Pugly

Not really sure what kind of music this is. I started trying to make a Major key song, more popish. But I only make instrumental music, and the piece is 5mins long... a tad long for a Pop song I think. The instruments are: Bass Guitar, Piano, Elec. Piano, Synth sounds, drums. I played around with distortion effects for a synth part at times. I like the effect of extra distortion in an otherwise happy song. I might have used it too much though... Here's the soundclick page for the music.I'd like to know what anyone thinks about it...

I'm partial to minor, now that I understand how to work the melodic minor scale. I kind of was hitting a rut though, I was focusing too much on minor... when major is nice. It's hard for me to write major key music that doesn't sound super sweet and happy... probably should use some minor chords in the major key...

Hey, I started out very similar to you. I love video game music, and started playing around with a midi sequencer. Slowly learned more and more and bought new software and really am amazed at how far I've come. 1: I started learning music theory, I flipped around from instrument to instrument... and didn't really start with that as my base. I just read a bit about theory online, knew what a scale was... and how to form some chords and went with what I liked. You can start the same way, don't worry if you don't love what you first make, just keep at it. My first songs were completely terrible... :ermm: 2:I really don't know, I'm looking into this. I know it's possible to make great music just using a computer, it just takes a lot of money and time and skill to make it sound right. 3: I started with a free program called Jazz++, and just used the built in Windows midi sounds. I just made midi files. Which have a certain cheap charm about them. I now use Logic Express 7, I really like this program. There are tons of programs out there. It took just as much effort learning music theory as learning how to use these programs. 4:Can't really advise on this, I'm currently researching sound library's for myself. 5:Do you hear music in your head all day long? I don't really know what talent is in regards to music composition. Just make what you like, let others worry if you have talent. I like to look as music composition as a skill, and it improves with practice. The more you write the better you will get, no matter what your talent level is.

I posted here before, and decided I should get back into the fun. I'm in my 3rd semester of music theory classes, and I can't believe how much help it has been. The chord progression flow chart alone is gold. After writing this piece of misc, I'm thinking it could be used as an game intro... maybe. I just don't know how to classify it, but it's my favorite piece of music I've made. In terms of instruments, it has a rhythmically delayed bell, flute, bass guitar, piano, strings, bongo drums, drum kit, and a touch of "tribal" drums towards the end. Starts off fairly atonal, then goes into the key of c# minor, with a slight jaunt into the relative major. I titled it Back To Work You Fat Humps, but don't be put off... it's meaningless. Just a reference to my frame of mind. I wrote it this summer, when I wasn't able to find a job... :ermm: Sorry, no midi file. I wrote and produced it in Logic Express... and it's tweaked heavily for that software. Link to the music, hosted on SoundClick. Tell me what you think. Writing stuff like this makes me really want to compose music for a career...

For only 1-2 hours of writing this, it sounds pretty good. I didn't find it that repetitive. It really does work well as a victory song, or about to achieve victory song. And for games, at least the old ones where this song soungds like it fits, the songs shouldn't be too long either. So it works I think. This one seems a tad more focused than your other piece you put up. An Improvement I'd say. :(

As making battle themes is all the rage nowadays... here is mine. I actually made this a while ago, as a theme song for my friends when they play online games. I specifically made it in a style of a RPG battle song, Final Fantasy etc. It was actually my first attempt at copying a certain style. Though in the end it has my own sort of style to it. Which probably has to do with the instrumentation. I used the distorted guitar and bass guitar, standard battle music stuff. But then I have an accordion and a vibraphone. Plus drums, of course. I started with just the guitar and bass guitar parts, and added the main accordion bit. This stub of a song sat for a while. When I came back to the song I added the intro with the vibraphone, and the whole song then pieced together in my head. And the song nearly wrote it self. It was really fun making this song. Even though it went together easily, the song still took longer than any other song I've made. All told it took about 30 hours to put it all together. I've listened to it so many times though, I don't even know what it sounds like fresh anymore. I am probably listening to it with a slight bias... :happy: I need help to critique it. MP3 of the song Another link to the song Song__22.mid

