Anyone have tips for writing larger movements?

Hi everyone, :)

I'm finding that I currently can only write short compositions, around 2-3 minutes, and anything over that begins to sort of lose the plot, if you know what I mean. So I was wondering if any of you have any tips for writing a longer movement to a piece, say 5-7 minutes, or even more perhaps.

Thanks!

Jackson

You're probably not using your material wisely. The material you have will stretch a long way granted you know how to keep it sounding interesting. Look at some of Beethovens works, he'll use the same cell often 30 to 40 times without pause. Try going in to some of your pieces and find ways that you can repeat a phrase but make it sound like it is more a continuation then an exact repeat. It's like writing in English class. You have your main statement, but then you have to flesh it out. Everything you write after that statement still somehow pertains to the topic, but in contrast to the topic.

Wow, I don't know if that helped or made you more confused.

Hard to help you without seeing a score.

What I suggest is find a traditional model to guide you - eg Sonata form, rondo form, fugue, passacaglia, variations. Don't worry too much about being "original" or 'perfection". Just get the form down. And don't worry if you find you are only a few seconds past 3 minutes on the first few tries.

One of the longest learning curves you'll experience as a composer is mastering longer forms and writing continuous music over 3 minutes that maintains interest. Even then, not many composers get very long forms (instrumental that is - no texts) mastered consistently as well as Beethoven and few others ( and when i say very long, I mean a continuous movement over 8 minutes and a multimovement work over 20).

Oh, another thought too is to look at Schnittke and some minimalist works after you have done several classical forms. These offer novel ways of writing long forms and maintaining interest throughout.

I can understand your problem very well. For quite a few years, I found myself completely unable to write anything longer than one or two minutes, often even not more than 20 seconds or so, because anything longer gave me the feeling of "losing control" over my piece, i.e. "not being able to consider everything in my head at once anymore". To some degree this still applies for me today, and I'm never totally sure about how well a piece works as a whole if it's a bit longer.

But I still found a way to personally deal with this problem: Working with predetermined models (even if you then proceed to break them). That's pretty much what composerorganist suggested too, but for me these models generally aren't traditional forms, but models I devise myself, theoretically. Both work however. I still can't "just write directly" a piece longer than half a minute and still have a good feeling about it, but if I take my time to actually plan out the structure of a piece before I begin writing, it works. And this process usually takes a long time for me, often much longer than the time I actually spend "writing notes". So just experiment with not starting to write right away, but first taking your time thinking about your piece more globally. Use established forms, if you wish, or something entirely your own, but take your time thinking of what matters for you in that piece and how to structure it in order to bring out whatever it is.

For me, the more I plan ahead, the more the piece "grows" and the more it will tend towards a longer piece, whereas the more "intuitively" I write, the shorter it usually gets.

But I know that these are entirely personal experiences, which may not apply to everyone. But the only way to find out what works for you to get what you want is trying out different ways of composing and seeing what you make out of it.

But finally: Don't think it's tragic if you only write short pieces. There's nothing wrong with writing short pieces. If you feel the need of writing something longer, fine, then try to find a way of doing so, but don't feel you "have" to write longer, just because it's "expected". If a piece is "finished" in the way you perceive it, there's really not much point in making it longer for the sake of it. You don't have to develop all your ideas ad nauseam; it's perfectly fine to let things "hang in the air" a bit.

Thanks for your replies so far, I've found them very helpful. I feel I can write a decent short piece and that there's nothing really wrong with that, it's just that when I listen to someone like Beethoven I'm struck with deep admiration of how he just keeps elaborating; long after most composers would have ended their piece he goes the extra mile, and I think that's what makes his music so special. His music is just so epic, and takes me to a whole other world, something which is really hard to do in only two or three minutes. Anyway, I think I'll try planning ahead a little more, I usually just start writing without giving too much thought to the structure until I'm a quarter of the way into it, perhaps that's my problem.

Thanks again,

Jackson

Sticktoitiveness is also always required.

Dominus - To a large extent you are correct, but in case of harmonic or rhythmic progressions you can write music that uses a similar pattern past 3 minutes. Hard to do though and not to everyone's taste.

An example of a pop/classical synthesis using minimalistic technique's is Brain Eno's Thursday Afternoons 9btw, he did audio for John Admas 70's works so he got to know minimalism well). For 60 minutes he repeats the same material but slowly manipulates the sound so certain aspects timbrally and dynamically stand out a little more or less than before. This piece's transformations are quite subtle and may not suit everyone's taste, nevertheless it is a case of a successful long form that utilizes probably about 1 minute of material over an hour.

Planning things out beforehand.

Done.

It's not quite that simple. Even when planning beforehand, it'll still take a few tries to get your brain in sync with the material to the point that you can develop it long enough. Planning ahead is probably the best "shortcut" you can take to help you, but you'll most likely discover that you'll hit plateaus. You'll work your way up to five minutes, maybe, and then be unable to get past ten. And then you'll be able to do ten, but be unable to do fifteen. It really just takes time and work.

Very common problem.

Problem? :)

Anyway, I think the piece you write tells you how long it should be... and of course the style. you know Reich's music? Music for 18 musicians?

but.. do you know the 2nd movement of Stravinsky's Firebird? 16 seconds..

If you can tell what you want in 3 minutes, don't write longer pieces, because it's not a required, to write more...

But if you want... I think it would be easier, if you would have your idea about structure before, and the 'ars poetica' you have (if you have) which should be contained by the piece, and then think about the notes. I can give you an own example if you want.

good luck