How do you compose?

I usually just improvise on the piano/"ghetto keyboard". I don't really turn whole improv sessions into free-form compositions, but when I get something I like, I'll start composing properly and elaborate on the idea. I usually don't settle on the instrumentation from the get-go and it often changes a lot. A piece I'm starting on started out as a piano improv and then turned into a orchestral piece, but now it's back as a piano. And the middle movement of that first orchestral piece might be turning into the first movement of a programmatic orchestral work. I don't really plan out in advance, but my compositions usually have form that I change around as I go. I'm going to start to try to plan more though. I rarely ever finish anything either... The only thing I've really finished is a couple of mediocre chorales for my music theory course.

Everything for me starts with the story and the lyric. If the music is gonna be good, it has to tell a story for me. It needs to take a journey. I generally start with a lyric or a lyrical idea, at least. I try not to let either the music or the lyric get too far ahead of me. Still, it's very rare that a song will start with a melodic idea. It does happen every now and then. A composer friend gave me a bit of advice once: don't be afraid to let the melody keep going where it wants to even if you don't have the lyrics to go with it. He then played a piece of a song he wrote that has an odd rhythm, which adds to the humor in the lyric and said, "If I were trying to set the lyric, I never would have written the music that way, but the music came first there."

Interestingly, I recently started writing an opening number for a friend's cabaret show and I wanted to give her a big, splashy, schmaltzy cabaret opening number, and it just wasn't coming. So, I decided to try the opposite and give her a really cute, small song with a fun concept that introduced the material better, and immediately an opening vamp came into my head. The words "Five minute call" on pitch followed and now I'm almost done sketching out the song.

Generally, however, I work from a lyrical place first, and let the tune move around in my head. I then have to write the words down so I don't forget them and sing the song to myself a lot so I don't forget the tune before I can sit down at the piano and write it all down. Since I'm really not a good piano player, it takes me a long time to write my music down, figure out arrangements, etc, but I think that's proved to be a benefit in a way, because I never get stuck in patterns for chords or accompaniment figures. I'm forced to sit down and figure out exactly what's right for the song rather than letting my muscle memory take over.

:sadtears:

Good News - YOU'VE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE. We'd love to help you out here, and we can recommend a few books and people to go to if you're really interested in Music! Welcome! :)

Bad News- you won't learn how to do this overnight. So if you suck at first (even Mozart did, calm down) don't get upset. YOu'll get better. :)

Actually, Mozart didn't. Everyone else did though!:D

Of course Mozart didn't suck early on. He wrote that one really famous piece...what's it called again?

Yes, Mozart did suck early on. His early symphonies (and in my opinion, all up to about 30) are not very good.

Learn the basics. Everything pointed to so far has a basic concept behind it.

Composing is a balance between structure and creativity. The more you have of the former, the more successful you will be with the latter.

Melody is just one approach. Harmony is another. You can also draw lines on a piece of staff paper and write in notes where the lines intersect with the staff (or not). You can roll dice and come up with pitch content for any of these. You can not worry about pitches at all and base your entire approach on the timbre of the instruments you use. You can approach composition through rhythm. You can create representations of pitches or harmonies as colors, emotions, or anything. You can do all of this and still fail at trying to create what is within you. Without the structure provided by the basic concepts of music, your creativity is meaningless.

Sooooo... learn about harmony, melody, counterpoint, rhythm, orchestration, and form at the beginning. Any technique you pick up along the way is gravy.

Of course Mozart didn't suck early on. He wrote that one really famous piece...what's it called again?

Yes, Mozart did suck early on. His early symphonies (and in my opinion, all up to about 30) are not very good.

:angry:

LOL its so interesting looking at the war between chodel and qmwne. =)

Anyways, even though I havent actually composed a good complete piece, i always start by having the melody, then add the bass, then fill in the gaps in the middle, i always find that the easist to do. If you dont have perfect pitch (im not gonna use the term absolute pitch because some ppl believe that ONLY mozart has absolute pitch, i dont wanna start a spaz war), maybe you should use music notation softwares on the computer, as they actually play the notes out for you to listen.

Im not sure if that helped you, cauz i dont make much sense.

Munkey

Yes, Mozart did suck early on. His early symphonies (and in my opinion, all up to about 30) are not very good.

Well, that certainly IS a matter of opinion, and you know what they say about opinions.

Considering Mozart was 9 years old when he wrote his first simphony, and 18 when he wrote his 30th - to say nothing of the fact that the symphony was in its infancy as a form at the time, and Mozart was one of the handful of people who made it what it later became - I'd say he did a pretty bang-up job by any measure.

