When did you start composing?

Hey all,

Interesting thread! Its really intriguing to see the variety of different backgrounds people have. Most people seem to have started music from a young age and composing shortly after that. I myself played the violin at school, but very half-heartedly. I started played in year 3 (so I would have been 8 years old) because the school made it practically compulsory to learn a musical instrument. I played all the way up until year 10 and never got any better than grade 6 in Australian standards. I hardly ever practiced, was always late to my lessons, and never paid attention during rehearsals for the ensembles or orchestras I was in. Music at this stage just seemed to be one of those things that you *had* to do but never enjoyed - like P.E, or attending School Carnivals, or going to those awkward once every 3 year 1-hour long sex-ed classes at an all-boy school.....:o

It was then a seven year period after year 10 (when I quit the violin to focus on studies) that I was completely shut off from any classical music. I listened to my dad's old records from the 60's and 70's, I really liked funk music and Bob Marley, Elvis and Buddy Holly. After school ended (like most of the people I hung out with at the time) I listened to R'n'B, went clubbing with friends, and led a pretty plain existence. I still really enjoyed music though, as I really enjoyed dancing, singing in the shower, and listening to songs in my spare time - but it was done in a completely uncritical way - listening to music was never done analytically, trying to understand how it was made, or what instruments were used, or what its purpose was, or anything like that (arguably that kind of music does not inspire that kind of thought) - it was just like this mysterious cloud that would pass over my eyes, or some strange pleasurable malaise that would last for the duration of a song, or an evening out, but not something I cared for regularly, or cared to understand, just simply experience.

At the time however, I was not foriegn to the idea of composing and/or creating something. After studying poetry very closely in year 12 for my final exams I developed a taste for it and began writing shortly afterwards. I think this is a very important conceptual shift for an artist to experience. When one does not simply want to read, and understand, but one wants to personalize the experience, imitate the style and the medium, play with the ideas and develop new ones or the equivalent of 'witty' variations. When one takes this past-time up, they have, in a completely innocuous way, removed themselves from the experience of the generality of mankind and placed themselves within an entirely new society of people, whether they are living, dead, or imaginary. For me my creative 'birth' was with poetry, for others it may have been with music, or drawing, or some other kind. Either way, I think its arguable to say that most people, despite their differences in their faculties for genius and invention, start out by trying to imitate or play with ideas, and only afterwards feeling comfortable enough with the medium to try anything entirely on their own, or explore other modes of expression. But as this thread attests too, no two people's experience is the same....

In answer to Caltech's question. The experience which changed me, or I would rather say, brought a side of myself back, was the film Amadeus. I know it sounds terribly cliched but after that film I was profoundly affected. I felt that something was absent from my life - this entire world of classical music that I had neglected and abandoned. The familiarity of the music and the joy in it inspired me to listen to classical music. From that point onwards I began, in increments, exposing myself more to western classical music. I began listening to the radio, downloading music, searching the internet, and inevitably, finding this forum. That was just over a year ago, maybe 17 months. It was in early september last year that I posted my first composition on my blog, so that is when I began. I was 21 at the time.

When I first started out I was composing very regularly, as it was my main distraction - and I was trying out everything - from using free software I had found on the internet, to attempting to play the dormant piano in my house without any real idea of what I was doing, to recording little whistling tunes on my dictaphone just before I went to bed or when I felt the urge. Although a more complicated 'birth' than my poetic one, it was a birth nonetheless, and without incident, or realization, I had suddenly become a composer :blink:

I've now started, sketched, attempted, or completed approximately 178 different compositions. Most of them are still very basic and hardly music at all. I still have little idea of the formal features of the music and let my intuition guide me, but I am starting to understand the music more. Late last semester I decided to begin playing the violin again which was a very emotional turn-around for me. Earlier this semester I then joined the Orchestra about 2 months afterwards which was a similarly fearful and exciting turn-around. I am now actively participating in the Music Society at my university, have made attempts to form an acquaintence with the head of the music staff at the university, who is also a composer. I have borrowed out a handful of books on composition and music theory from the library, which I will be reading begin self-study with this coming summer. After I've got a better grasp of things, I will be attempting to write a three movement violin concerto towards the end of summer and probably over the course of the next year as well. My law degree ends at the end of next year, and afterwards I will most likely do a music degree in composition so that I can more formally approach this glorious art form.

