Honing in on my "skill"

I can't really call it a skill since i have none :P

Anyway,

I just finished listening to JT's first movement of his symphony, and am getting ready to start the second right now. I must say Justing, bravo, seeing how you are only 3 years older than me (which relatively speaking is hardly anything) that is an amazing job done for someone that young.

Which now leads me to my question.

Listening to Justin's piece was a great inspiration for me, mostly because in his post he said he started his piece 3 years ago, which must mean he was about 16 (which is my age). My question is, why couldn't I be just as good as him, if not even better than he was at 16?

Since composing is something I want to do (and will do) for the rest of my life, I kind of feel that I should at least get some sort of head start, I mean, why wait for college for something Beethoven, Mozart, or even someone like Justing Tokke have been doing since they were my age, maybe even younger? Especially Mozart, all though he was a prodigy, I think that I could at least be as half as good as he was at twice his age :P

My question is, how can I hone in on my "skill?" What sort of books can I buy, and what are some things you older composers have stumbled and tried and failed on?

I've met a handful of established composers, such as Julie Giroux, Samuel Hazo, Frank Ticheli, and others. I've asked each one of them just about the same question, "what advice can you give to a young composer?" and "what's the best way to hone in on my skill?" and almost all of them haven't given much advice, except things I thought were pretty dumb at the time like "just don't give up" and "find a good publisher to publish your works" which really didn't tell me anything about how to get really good at composing, since obviously, weather you like band music or not, they are, in fact, pretty good at composing.

So I am asking you all, although not necessarily "great masters of composing" I still want to know a some sort of advice to get good at what I do, weather it be books I might want to get (which, by the way, I will be getting "Orchestration" soon by Samuel Adler i think his name was) or just things to keep in mind, anything would help me out. I just really love composing and after listening to a few or you alls works I just feel like I'm way behind the curve of a lot of other 16 year old composers.

Thanks for everything!

Mathieu

keep studying and keep writing. Study the works of the masters as well as theory from basic theory to advance theory.

I would also start out small as well, don't spend to much time on writing for the big orchestra, but instead start with the chamber works. I feel that it teaches you more and you are more likely to get it performed which in it self is a big learning experience.

First, it depends on how much theory you know. There's plenty of info out there, I don't know of any books offhand but there's metric tons of free info on the internet (as always, take internet info with a grain of salt).

After that it's a matter of deciding what music you want to write, which usually boils down to what pieces you absolutely LOVE and wish you had written, things like that. Armed with the tools of theory, get your hands on a copy of those scores of the pieces you love and deconstruct them. Figure out what harmonic movement characterizes the "sound" you're interested in creating. Look at instrumentation, or dissonance, or how melodies/motives are developed (and knowing how to do that is why you need at least a little theory background). Once you've deconstructed MORE THAN ONE COMPOSER'S works, try to write something that's like, those pieces "in your own words," if you want to think about it like that. Just write an entire piece, then go back and figure out which parts worked and which parts you hated.

Rinse, repeat until you feel you've a big enough bag of tricks to start from scratch and produce something original.

Sadly composing is a very personal art. There's no way I can say, "read this book, buy these three scores and do the following counterpoint exercises and you'll be all set to write your symphony!" because no one in the universe but you can really know what you want to write.

That's about the best advice I can give.

Hey! That's my name up there. Cool. :cool:

Mathieu, there's so much I could say on this topic, so I'm gonna try and not write a novel here.

First off, what you must know is composition cannot be learned. You can learn techniques of composition (which are outlined below), but the actual intuitive action of "this note works with that note" cannot be taught. Some people call this the "talent" factor in composition. It can only be enhanced by osmosis What this means is that you can only really learn about the act of composition through composing. There is no instruction manual on "How to Compose" which makes composition much more difficult than, say, learning an instrument. You must know techniques, yes, but you must use those techniques in a way that makes a piece of music. That decision making process cannot be learned by anyone except yourself. Sure, other people can suggest things, but if you follow exactly their instructions, it fails to become your piece. For a composition to truly be written by Mathieu, YOU must be the one to write it, not others.

This is where the issue of a composition teacher comes in. I've had two composition teachers and both had radically different methods for teaching, but they essentially taught me the same thing: know your techniques and the composition will grow out of it. The first teacher listened to the piece played by my MIDI playback on computer and suggested things like "you should cut out this section and it would flow better," or "if you still have to fill in the holes in a composition, perhaps you don't need the holes in the first place". The other just looked at my score and said things like "this violin triple stop would be very awkward," or "parallel 5ths!" or "I only suggest things. You can use them or not." That last one is what I mean when talking about composition not being taught. He cannot teach me composition, only can suggest things to do better in the future. If you are able, I would suggest getting a good composition teacher as soon as possible. He/She will act as a compositional mentor and will be invaluable to your success. However, if you sense that he/she is pushing their style on you and you don't like it, change teachers. There are plenty in the world for you to take. Even on YC, I'm sure there are many people that would be willing to teach you.

As for techniques you MUST know these to be successful:

Orchestration because, as a composer, you must know how and why the orchestral instruments work the way they do and what their best combinations are. Learning combinations is also an element that cannot be completely taught out of books. Rather, experience with orchestras will garner the best knowledge.

Counterpoint because, without counterpoint, your piece will sound like points in my symphony where there is one melody and a blocky harmonic texture. Traditional species counterpoint will also help you in voice leading explained below.

