action9000

I would argue that you do have a good reason to be adding to the excess: To realize your visions.

I think that says a lot right there. Part of what makes art "art" is its ability to reach out and touch others...and touch each audience member a slightly different, personal way. I'd like to take that concept and run with it with my music. Perhaps I just need a larger audience (such as posting here) rather than direct monetary compensation (which I really feel would take the joy out of it). :)

That relates closely to my first point, "What does the music consumer want that they can't already get from an existing composer?" Thank you for your insight. It is probably safe to say that I, as a composer, have no right to question the value that my audience sees in my, or anyone else's, music. That is for the audience to decide, not the composer. If they see something interesting and valuable, so be it and I'm happy if somebody does indeed find value in my work. I can stand 100% behind that! Also I can't deny, I enjoy that I don't have any friends or family who compose music. I feel special in a silly kind of way. :P Totally agreed! I have a few time-consuming hobbies, composing being one of them. Also on the list are programming/game design/web design as well as board game design/building. unless I'm too tired to work on something, I'd much rather be involved in one of those projects than mindlessly watch TV as well. That's brilliant, I'll need to remember that! I haven't written much in a notation program in years because they produce rather poor results when working with MIDI-based music, but I can always export from FL Studio and make adjustments in Noteworthy Composer. ------------------------------ I think for me, the problem is that I derive a significant amount of enjoyment by the *result* of my work, rather than the work itself. Composing, at the moment of working, can and does get a bit tedious, but I'm always to happy when something awesome comes of it that it makes the efforts worthwhile. Looking forward to success and getting excited when I discover something great in what I'm working on is a huge drive for me. When I was younger, that used to be enough to keep me going. Now, as I get older, I suppose I see more purpose and reason behind what I do. Whether this is good or bad is up for debate, but I think the kid part of me was on to something! I suppose what I'm trying to figure out is, why can't I accept the fact that this enjoyment I mentioned in the last paragraph as "reward enough"? Why am I seeking some mysterious happiness from composing that I didn't used to? I think it comes down to the fact that I've noticed significant improvement in the quality of my work over the years. As quality has improved, my desire to see it do something concrete for me, almost like I feel like I'm "useful now", has also grown. As for what defines "useful"? That is what I'm trying to figure out. haha

This topic is probably the main reason I joined this forum. I don't mean this topic to be cynical or otherwise condescending in any way. It is intended to be a discussion on a few points related to the purpose behind your musical work. What do you intend on doing with it once it's written? Consider: 1) There is more music...and more GOOD music available to the masses than anyone will have time to listen to, even if they stick to the genres of their choice. What does the music consumer want that they can't already get from an existing composer? 2) Many composers who try to sell music probably take business and well-being away from another composer by "cannibalizing" their sales, due to limited demand (compared to supply). Like many of you, I'm sure, I have not sold any of my musical work in any format (other than one lunch from one of my music teachers :P). Am I likely to do so? I don't know. If I'm not likely to sell my work, what do I intend to do with it? What do you intend to do with your work? Is your work going into a portfolio to help you get into a music program or land a job in the industry? Who will listen to it? Just you? Family and friends? A few people here on YC? Maybe a handful on YouTube or SoundCloud? Is that enough motivation to drive you? Do you ever feel like all your hard work just doesn't get very far? Do you want it to extend further but is the market just too saturated? Do you hate promoting yourself and is that stopping you from spreading your word further? --------------------- I've often struggled with motivation when it comes to composing. I feel like I want my work to have a purpose other than the enjoyment of composing, the satisfaction of listening to a finished piece and the comments from friends and family. It's a good start but it's not good enough to stick with it long-term for me. I can't stand business and marketing. I'm thinking of building a website for myself, but I haven't found the motivation to start working on it. I don't quite know what I want from composing music. I like being known as a composer to my family and friends, but...Part of me feels like, almost a "Now what?" once a piece is completed. It doesn't do anything after that. It just exists. It feels rather anticlimactic. On those same lines, will I post my music here? I'm not sure yet? A big part of me thinks "why would I?" A small part of me wants to get my music more known, but another part of me feels it's just not any more satisfying than having just my immediate friends and family exposed to it. I want more out of my music but I don't quite know what.

