Naming Compositions

So, I've been watching the various titles roll across all of the upload forums and I've been wondering this for a while now - How do you come up with the title for your compositions? I generally just give it an abstract title like Rondo for Orchestra, Fantasie for Piano, etc. But that's me. What do you do?

Since the majority of my pieces have text in them, the title is the title of the text - or sometimes is derived from the text. In the case of purely instrumental music, it's usually derived from a compositional technique used in the piece.

I listen to it and just think. Whatever the piece makes me think of the most is how I come up with a name. I usually use a thesaurus to best describe the thoughts in fewer or better sounding words

I'm odd I guess, I work from a title. So I don't need to name it afterwards. (Although there are times when I think I find a better title but still conveys the same meaning.)

If the composition is based on a text I'll use the title or a phrase from the text. When writing instrumental pieces I have to name them before I get too far in. I tend to write music that is originally about something extra-musical and the concept shapes my initial ideas as well as the title. If I were going to simply write a "Symphony No. 1" I'd have a very hard time figuring out what to write, but that's just me.

Simple. IDK. It just...happens.

As music listener, what I expect from a title is that it should prepare my understanding - without being too intrusive. Visual artists know this very well since many centuries, several paintings are incomprehensible without the title - I suspect that composers are not yet aware of the immense significance of a word connected to a work of art and how it can steer the imagination. Therefore, titles like "sonata" or "fugue" are correct if you deliberately don't want to say anything to the listener to leave him alone with the music. But in all other cases why not focus one's attention to its meaning with a couple of words?

I tend to call my performed pieces by what they are -- a 10-tet, a guitar piece, whatever. Electronic music either comes from the names of a soundfile, a specific sound in the piece, or just randomness.

I rarely have extra-musical ideas in mind when I begin a piece. If I'm reminded of something extra-musical in what I've written, I might try and implement whatever extra-musical theme I stumbled upon into the piece.

As music listener, what I expect from a title is that it should prepare my understanding - without being too intrusive. Visual artists know this very well since many centuries, several paintings are incomprehensible without the title - I suspect that composers are not yet aware of the immense significance of a word connected to a work of art and how it can steer the imagination. Therefore, titles like "sonata" or "fugue" are correct if you deliberately don't want to say anything to the listener to leave him alone with the music. But in all other cases why not focus one's attention to its meaning with a couple of words?

Personally, I sometimes actually do it the other way round: Creating a title in order to shift away from a specific, prominent aspect of the piece.

Because as helpful titles may be in, as you say, "steering the imagination", this can also be their greatest danger. A very intricate piece that contains many different aspects, all of which matter to you, may get reduced to just one simple thing, if it comes with a strong title, which immediately grasps the listener's imagination. Many composers (and visual artists, authors, etc.) have feared this aspect of titles, wanting their works to be readable from different perspectives, so in order for their works to retain -all- their aspects they have often given them rather technical titles or otherwise sought to weaken the influence of the title on the listener's impression. Look at Debussy's Préludes, for instance: He does give rather picturesque titles, but he only writes them at the end of the piece, not its beginning, in order not to give the listener a clear interpretation before the piece even starts.

Others have shunned titles altogether for that reason.

Personally, I think titles (or accompanying texts), with their power to suggest something beyond the music, can be very valuable aspects of a piece, but I'm very conscious of the dangers named above. That's why my titles almost never have a too directly obvious connection to what you hear in the music. I usually take some aspect(s) from the piece, try to describe it to me in abstract terms, then find some words that are connected to these abstractions of the piece, but maybe not directly to the first sonic impression you'd get from the piece. And sometimes, the aspects the titles focus on are aspects of the piece that aren't very evident to begin with. So instead of strengthening the already prominent aspects of the piece, I often even it out a bit by strengthening the less prominent aspects.

Sometimes, my titles even (seemingly) contain actual contradictions with what you hear in the music. I do this to put certain elements of my piece in question, maybe to confront them in an ironical sense. And sometimes, if you consider it a bit more, such a seemingly contradictory title suddenly fits again on a different level.

Almost all my electronic pieces for instance contain some (almost stereotypical) reference to nature, in the name of an animal. Yet, most people would probably never call these pieces "natural", as a first impression. They are often very harsh, mechanical, unhuman. But if you consider that a bit more, the association with nature fits again: The un-human, untended, difficult to control, somewhat dangerous and quasi autarkic aspect is what they share with nature - an "unhuman apparatus" therefore comes interestingly close to wild nature. This kind of connection to nature matters to me, but I don't expect people to "hear nature" when they listen to my pieces. They will hear entirely different aspects when listening, and the name of the piece will probably mostly remain a mystery. But it has a certain important connection with the piece and it might prompt some people to ask themselves certain questions.

Thinking of it, the more electronic and harsh my pieces get, the more poetic and flowery the titles usually are, and the more "melodious" my pieces are, the drier my titles get. Again, I'm doing this to balance out some aspects of those pieces which otherwise might lead to the false impression that the piece is just about the one particular thing mentioned in the title.

I usually come up with the name before I come up with the music. I kind of decide what for I want to write music for... but I mainly do music in game-movie genre, so it's not that difficult... you know... "the aftermath", "entrance in the tomb" "nights in the desert|... :)

Interesting responses. Thanks guys!

well I'd go back to the source of inspiration! Trivial e.g. walked in the jungles, saw an animal, composed a piece, named "tropical creature" :lol:

I name it to either fit or shape the impression of the music.

I name my compositions using all sorts of methods... For example, some allusion to a element of music theroy I used in the piece (Four is The New Three; quatral harmony) (Ode to Eight; octatonic scale) some abstract title; (Sonata in D) a simple descriptor of the kind of scene I wish to depict; (lakeside peaks) a combonation of the naming schemes I mentioned; (Insanity in 9-tet) Some sort of poetical allusion of the ideas I want to express in the piece... Actually, I haven't named anything using that yet, but I think it might be fitting for some of the longer works for orchestra I'm working on ATM.

I give it the name of what it is. Prelude, Fuga, Sonata, etc... I really hate titles like "rain in a distant universe", "where the moon lurks behind the shallow grass" or "my cat is poking her nose" are even "colliwogs cakewalk" for that matter. If you want to tell a story, write a story, otherwise, write music. I find descriptive titles a really distasteful leftover of the romantic era.

I love rants

I give it the name of what it is. Prelude, Fuga, Sonata, etc... I really hate titles like "rain in a distant universe", "where the moon lurks behind the shallow grass" or "my cat is poking her nose" are even "colliwogs cakewalk" for that matter. If you want to tell a story, write a story, otherwise, write music. I find descriptive titles a really distasteful leftover of the romantic era.

I love rants

The romantic era pwned. :happy:

Actually, all eras pwned\are pwning as we speak.

I give it the name of what it is. Prelude, Fuga, Sonata, etc... I really hate titles like "rain in a distant universe", "where the moon lurks behind the shallow grass" or "my cat is poking her nose" are even "colliwogs cakewalk" for that matter. If you want to tell a story, write a story, otherwise, write music. I find descriptive titles a really distasteful leftover of the romantic era.

I love rants

:lol:

I think appropriate titles are fine. But I agree, overly artsy titles can get pretty pretentious to the point of being gross.