Harmony/Voice Leading because if you expand your harmonic language, your pieces will sound more interesting and will be more successful. Voice leading also plays into this. If you have great voice leading in your parts, then musicians will want to play more of your work and audiences will want to listen to more of it.

Score Study. This is the most open ended one because theres so much you can do with it. Studying from the masters is better knowledge than any textbook. Listen to multiple recordings of a piece and analyze what the composer did, how he did it, and especially why he did it. Sometimes the why isn't always apparent, but if you understand the what and how, the why should come easily.

Score Preparation. The MOST overlooked of all techniques for the composer. If your score looks like crap, the performer won't even bother. If your score looks amazing and professional, the performer will play your stuff again. It sounds like a small point, and most naive composers say, "but wat bout teh music?!? ZOMGLOL!". The music IS the score. If you have a well-made score, you will have a much greater chance of getting it played. Personally, it has always been a pet peeve of mine when a composer comes to me asking for advice and their score looks like poop. I say, "this staff is too far apart, this note spacing is wrong, your accidental spelling is wrong here" etc. But then they will brush it off and not get a performance. Being a composer, especially in todays technological world, is every bit as much of being a copyist and a composer. Learn the skills and you will succeed.

Woo! Thats a lot. I hope this is helpful to you Mathieu, and I wish you luck on your future endeavors as a composer! :thumbsup:

That's about the best advice I can give.

and probably some of the best advice I've ever received :D thanks so much. Armed with that and a few things Maelstrom and I discussed in the Shoutbox, along with Plutokat's words of wisdom I think I have a better sense of what to do.

See the thing was with me was I would just sit down and try to write something, fail at it, and try to write something else maybe two months later. Nobody really pointed my in the right direction because there isn't really anybody around qualified to do that :P but like I said armed with this knowledge I know how to spend the next few months in my compositional carreer. Thanks so much guys, and please, if anyone has anything else to say, please do so, it's VERY greatly appreciated.

Next few months?

Dude, you will likely being doing that for the rest of your life.

next few months as in gathering a few tricks before i try something totally on my own not based off of something.

Well, it makes sense in my mind what I mean :P

gottcha ;)

There's no Ultimate Tome of How to Compose.

Composing is just knowing what you want, why you want it, and how to make it happen.

yeah, it's the knowing how to make it happen part that I am asking guidance for :)

yeah, it's the knowing how to make it happen part that I am asking guidance for :)

Well...

Study scores of other composers that handle instruments, form, etc. very well. Composers such as Bartok, Beethoven, Shostakovich, etc.

Write for every instrument, after having studied it thoroughly, and have it performed.

Have everything you write performed.

I dunno what else anyone can do.

Justin, somehow I overlooked your post (and I can't figure out how, seeing how long it is) but I did take every word to heart and it was wonderful advice. I have mentioned getting a teacher to my parents before, and they sort of took it as "okay maybe in a few years" but now that I want to become more serious I think they need to be as well as far as taking what I need (teacher wise) seriously. Honestly, I've searched before and didn't find much as far as teachers, but I will look again.

Also, the composition club teacher, who is the professor of composition at UofL mentioned that I should get that Orchestration book, and, hopefully sometime soon I will (i need a job first :P)

However, mentioning this teacher I would like to add I'm not a fan on the way he teaches, he says I need to learn how to take criticism but his criticism is basically "your piece sucks although I still like it, and you need to change everything and start from scratch because it sucks" which I was never a fan of. In my opinion, criticism should be a little less... blunt :P

One last thing, call me ignorant but what exactly do you mean by voice leading? I didn't understand completely what you meant by it, I sort of assumed you meant which voice had the melody, and where it lead to in the context of the piece, however I'm not sure so I could be totally out in the weeds :P

but anyway, thanks again so much for your great advice, I want to start taking on greater endeavors, and that idea I had a long time ago about writing a great war, basically, for orchestra, I want to slowly become a reality. School is ending (woo 11 days left!) so I will have more time both at home and school to compose because basically at school all we're doing is preparing for final exams, and during final exams we will have 4 hours testing and ~4 hours not testing (watching movies) so that is an extra 4 hours a day for me to be getting slowly better :D (well, hopefully, at least)

thanks again!

However, mentioning this teacher I would like to add I'm not a fan on the way he teaches, he says I need to learn how to take criticism but his criticism is basically "your piece sucks although I still like it, and you need to change everything and start from scratch because it sucks" which I was never a fan of. In my opinion, criticism should be a little less... blunt :P

Yes indeed this is bad. He is injecting his own subjective opinion into your piece. A teacher should guide you, not write the piece for you.

One last thing, call me ignorant but what exactly do you mean by voice leading? I didn't understand completely what you meant by it, I sort of assumed you meant which voice had the melody, and where it lead to in the context of the piece, however I'm not sure so I could be totally out in the weeds :P

No, that's part of orchestration. Voice leading is basically how well each line flows and how different lines interact with each other well. You hear that old-addage of "no parallel fifths", that's voice leading, to ensure that no two lines have fifths in a row. A simple illustration:

A V7-I cadence in C major could be "voiced" in many ways. The first has very bad voice leading, the second, has very nice voice leading.

Hope that clarifies.

Again, good luck and I wish you well on your compositional endeavors!

I think one of the most effective ways of becoming a better composer is to become a better listener.

There is something intangible in creation of music that cannot be explained or learned, but is gained through love and dedication to music. I can't remember who said this but I will mention it anyway "If the artist stays true to his art the art will never fail to reward the artist".

Just something you should consider on your way...