If you're serious about hearing a lot of your compositions performed by something other than beeps and boops of GM-MIDI-level sound, a VST library may be your best option. An orchestra will charge you per composition. A VST library will last you as long as you want it to, for as many compositions as you want it to perform. A good orchestral VST-capable computer with SSDs will probably run you ~$2000-$2500 or so. Decent VSTs can range you from basically $500 (For EWQL Symphonic Orchestra Platinum) upwards to ~$2000 (The Hollywood series in Diamond Editions on sale). Is $3000 - $5000 for a lot of years of hearing your compositions played back as much as possible worth it or is paying by the performance worth it? That depends what you want out of the experience. EWQL Symphonic Orchestra has pretty easy demands on a computer. ~120 GB of hard drive storage, 16 GB of RAM and any i5 will be plenty. You could even get away with 8 GBs of RAM if you needed to. You can build that for under $1000. The Hollywood Series will force you into the high-end i7 (like a 6-core - 12 hyperthreaded - 4930k or something similar), multiple SSD and 64 GB of RAM territory. Now we're getting closer to a $3000 computer.

Ugh, .wav files? That's messy. Other than loading them up one by one, you either have to make them into a soundfont using something like Vienna Soundfont Studio or somehow make them into a VST library if you feel like coding .DLL files. :P I don't know of a "make a sound library out of .wav file" program other than soundfont studios. Basically, raw .wav files suck. This is why pro-level libraries don't do that - The raw sounds are packaged into coherent files that can be read by a sampler such as Kontakt or PLAY. .wav files need a engine that you code yourself (make the next Kontakt!) or need to be worked with manually. -Been an FL Studio user since 2005.

Search the internet for TGSF22.sf2 It's my soundfont of choice when using good ol' MIDI stuff. It's around 55 MB I believe...It's a REALLY old one I've kept backups since the late 1990s and my Noteworthy Composer days but I think it sounds better and more useable than the largest 500MB soundfonts laying randomly around the internet these days which don't sound any good in 90% of MIDIs. If you can find JLTrumpet.sf2 to replace the crappy trumpet sound to go along with it, you'll be on your way. PM me if you'd like me to drop you a link to download these soundfonts. I'm not on my home computer right now but I can grab em when I get home.

That begs a question: What is it about contemporary work isn't "as good" as Mozart/Beethoven/etc.? What is the measuring stick that people are using to determine that the "greats" were better than composers today, in order to make claims that composers don't live up to "classical standards"?

I never modify a work that is more than 2-3 years old for the reasons mentioned above. Pieces within that era that are genuinely unfinished do indeed have a possibility of being finished. There is actually one that I started working on in 2012 which I'm really liking. I just haven't sat down and *really* figured out how to progress past the first 1:15 of it, into the second main section of the piece. I love it and I want to finish it, as I consider it one of my better works so far. It just became a lower and lower priority over time...I need to fix that ;)

Alright, let's see! 1) Write more music! 2) Improve my ability to figure out what the next part of my piece of music "should" be. I've put so many pieces on hold because I complete a section to a high level of quality. I'll sometimes have no idea how to continue that level of quality for the remainder of a piece while remaining tight and coherent. So often, I try to continue a piece, the new section doesn't flow or fit quite right, I"ll toss it and try again..repeat for a couple of days...then walk away, intending to come back to it later. I rarely actually do. 3) Figure out a way to better explain the type of music that I like to right. Oftentimes the best description I can come up with is "soundtrack, minus the soundtrack part since it's not written to accompany anything". A lot of my music is written to "accompany" or otherwise expand on a simple concept or "story" in my mind, which has no presence anywhere else. The listener doesn't need to know the origin of this idea or anything about it in order to understand the music, as the music is written to be listened to on its own. The music tends to take on the life and style of some soundtrack-style music, especially video game soundtracks. This concept really confuses people in my experience, and people usually just describe it as whatever genre is most closely resembles to them: If it has orchestral instruments, they'll call it "classical", etc. Even though my music sounds nothing like the music of the Great composers of the past. It's not intending to. I'm not that kind of composer.

A more modern choir library, which would likely be a significant improvement over Symphonic Choirs, is soundiron's Olympus Choir (Mercury, venus and mars). They're a fair bit more expensive than Symphonic Choir ($550 for Venus + Mars (male + female)) and a bit more again for Mercury (boys) but it is a larger data set and more high-tech than Symphonic Choirs. Sorry if it's a bit late now. I just joined this forum! :musicwhistle: