I'm Wearing Music Socks

Help!!! I am fairly new to composing (pretty much started this summer) and I haven't really completed much of anything because this year got REALLY busy for me. Anywho, I have one string quartet that I've been able to work on since I've been on break, and even though I just *finished* the first movement (I plan on doing three), it's on 45 seconds!!! The problem is I begin to run out of ideas or I'm afraid I'll get too repetative. any suggestions would be great. Thanks! P.S. I also feel very uncreative rthymically. I feel like adding more rthyms would also help my short piece issue, but I'm still stuck.

Well, I agree and disagree with Nico. I do like his idea of writing sonatas before you go to concertos (my piano teacher actually gave me a Mozart sonata to work on before I tackled one of his concertos... I know, playing is different than writing, but same concept). However, I disagree with the fact that it has to be faster. It would certainly be a quick-fix way to making it more interesting, but I think it would be much more worthwile to instead work out quality details such as repetativeness. Although alberti bass is VERY appropriate for classical, I think the problem is that you repeat the theme too much instead of the alberti bass itself. When I took a beginning composition class, we had to write a piece entirely based on one motive in which our teacher told us to mix that motive up: put it in a different key, reverse the note order, change the rhthym with the same notes, etc. So basically this is a moment where I do agree with Nico in saying fancy it up. The last thing (that sort of relates to before) is that I felt like the piece got repetative in order to make it long enough to be a concerto. I tend to make my pieces shorter than they should be to avoid repetativeness at first, but really I should be taking my own advice because it is REALLY hard not to be repetative with classical, it's like a tick! I am at fault for writing too short and repetative, but I urge you to avoid being too long with repeating anyway. Nice job for your first time at grabbing classical! :) I'd like to hear more!

haha that was great! I actually improvised something that sounded similar to the first half of this, except mine was in a major key and I like yours better!! Anyway, if you were just showing off your great skills and good ideas, then kudos to you and thanks for sharing. BUT, if you actually want feedback to turn it into a piece, this is my two cents, which you probably already know anyway. There are great themes in here, so I guess now the next step would mean to move these ideas around, add or remove themes, and basically just edit it so that it goes from being a stream of thought to being an organized form of music. Your second part with the two pieces (chopsticks and I don't know the name of the other one) was very cute, but again, if you actually want to make a piece from the improvising, I suggest making that a different song, maybe called "Musical Embelishments"? lol. So if you want to do anything with it, that's my comment, but if it was just for the heck of it, I loved it and I'd love to hear more! :laugh:

yay!!! *claps joyfully* that was great! I love the alberti bass with the melody, and I definately love the video game idea. Thanks for putting a smile on my face! :laugh:

Very nice! I could really hear the story in this piece. A few thoughts.... You had me completely captivated until the sudden burst at i think 2:40 as wolf said. I'm not sure what that was, maybe the predator, but it seemed to divert me from the "story" you were telling. Afterwords, it was pretty, but I felt like that last theme was too long compared to the others, granted I can't say for sure which was which. Perhaps develop the predator idea more and a little less of the burial? All the ideas are fabulous and I'm really just being picky. I love this piece and the story behind it. Bravo! :laugh:

haha this piece was fun! really a celebration. I am also not sure if this comment will apply because this may be what you intended but... The motive you had throughout the piece, while catchy, got a little tiring. Considering this piece sounds popish or like a video game as someone else mentioned, this could be the intention. Perhaps try changing the key that theme is in or switching the rhythm a bit. Another thing I thought might work is to add more ideas behind the motive instead of just a steady beat to give more groove to it. Just small ideas. I thought it was very fun. I like it a lot!