So in my experience, although I've expressed it in a fairly long winded way, Composing has arisen quite literally out of nothing, in the most trivial of ways (i.e. watching a movie) I have had such a bizzare and wonderful turn of events which has altered my experience art and more important has completely changed the way I percieve and wish to live life itself! Well thats all from me - look forward to reading more from you all. All the best,

Regards

Pravin

P.S

Although it is implied in the substance of my answer, I would like to say it more explicitly. That the Young Composers Forum has been absolutely imperative in stimulating and encouraging my interest in composition. If it weren't for this website, the musical voice I feel growing within me would have become nothing more than the drunken, muffled crooning of a street vagabond. This website has allowed me to realize that there are others exactly like me who share this passion and that there is merit and joy in its indulgence. Thank you to this community! And viva the YCF!

I started around 7 or 8.

I compose because it is in my genes. I am designed to.

Began composing about two years ago. Haven't finished anything. At all. Way too lazy and unmotivated.

ive completed 54 songs, with only 4 completed.

How does that work, exactly?

Probably wrote small, poorly conceived compositions from age 6-8 or so. Although I studied theory and counterpoint in college, I didn't have any formal composition studies until age 23.

Well, i have only completed about 20 major works. Mostly chamber music.

"Only" 20? Still working on my 2nd major work, after 4 1/2 years.

I'm in good company. Borodin wrote barely 30 pieces - and only 8-10 major works, depending on what you count - in his lifetime.

A little over two years....all for a game soundtrack! And one song I wrote for my girlfriend at the time. XD

Its fun looking back at the first stuff I did and thinking "Heeeeey I'm actually not that bad now! ....In comparison anyway...."

i started to compose about 2 years ago. The first piece i wrote was "theme-variation-like" composition. It sounded horrible, the chords was out of place, a.s.o.. /(ok it sounded like car crash)

But after that the pieces started to sound better..( i try to compose when i have time)

;)

Borodin is not that popular. Neither is Mahler, sadly. They didn't write a lot. Mozart and Beethoven, however....

In europe Mahler is very popular, and as you know europe is the center of music..

Especially Mahlers symphonies..

;)

I began composing when I was 11-12 years old. I began with Noteworthy Composer, me and my cousin were writing music for a game we wanted to make (which I might add I am still working on, and it is looking amazing). I never took classes or anything, and I really was pretty horrible at it, I just tinkered around and was like...hey that sounds cool (it really didn't)

I then, one day, about 1-2 years ago, (I had been composing off and on) somehow got a gift...persay, I was able to write music on paper, without notation software of any kind, and get it to sound great, just wonderful, I knew what i wanted each instrument to do, and how the entire piece should play out. So during school, while I was bored, I would doodle out little sections of a song, that I would then take home and put into Finale (the software i have come to use now, after trying about every other one) and hearing it play out exactly how I wanted it to.

For only being 17, and in high school I feel that my compositions are of great quality. I am currently writing about 12 pieces of music for my game at the same time, off and on. These include the theme song, battle music, sad themes, victories, and ambient songs, as well as songs that have a horror feel to them.

I write my music very fast, though for some reason I don't seem to complete them :) But I do feel that they are good, well at least to me, which is why I came to find this site, I wanted to post my music in a place where other composers would be able to judge, since I am sorta biased :P

Anyway, I hope you like the compositions that I post and can give me constructive feedback on them :)

I'm not really sure if I've started composing yet, I've yet to finish a piece, and i work incredibly slowly due to lack of ideas and trying to get everything i possibly can out of each idea i do get.

I've been going for almost 5 years. Started in year 10, continued into Year 12 and got a real feel for it, got PrintMusic and used to, and still do, love writing all my thoughts down in crotchets and quavers.

When I had my second stream of piano lessons (I had had about 6 months of piano lessons when I was 6, but I stopped because I disliked the teacher - however, we had already bought the piano, so I enjoyed playing pieces by hearing them and trying to work them out - it took me ages, but I wasn't going to bother reading scores at the time), which is almost 4 years ago (Feb 2003). From February till June, I had already come up with an idea, and of course, I still wouldn't bother writing down my ideas, because "I can remember all of them, I'll write them down some time in the future" ( = I was too lazy). So, my first complete composition was in C minor (my favourite key even today) and when I played it to my teacher she said "oh, this sounds like Bach's Gavotte from his French Suites" and I was like "really?" because I didn't even know what the French suites was. So, she played some of it and it sounded JUST the same, only in major scale, and I was really pissed off, and I mean REALLY.

