Fusiox

From what I am reading, it is unanimous belief that composition classes are not just worth the cost, but an essential part of most successful composers' musical journeys. (It brings back what a teacher once told me: "Only when you learn the rules can you start breaking them." It looks like in the art of composition, this applies greatly--like Siwi said, greater knowledge facilitates greater individual expression, not lesser [Thanks, Siwi!] ) Well, I've been convinced. It's time to make some calls and get a private tutor--at least until I get to university and take a serious class. My heartfelt thanks for the awesome assistance and insight you have provided for me! I really do appreciate it!

Hello there! I'm very new to this forum, so I apologize in advance if I've posted in the wrong spot. I'm currently in my senior high-school year. Composing is something I love doing, enough that my band teacher suggested I look for composition classes outside of school, possibly from the local university. If you're lucky, the composing faculty of a university or college will be available for private lessons and you can hire them as such. However, is it really worth the cost and the hassle? On one end, I feel that having goals set for me by another person other than myself will motivate me to compose more often, and compose better, too; having a stronger grasp of compositional theory never hurts, either, and the teacher could help me build the much-needed portfolio for when I move on to university. (One of the most prolific (though not necessarily the absolute best) game-score composers out there, Jeremy Soule, took private lessons in composition all the way from middle school, and I've always been impressed at how quickly he can churn out some quite enjoyable orchestral pieces--that fact was what got me interested in taking private lessons in the first place.) However, I've also heard that the best thing for a composer of my limited age and experience to do is to simply keep composing on my own, and develop a unique style that isn't influenced by a teacher. Some people have also said that "taking a class" is an uncomfortable step and ruins the creative process for them--that's a somewhat unsettling idea. There's been plenty of stories pertaining composers who never took any formal classes, and yet still managed to make beautiful music and a successful living off their art. Since it's going to be at least a year before I qualify to join a university composition class (assuming I even make it in), is it worth it for me to look and pay for a private compositional tutor to fill the gap? Or is it in my best interest to teach myself? Thank you for reading!

This is my first post, and I am very excited in the fact that a community like YoungComposers even exists. It's a great morale booster, and I'm glad to have found it! I am a very young composer ("very" meaning "little-to-no-experience-whatsoever") and am looking for some input on good starter software choices for someone like myself. (Please skip to the bottom at this point if you want to avoid a long rant about myself and my ideas--look for a sentence with three asterixes [***] and read whatever's below it. I tend to ramble a bit, and I apologize in advance. :P ) My "musical niches," or areas-of-interest, all hover around symphonic/orchestral composition, along with some electronic thrown in when suitable (nothing heavy like dubstep or dance/trance, though). I have already done quite a few personal compositions via piano; at this point I want to make the jump and start orchestrating for more than one instrument and experiment with the symphony as a musical medium. I've had very-rudimentary classical training (up to Grade 4 piano) but most of my musical expertise comes from personal experience and contemplation. I have looked at a couple of software packages: FL Studio: it was definitely fun to try, intuitive, and very affordable, but its emphasis on loop-based music (often seen in dance or electronic music) clashed with my focus on more dynamic, non-rigid composition. Cubase: It looked amazing from what I could see (especially that "VST Expression 2" function, where you could add expressions and switch VST-instruments without having to use a MIDI controller!), but the fact that I had to buy a key-unlocker stick in order to try a free demo meant that I didn't take the time to actually run through it. As well, its $500 price tag made me--and my bank account--wince in budget-induced pain. (In other words, I will if I can, but I don't know if I should get this program. Neat rhyming scheme, huh? :toothygrin: ) Ableton Live: I don't really know what to say about Ableton, as the little information I could glean about what it was actually designed for seemed to lean towards live performances and recordings (as the name suggests). I do not intend to perform virtual orchestrations live, so I'm not sure what I think about Ableton; however, at the same time, I'm wary to automatically pass it off as a failure since I know so little about it. Finale & Sibelius: I know there is heated debate over which of these two is the better one, but for the sake of this post I included them in the same bullet since they achieve similar goals. In any case, they were great little notation programs, but in regards to playback (which I consider more important at this point, since I don't sell sheet music), I could clearly see that other programs were much easier to handle and provided great results. I may take a look at them later, if I have more money to burn. ***If you took my advice to skip, the next sentence is my entire post condensed in one sentence. C'est la vie. More to the point, what would you seasoned composers recommend, software-wise, for a novice composer with a tight budget (around $300, with room to maneuver)? Thanks for taking the time to read through the post (if you did), but if you skipped, that's perfectly fine too. I'm very excited to take part in what looks like a very exciting world of composers--so long as I can survive the first steps. But that remains to be seen, and thus, I won't fret over it :thumbsup: Have a great day! --Fusiox