody tedious and boring to say the least....

maybe if I look at those books again...

[Daevren]

So you learned to apply what you learned?

If you have problems with knowing what notes to use, what key you are in and how to have a nice counterpoint line the only way to solve this is to learn more about scales, keys, chords, intervals and counterpoint.

You can learn it from boring books, courses or teachers.
You can also do it the hard way. Reinvent 'the rules' yourself. But thats going to take you years and years. It wouldn't make sense, and it would still be boring.

Personally I can't understand what is so boring about it. Its only boring when you have to do several super-easy exersizes. But reading about advanced harmony always fascinates me. I can't imagine being interested in music but not in music theory.

[Spatula]

Again in these books the structure of the music they had in mind..or the era I should say was during Bach's time or earlier.  No octaves, no fifths, you ALWAYS had to end with a V- I or VI - I plagal cadence.

If you were spiffy, or if you wanted to get that "gold", then do V - VII - I dominant 7th cadence, but to me it didn't sound like "real" music...like its not that obvious in more advanced or popular pieces, even though it is a basis for a lot of how pieces end, just not exactly in that fashion.

[janice]

OMG--I remember those days of having to take Harmony in college (years and years ago! lol)  It was hilarious, because the instructor was around 100 years old (probably not, but he acted like it!) and he was super sarcastic, and he would say the strangest things!!  lol  A classmate of mine would write down all of his strange phrases, and at the end of the year he printed them out (I'm so old that we had typewriters back then! lol) and passed out copies to all the music majors! lol  I guess that you had to be there!

[Spatula]

Jan! Say some of the quotes...i wanna hear i wanna hear...

[Daevren]

Again in these books the structure of the music they had in mind..or the era I should say was during Bach's time or earlier.  No octaves, no fifths, you ALWAYS had to end with a V- I or VI - I plagal cadence.

If you were spiffy, or if you wanted to get that "gold", then do V - VII - I dominant 7th cadence, but to me it didn't sound like "real" music...like its not that obvious in more advanced or popular pieces, even though it is a basis for a lot of how pieces end, just not exactly in that fashion.

So? Those are not rules to follow. They just tell you how you can accomplish things. The most important think is understanding why they work. Get the big picture, not only the rules themselves, but the thoughts behind them.

A way of learning this is doing all those boring exersizes. They give you a sense of tonality.

Its just knowing what to write to get the effect you want.

And saying that music with IV-I, V(7)-I and V-vii-I isn't real music... what is real music then? Indian music? People always tell me that isn't real music.

I don't know what you mean, you obviously can't mean what you just said, all tonal great masterworks have these progressions. You mean your own music doesn't sound 'real'? Maybe so, but obviously not because of the use of common cadences, almost all western music uses the V-I, it all sounds different and 'real'.
Or do you mean the exersizes you had to do in harmony lesson? Well duh, those aren't called exersizes for nothing.

And if you want music without plain V-I and IV-I cadences then that is very well possible. I know at least 5 totally different ways for creating music without plain V-I and IV-I's. ( I can't say I can actually use them, but I know them)

I don't really understand the real problem. I guess you don't really get it yourself. Think about it, then revoice the problem.

[liszmaninopin]

Have any of you ever found any really helpful books about composing?

[Sketchee]

I don't like to try to write something "original".  I just write and let my taste influence my decisions.  Sometimes I look at a piece and think "I want to write something like that!"  If I try to, I always come up with other ideas or end up going in a different direction anyway.  Worrying about being original would probably make me feel less open to learning from the ideas that other composers have used.  That's just me though.  

It's like if one painter used the color blue, others shouldn't be afraid to do the color blue.  If one artist does a landscape, that wouldn't stop others from doing landscapes.  I think it would be a lot harder to try to write music that someone would really mistake as Chopin. You'd have to really know about Chopin to do that or just completely rip off one or two of his pieces.  When Ravel did pieces he intended to be in the styles of Chabrier, Borodin, Baroque or Classical ... they still all sound like Ravel.

I don't know if I've ever sat down at the piano or at a composer software and felt something I wrote sounded like Britney Spears though either without trying to sound like pop.

