Mortrazel

I may suggest you Earmaster, a software. Do a little search on web about it. Other suggestions of mine would be learning how to sight-read and sing, solfege, as said. It would be great if you find accompaniment. But in addition to that, don't rely on strict, or let's say scale based solfege. Sing in tri-chords, tetra-chords and pentatonic scales, and improvise. Don't use accompaniment with that, though. Sing for 3-4 measures and stop. Then play the last note you sang on piano, to check if you are out of tune. Singing Bach chorales are really educating too. If you decide to sing chorales, on the other hand, first, sing for yourself, then sing it with a record of it. Then, with the record, swap the parts you are reading, say, if you are reading the bass part swap to the tenor part suddenly. And when you sing it, think about and hear all the parts. Finally, I'm not that against thinking about the music you know to recall notes and intervals. But I think it brings more burden. It forces you to first remember the song, not the note and that is not freedom. (We learn colors with objects first, like apple is red or green, but do we really have to? We imagine the colors almost instantly when we think about one, and we don't need to imagine about the apple first. We remember colors much more faster because we encounter them and exchange information with them way more than sounds. Try to recall notes like that.) You may want to press notes at will on piano, first only the white keys, then you may add some black keys too. Press them and name them right after hearing them. Do it everyday for 10 minutes and after one month, you'll get the hang of it. I hope it was informative.

Hi folks. I'm working on SATB harmonisation through Challan harmony. I have almost no problem about 'rules' (i don't like calling them as rules, but you get it). Also, when I feel the melody I write it instantly and other parts are written easy as melody. But at some points, I get stuck so hard, I almost wait in front of the page for 20 minutes or more. First of all, here is what I usually do briefly: Ring the given part. Imagine the cadences and modulations. Write the soprano if bass given (and vice versa) until the first phrase ends. Harmonise the A and T to the end of first phrase. Now, if my soprano (or bass) is satisfactory, i do the rest easily. But sometimes, this is the part I'm suffering, I say 'yeah my soprano seems satisfactory', and I do the harmonisation but just before the end of phrase, or two measures before, I find myself in a situation in which I have to make an harmonisation error in order to continue. Then I check what I did in the previous measures, and they look great so I don't want to change the melody, but there is got to be a mistake back there (in spite of parts written without an error). Sometimes the error seems incredibly inevitable, it forces me to erase all the measures i wrote. And you know how frustrating that is... At this point, I think new points of view might be very useful for me. I'll be thankful if you share your experiences. Cheers.

I don't have any experience about these keyboards. Recently I decided to buy one for sake of fast notation. I don't need fancy features but keys should be durable and have a quality sensitivity. I found one, it's ESI KeyControl 49+ it seems suitable (http://www.esi-audio.com/products/keycontrol49+/), yet I haven't try it. I use sibelius and ewqlso so it should be proper with them. What can you suggest? Thanks.

My favorite is Pluto, for now. Though, competing with Mercury :)

Those are delightful pieces, I enjoyed them. But, since you are to give them an extra characteristic I think each of them needs to be more individual. Also, names like planets are very biased subjects -listeners tend to compare and evaluate pieces with their prethoughts about each planet. Thus creating a new question. Are you going to use this bias, or avoid it and give them a new identity. Say, Jupiter is 'king' of all planets. So naturally, the first expectation is glory and majesty. But, Jupiter can be a king with power but without any true friends and lonely. Or maybe, Jupiter is not a king at all but a big fat boy? But, In terms of mere music they are very creative. As I said, I really enjoyed them. And also, style of pieces reflects the space; it urged me to think about it. Great work.

Thanks to Dr. Stefan Koelsch and SSC! This really is a sound source about psychophysical effects of music.

It's the difference between numbers and maths. When sound starts to turn into music, it starts to patternise itself by brain. The relationship among those patterns are perceived by a human ear and recognised by brain. These patterns can be explained rationally, but without the explanation of psychophisiological effects of these patterns, it's half-explained. When the psychophysical effects come in, only a sound may 'feel' like music. Think about enormous fields of grass and you hear only one note. Hundreds maybe thousands of people playing only one note with trumpets or trombones. The first ten seconds are really 'musical' but then it slowly turns into something 'boring'. The thing is, it attracts you for a period. Of course, if you keep adding certain rhythm, maybe drums and cymbals, it's really a music now, even if it's really primitive. And the rational part is as all we know, harmony. Maybe, music is a balance of how you make people pump chemicals and how you make people see the patterns. Patterns are everywhere folks!

To examine the different aspects of studying composition as major, I'd like to mention about the least adequate environment first. Whether if you have aptitude for music or have fundamental or advanced knowledge of music, you need to make your living. That may sound like I'm a capitalist oppresor, yet my statement is considered true. You need to provide yourself time, and optimum money in order to be mentally and physically 'ready' to compose in this time you provided. Now that you have these two provided, let's consider about what you may do in your time. There are several possibilities which are: -Choosing composition as major -Studying something else at uni, and studying composition on your own or with a tutor. -Studying composition on your own without going to any school. Third option looks unlikely (yet possible), however first two are quite possible. Now to talk about uni, this may help you to see what you can get 'from' school. Think about school as a place that gives you atmosphere of what you are studying, and inspiration. Atmosphere will make you feel connected and you 'belong' to a part of academia. You'll eventually become more adapted to the jargon, thus you'll be motivated by any means. And inspiration will provide you a pill of experience (by teachers)- not making you learn faster but giving you eagerness to delve into more. Having these two essentials not enough until you have the spark that starts reaction, which is a basic knowledge. Does it mean you can't find atmosphere and inspiration unless you go to school? No, that's wrong. Sure you can find these two, no need to mention knowledge. But! You'll never find educational experience which will make you rocket jump from where you are (schools guarantee they contain tutors, not all tutors guarantee they contain educational experience). You are going to have to find anything on your 'own'. This is really a gamble. I took this path and found rare tools (in exchange of ruined time) which vastly helps me now, in terms of self-studying, however, if you are willing to study composition, it is absolutely wise to combine your eagerness with an experienced tutor's guidance. This, again, doesn't mean you can't make on your own. But again, seeing where you are, where you go and how to get there, revising and correcting your mistakes quickly, embodying your targets, helps you more than you imagine. I figured 3 conditions (rather milestones) for myself about how to be a composer. Maybe it'll help you too. A composer needs to: - be diligent to build a sound foundation about any subject in music, and passionate to keep up building. - see the fine line where rationality meets and departs emotions, and grasp their individual meaning. - be adventurous and valiant to show your works. Everyone will eventually find theirselves studying on their own, but it's about how to get there. I hope I helped you a bit.