But that's only my opinion. ;)

Anyway a bunch of them in the 20s are worth listening to. (Not even to mention the little gems #25 and #29, which are mature and beautiful symphonic statements, despite not being the Jupiter.)

LOL its so interesting looking at the war between chodel and qmwne. =)

Anyways, even though I havent actually composed a good complete piece, i always start by having the melody, then add the bass, then fill in the gaps in the middle, i always find that the easist to do. If you dont have perfect pitch (im not gonna use the term absolute pitch because some ppl believe that ONLY mozart has absolute pitch, i dont wanna start a spaz war), maybe you should use music notation softwares on the computer, as they actually play the notes out for you to listen.

Im not sure if that helped you, cauz i dont make much sense.

Munkey

i have a feeling you are talking about me. 0.o

*reads the above post and nods*

Well, I personally am not ask how to compose in general, but how do you personally go about writing a song? From the very VERY beginning to the final finished product?

Do you use sound recording, hum the tune and play it later? Do you just spontaneously start writing? Or do you just say "voila!" and there's your song?

I personally usually have some sort of idea, then sit at my computer and write the general notes in on one voice (here voice meaning an instrument.. not an actual voice) and then (about 9 measures later) go back adn write in the harmony, then go another 10 or so measure with melody, go back and write harmony. Although that might not be the best way to do it, because then my original idea goes off on a tangent and I can't even remember what I originally had in mind, sometimes I get lucky and it sounds good the whole way through :D

Sometimes though, I write it all out on paper, and eventually get home (usually I do the paper at school) and write it on my computer. This usually works.. to a point, but it might be a tone or two too high or too low.. but sometimes I get lucky and it sounds good the whole way thourgh :P

what about you?

There are multiple iterations of this topic already on the board.

yeah, i just noticed that XD sorry.. idk if mods can delete topics or not..

I do compose like this:

How Daniel composes

I put dots with lines coming out of them on paper with lines, and sometimes write some numbers or letters.

With a pencil and paper? Do you sketch it out, then create a clean copy on staff paper? Do you do all of your work at a computer with Finale or Sibelius? Perhaps a notebook? Do you find a deep cave and carve your pieces into the walls by torchlight?

I'm very curious. What is your poison?

Perhaps you could tell us where you typically sit down to write, or if you tend to wander. Do you just wait for inspiration to strike? I'd love to hear some in depth descriptions.

A bit of both, depends on the context of the piece I am writing.

If I am writing a piece with a narrative or mimicking a particular form I would write out an outline to keep my on track. Other times I might write it out with a pencil and paper is if I am not near my computer or if I have an idea that I not quite sure what the instrumentation would be.

But most of the time I work from my computer due to the fact that most of the time I am writing ideas that come to mind very fast as to not to forget them. The down side to doing that is that I have a lot of pieces that are incomplete or barely started due to not foreseeing an ending or even just another section.

As far as inspiration, everything can be inspiration for me and then some. However, the pieces I have written have been increasingly turning into work or school related pieces.

Well, I was hoping for a few more replies! Thanks for your insight, Plutokat. Any other takers?

I compose considering various steps. I say considering, because I often ignore, duplicate or otherwise alter my steps. These steps define and shape the end result, the main controlling aspects of which are laid out in the first, and only truly important step. After coaxing some suitably fertile fragments of something, I enter the first phase of composition:

Cerebral Contextualization

Essentially, thinking about it. Instantly the generalities of the piece are created. In this step are formed basic orchestration (nonet? jazz orchestra? string trio?) and the overall shape/form of the piece. More often than not, I'm writing with a pre-conceived ensemble in mind.

With consideration more specific details take shape. Melody, a solid form, soloists, and exact orchestration, etc.

I usually end up spending a lot of time in this stage - never omitting it, and often never getting past it. I Spend a week or two (or less, or a lot more) just thinking of the piece, playing it in my head almost constantly. Tweak it - fix it - scrap it. Iron out the kinks before setting pencil to paper.

I do need to poke a piano to get ideas and starting points. Any simple idea will do - bass line? chord(s)? Voicing? Texture? I take a basic concept and (in my head) build on it, trying and testing it out, until I'm happy with it.

THEN hit the piano with paper/pencil and figure it all out. The rest is easy, when I've already (basically) finished the 'composing' part of it.

That's the important step - everything else, exact voicings, backgrounds, physically writing the damn thing out, computer input, part extraction...it doesn't matter, unless I LIKE the thing - in my head.

Now, musically, the whole point of it all is a way of extracting music. In all my early writing I was forcing my music through the musicians. Now, I extract music from the musicians.

Profound, I know.

I'm finding a lot more freedom in both my playing and writing. More room for personal expression and individualism...which is EXACTLY what I want from anyone playing in my bands. I don't want a Coltrane clone, or someone who reads perfectly. I want creative individuals with distinct and interesting sounds and concepts. For my current projects, I need the musicians to bring TO the music, as much as I do.

