BenB

Thanks, Tokkemon. I accept (in fact, understand implicitly) that it will be years before I can write really serious music, but the letter does give me an idea of how long to wait before I start composing little "exercise" pieces. Thank you again.

A year or two ago, I had some pieces on this site. Then I realized how embarrassingly bad they were and asked a moderator to delete them, although I don't think he did. The reason they were embarrassingly bad was because I knew nothing about form or harmony. My question to you all is this: how much theory should I know before I start composing? I've just begun work on Francoli's "Harmony in Context." Should I finish the book first before composing? Or should I go further, and read a book on form beforehand, too? I guess what I'm asking is, what are the basic tools needed for composing? Do I need to know all about ternary form and the niceties of harmonic function, or is writing part of the learning process? My eventual goal is to write big, barnstorming Romantic chamber music and lieder, but I think I should start small with minuets or something first. What does everyone recommend? I realize that you never stop learning, but when should I start writing?

Hellfire, from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Accept no substitutes.

I've accidentally recommended a piece for radio twice now. Is there any way to retract a recommendation? I was trying to click the score and I accidentally recommended the piece.

Okay, I don't think that all language is necessarily transposable. You can't necessarily translate English into a formal language like predicate logic, for example, but they're both still languages. Under a broad definition of language - one that includes, for example, formal languages like mathematics - music qualifies as a language. It has syntax and semantics, and that means it qualifies as a language. For the record, some English sentences can arguably be translated into music. If you wanted, could you not translate the sentence, "I'm sad," into music? Or any other emotional expression, for that matter?

I'm interested in this position. What makes you say that music isn't language? What are the differences?

I cannot write a structured piece of music. I can write a few good parts here and there, but it inevitably ends up as a jumbled mess of parts that don't really make sense together. Now, if I'm going to ask about structure, I can't just ask, "Hey, guys, how do I write structured pieces?" So I'm going to break my question down into a number of more pointed ones. First of all, there's the question of logic. How can I tell if one section of a piece follows "logically" from another? Is this just something I have to do by feel, or is there more to it than that? Intuitively, I think it's a matter of similarities. But even when I make sure that each part of my piece is similar to the last part in some way, it still doesn't sound structured! So what am I doing wrong? Is it better to try to learn large-scale "overall" structure first, or focus on structuring each part adequately, and then on joining them up? Are transitions fundamentally important to structure? What makes a good transition? Should a transition be different from its adjoining parts, or similar to each one in some way, or what? What are some good books on musical structure that can help me actually string together a coherent piece? Finally: how did you learn about structure? I know it takes "hard work," but that doesn't tell me anything. What kind of work does it take? Do you consciously try to improve your structure, or are there other elements of composition that one should work on first? Edit: On second thought, this might go better in the Advice and Technique subforum. Can a moderator move this?