So, two years ago, I started studying at the IB, and I selected computer science course, because I wanted to study artificial intelligence or robotics (I am mad about this kind of stuff). However, two months later, I dropped by computer science course to take up music course. And it's the best choice I've made in YEARS ;) In class, we started analysing scores, listening to music (mostly modern music, which I disliked in the beginning, but thanks to our teacher who never listened to me and kept playing the modern pieces, I've gotten used to much more modern stuff, and Bartok sounds absolutely normal to me - although I still have problems assimilating some Penderecki and Xenakis, although I do admire them technically and stuff, but not aesthetically).

So, in August 2006 I officially started getting seriously into composition, and I ordered a few books, namely "The Study of Counterpoint" by J.J. Fux, "Guide to the study of harmony" by P.Y.Tchaikovsky, "The Study of Orchestration" by Samuel Adler and "Music Notation" by Gardner Read. I read the last one first, as I first wanted to learn how to notate properly. Then, I found out about finale, got it, read some of the others, bought a book or more from here, and started composing. I wrote 3 of my 4 pieces I have up to today from August till October 1st, as that was the deadline for submitting the scores at the conservatories I am interested in, and now I'm accepted at my first choice and am very happy about it. However, now, I'd consider these pieces "old" as my taste has developed a lot since my auditions back in December.

So, here I am! ;)

The conductor of the youth orchestra I'm in said if anyone wrote a piece they would play it...the rest is history.

I've been composing on and off for about 4 years...

But not that seriously till about 2 years ago...

I started composing last september. Im still no good at it. Yeah I know its a long process, but yeah. Damn cain, hurry up and learn how to do this. laters dudes.

I started four years ago, when I was ten, and my violin teacher asked me to write something (I can't even remember why). I did write it, it sounded good, and it took off from there. I've only really been getting momentum recently, because I had no teacher previously. I find that with every new composition, I advance one more step stylistically. Right now, it's a mix of tonality and atonality. Maybe it'll stay that way. I don't know.

I started when I was 18. Not very seriously. Later, in the beginning of my twenties, I got more serious and started dealing with theoretical subjects, with interest in them.

I started when I was 14 or so (it's been a while). My piano teacher asked all her students to write variations on "J'ai du bon tabac" (a French children's song). I ended up writing 5 instead of the one. That sort of got me hooked.

Then a few years later, in college (C.E.G.E.P. - it's between highschool and university for us), I had my first "formal" lessons in composition with a great avant-garde composer here in Montreal.

I only consider works written more or less in the past 10 years to actually be part of my catalogue, however, I've withdrawn pretty much anything older than that.

I started composing when I was 14. I know that I have progressed since then, because I recorded the first song I composed and it sounds terrible!

I must get one of those programs, PrintMusic, so I don't lose my songs. I compose by sitting at the piano, and I just start playing whatever sounds good, and when I 'm done, I play it agian so I can remember it. Then when I have time, I write it down. Does anybody here compose that way?

Started composing very early in my life... I mean way before ten. Never on score of course. There was a 90 minute tape that got lost... :whistling: then at 14 I got a YAMAHA PSR4600 and started doing certain things (these tapes, do exist), and then at 15 started writting my first scores... First scored piece a prelude for piano and flute, performed by a friend of mine and me...

Well it is more than 15 years that I've been composing...

Hm I've always composed since I can remember in one way or another. But I started doing it "properly" (i.e. serious piece of music as opposed to lighthearted doodles) probably the year after I finished college so what... 4-5 years ago now.

What got me first into it? Well my family is pretty musical and I've always had a passion for music. When I was little I'd often listen to music and think "oh I wish it went like this"... and one day I decided to write down what I thought of so I could play it on my trumpet. :P I literally wrote the note letters on a piece of funky coloured paper.

And my grandfather was a professional composer so that was encouraging, although unfortunately he died before I could ever learn from him (I was about 8). Although I do study his scores, but I get confused lol.

i started just a few months ago.

so i dont have as much experience and knowledge that alot

of people here do. im 14, and im strickly percussion. ive only written

1 serious piece on marimba. its a two mallet solo.

but i only have it on paper. i dont know how to get on the comp.

some one help with that?

im eager to learn.

tips???

:(

I started composing in Year 7, when I was 12 with some random stuff to fill in music class time. But I only really got serious about last year, (14 years old), actually working on stuff, showing it to people and improving it and performing it places.