ALSO, I want the players to extract from my music something unexpected as well - If they find something hidden/unintended in there, or have a 'different' concept for interpreting certain aspects of the music, so be it! Finding and capturing interaction/reaction is what I'm all about now.

OF COURSE, sometimes there's little open to interpretation and I may give very specific instructions - but it's working within these confines that make it interesting.

[revised from a previous post]

Completely depends on what i'm writing for, and what style of music.

Say, i've been doing alot of video game music lately so generally i'll sit down at the computer.

eg. I'll open up a picture/idea for the level/whatever, gather an idea of what the feel needs to be, then choose appropriate instruments from a digital sampling program (usually Reason). Then i'd probably actually determine the length and tempo before I actually start 'composing'. Then the 'composing' starts to happen. Maily it's just improv that develops into stronger ideas. Once I get these ideas I then make then more stable, and put them into different sections to seperate the piece.

Sometimes the whole thing is practically imrpovised, just based on a continuing chord progression.

When it comes to writing a song though, 99% of the time i'll just have a riff or something repetitive that I like, and build upon it. I can rarely write a whole song without lyrics, although I ahve done before. I can never write music to lyrics, music comes first for me, or at least at the same time. If the lyrics take on a melody, then the chords and the rest of the song can follow that aswell.

After i've got a basic idea of what I want the song to be (have most chords + lyrics) then i'll take it to the computer where i'll set up a drum groove and record the piano. Then i'll go through it and add other instruments that I want to (eg. guitar, strings) and then i'll program the drums to fit the song better. After that i'll go through it a billion times and fix all the small details up, usually putting of the rest of the lyrics and melod till the last thing.

Basically all of my writing comes straight from imrpovising though, i never notate anything.

;)

I write directly on Sibelius, then play it, and continue writing, ... sometimes I previously discover some material in the piano or just "got" and idea....

It's been years I don't write in paper...

(direclty on Sibelius or in FL Studio when creating electronic stuff)

Sibelius. Sometimes, I would scribble it on a piece of paper.

When out and about, I would sing a recording onto my cellphone and keep the idea until I get home.

I swear I've already responded to this exact question in another thread somewhere - this forum is getting huge.

Anyways, when I first started, I had a table set up behind my piano bench with my paper and ink there. I would improvise, get things in my head, figure out how I wanted it, then I would turn around and notate it right then and there as I played it. Measure by measure. Then when I found a notation program, I just used that to mix notes. Now, what I'm most likely to do is one of three things: start with improvisation, start in the software, or start with an idea.

When I start with an improvisation, I pretty much notate exactly how I played it. It will usually be a melody/theme, and accompaniment. With this melody, I try to figure out what form would be suitable for it. Minuet? March? Waltz? Binary? Ternary? Most of my stuff is in a ternary form with occasionally sonatical splinterings. Once I finish a section, I go back to the keyboard and figure out a second theme for a new section or whatever applies to the form I decided I should try. Often times I just add things together and let the form be whatever the result is.

When I start in the software, I usually begin with a group or ensemble. What do I want to write for? I come up with something idiomatic for the instruments I'm writing for, and I build on it. Basically the same way as before - beginning with some type of melodic idea, then figuring out what form I should put it in, what key would be suitable for it, ect.

When I start with an idea, I mean something programmatic. This usually begins with some good old humming to come up with themes, or playing with chords. I usually am starting with a mood here and finding a way to convey it, usually through choice of key, scale, and harmony. Instrumentation can be whatever I want, I usually play around with something unusual. Then I think about a plot line and I try and manipulate the theme section by section. I'm a very sectional composer, my sections are distinct and independent, even if I'm using the same theme. I rarely develop.

More often than not, most of my process consists of coming up with a melody, and matching chords to it, or coming up with chords/harmony patterns, and trying to lay a melody over top of it. I'm very simplistic and just tend to go where the composition takes me. It's more like I'm uncovering a composition than actually thinking up one and writing it.

Previously, I composed all my music excusively in Finale. However, I don't feel this works any longer because inspiration and the will to complete a project dissappears the second i sit down in front of the computer.

Now I always compose with a pencil and paper, in complete silence, prefferably with only a single light for illumination in an otherwise completely dark room. You'd be amazed at how easily inspiration and musical ideas pop into your head when you compose by hand.

I might already have sketches, but the sketches can be composed anywhere.

After the composition itself is complete I write it into Finale for editing and printing. If it's a really large orchestra I'm writing for I might orchestrate in Finale, only composing the short score by hand.

Composing by hand is the BEST!