This may be unconventional, I don't have any formal music training. But there are 3 things I can start with in making a song. 1: I try to write an interesting bass line. Just somethnig catchy and interesting. It doesn't have to be complex, usually it will just have the notes of a chord. Or it will move up and down the scales. Or it can even be one note repeated in an interesting rhythm. Once the bass line is down, and its good, a melody will just pop out. And once the melody pops out, its just a matter of making some interesting variations. And using some chords that go well with the meoldy and a song is made. 2: I sometimes start with the chords. I'll make an interesting chord progression, usually played with a unconventional rhythm. Then either the melody or bass line will come out from this after playing around. Then it follows the same process of starting with the bass line. 3: Start with the meoldy. This is actually pretty simple, I just start humming. Or singing doots, or whatever to get an nice melody in my head. Then its a matter of transfering what is in my head into some sort of musical notation. Once its there I can play around with it, add chords, a bass line then its all the same as the other steps. The key is being able to notate what is in my head. That took a while, but it comes with experience and practice. So thats basically what I do, I come up with a bass line, chords or a melody and then with the knowledge I have of music theory I can come up with the other parts of the song. Music theory doesn't tell me specifically what to add to the song, but it narrows the choices down to what will sound best. So I try something and see if it sounds nice, and then I try something else... and then I try more things untill it sounds like something I would actually want to listen to. I am in no way a well schooled proper composer though. I Just play around with a midi sequencer as a hobby.

All I have to work from is a self-taught knowledge of music theory. Which is pretty important but it always seems like I am missing something not being able to play anything. I dink around with some instruments, trying to get a sense of how they are played so when I use the instruments in the midi sequencer I can make it more realistic. But that doesn't seem to be enough. When I try using say a Piano to make a song, it always seems like I am limited by what is easy to play. I don't have enough of a sense of the instrument to make it play sounds that I want out of my head. But when I use the computer I know what intervals to use for the melody in my head. I know if I make a chord out of certain notes it is going to sound a certain way. Is there any point to learning an instrument any more? Am I limiting myself in any music I make by not being able to play an instrument? To an extent, computer software and the Piano Roll Notation is my instrument. Anyone else here not play an instrument? Or don't play one well?

Oh, I didn't know you had to register on that site. I uploaded it at putfile.com then, I don't think you have to sign in for this site. MP3 of the song.

This song isn't technically a sea shanty. But I wanted to make a song that had the feel of pirates or other seafaring folk getting together and playing a song. Perhaps in a video game, as a song for a pirates lair... perhaps not. I started with trying to make the song have a tad odd time signature. It has 3 bars of 3/4 then a bar of 4/4. And this repeats for the main part. The middle section has 3 bars of 7/4, then 2 bars of 4/4. I started with some inverted chords, to make a slightly off backing sound to the Melody. I messed around with the rhythm of most of the parts to make it slightly off, it's supposed to sound like a bunch of drunk pirates are playing. This was the most interesting song to make with midi, because there was a specific type of sound I was looking for. Not just to have an interesting melody. It was fun working with the odd time too. To make it sound like it should be in the song, and not just to have odd time to have odd time. (though that's sort of what I did, :) ) MP3 of the song. Sea_Shanty.mid

That's great. I like the main melody, it just works perfectly.

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, this song didn't really start out as a video game song. But I thought it could be as I was making it. It is a tad slow at parts for a video game. I like to keep my instrumentation simple, no more than 3-5 parts. Perhaps some drums are in order for this song, to keep it from sounding so barren.

The main theme sounds like a Zelda song, or at least parts that sound like it. Which is a good thing. I have an eerily similar sounding flute part in a song I've made. Though the rest of the song and style are pretty different. I'll post that one. The accompaniment to the main theme sounds good. The theme could use some variation though, maybe another part to go along with the main theme, or change up the main part unexpectedly someplace. Good work though :)

This song I made I picture being used as a villian's theme in a video game or something. I especially imagine it working when the villian is first introduced. It has piano, trumpet, and a low midi brass sound. I started with just the piano up untill the 1:48. Then I added the next section playing around with the trumpet and the low midi brass and liked it, so I expanded the rest of the song with that instrumentation. It took me a while to expand it, I was fairly content with just the piano. But I knew the song could have more to it, but I didn't want to ruin the simple dourness of just the piano. Though, with just the piano the song wasn't finished. It just sort of stopped. I have a real problem making endings to these songs, but this songs ending is probably one of my better ends. The theme starts simply, almost too simply, but slowly builds. The end has the basic theme expanded, but much darker. I made this song in Sonar Home Studio, I'd say took me a couple of weeks to get the main piano part. Then the song sat for a while, and I added the trumpet/brass part in another week. Out of all the songs I've made it has the greatest sense of Felling for me. The mp3 of the song Don't be too harsh on this amateur production :P . Nah, I can take it. :( Song_Starter__26_Darkness.mid