It still takes a lot of practice.  Look back at the great composers.  Their work evolves through out their career.  They learn too. There's a lot of ideas in music theory.  Try to read about them.  So it doesn't get boring: try to look at pieces you're familiar with and see how those concepts are applied!  It is boring to think of it as learning how to solve a math problem.  It's kind of thrilling just to learn one thing about music theory and start seeing it everywhere.

Shameless Plug! https://music.sketchee.com/

[Sketchee]

Oh and someone did say style is self plagarism. Don't be too afraid to reuse and reinvent your own old ideas.

[Daevren]

The 'original' Sketchee is talking about is the wrong kind of 'original'. You must imitate the masters, you must take their ideas and reshape them. You can't do something totally new if you don't first learn to 'steal' ideas and use them for yourself.

You are an unique person, an unique soul, spirit. Any music YOU create will be original. It doesn't matter if you stole the idea or got the inspiration from something.

If you are a good composer you must have to ability to write a baroque style fugue, a classical sonata, a romantic prelude, etc.

You will learn things, you will learn about the same 12 notes. So it is useful, even if you write jazz, Britney Spears songs, or Xenakis-style music.

And people still want to hear contemporary composers compose baroque, classical, romantic etc. If its good then its good.

[bernhard]

Have any of you ever found any really helpful books about composing?

Yes. Try:

William Russo – “Composing Music – A New Approach”. (University of  Chicago Press).

Excellent organisation of the material and the exercises are very good.

“Composing is easy. All you have to do is to think of a tune no one has thought of before.” (Robert Schumann).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Egghead]

“Composing is easy. All you have to do is to think of a tune no one has thought of before.” (Robert Schumann).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

Define "tune", please.  

[Daevren]

William Russo is mainly a jazz guy btw.

His huge book on jazz, jazz composition and orchestration, is one of the books that is on my wish list. I think he is a good writer, based on what I have heard.

Schoenberg also has a book on composing itself. I think the english translation/version is called 'Fundamentals of Musical Composition'. It is put together by Strang and Stein.

[bernhard]

Define "tune", please.  

I will ask Robert in the next seance.

[bernhard]

William Russo is mainly a jazz guy btw.

That is interesting. I didn't know that, and I would not have guessed it from his composition book. It is certainly not jazz biased.

It does refer to popular music, but I would say that this is a basic book that can be useful to classical, jazz and popular musicians. It is really a primer for people who would like to compose but have no idea how to start. An yet it is a very complete and thorough book. From it you could follow on to more advanced references.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Sketchee]

The 'original' Sketchee is talking about is the wrong kind of 'original'. You must imitate the masters, you must take their ideas and reshape them. You can't do something totally new if you don't first learn to 'steal' ideas and use them for yourself.

That's exactly what I said.  You can be original trying to just be original.  Understanding and using ideas other composers used help make someone original.

[Daevren]

Thats why I put 'original' in quotes, just like you did

I also had to reread my post to be sure I wasn't disagreeing with you.

[thomas_williams]

I have just recently started studying composition formally with a reputable teacher in my area.  In the past I have worked at composition on my own.  (I have even used the William Russo book referred to above.)  For me, improvising can be an effective means of coming up with ideas, which I write down and use to develop a piece.  For example, my composition teacher gave me a theme on which to write a piece for a young composer's competition.  I tried doing various things with it at the piano.  When I came up with something I liked, I jotted down some notes to help me remember it and then wrote my first draft down away from the piano.  I am still working on my piece but have the majority of the composition in place.

Getting back to the title of this thread, I do often find it difficult to compose a good piece, particularly away from the piano.  As the saying goes, "Practice, practice, practice!"

[liszmaninopin]

Those few times I've tried to compose, it ends up sounding like a rather amateurish cross between Ligeti, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninoff.

Thanks for your book suggestions!  I think I'll try to get a copy of one.

[Spatula]

Mine keeps sounding like a mix of Beethoven's "sonata no 14 3rd movement" and some new age techno thing (don't ask) and some liszt added to the side because of the rhythm...

For some reason the chord are just inversions of each other and nothing musical really comes out.  I want to keep switching to different chords but it sounds aweful.

I'm using finale notepad...the free one.

HELP ME! well I don't know what or howmuch you can help.