General Composing Advice Needed

I have a general knowledge of music theory. I know about scales , harmony, chord progression to some degree. I don't have an academic background but I'm a self-taught amateur musician.

My question is, if I wanted to compose a small piece of music with flute(as I'm a flute player myself)as leading instrument and acoustic(or classical) guitar, bass guitar, drums and with occasional adding of piano/keyboard, how am I going to mix all of them nicely? :

1. Suppose I created a melody first(that's how I usually go, can't start with chords and make a melody out of them yet) and then built my chord progression.

2. Suppose perfected the melody and chord by listening to them together and agreed on vertical and horizontal harmony.

3. How am I going to distribute these melody notes and chord notes to the OTHER instruments? Am I supposed to give the lowest chord note to bass guitar and third of the triad to let's say to guitar and fifth of the triad to piano?

or is it just a kind of trial and error which perhaps yield to a distribution unevenly among instrument. I don't want my piece to be a complex music as I will not be able to do it anyhow.

All I want is a good combination of guitar, bass and drums playing a background music whereas flute is leading with melody.

If what I'm talking about here is "arranging" then could somebody direct me to a good site or a book about this?

Thank you.

Well, I'd say that the melody on the flute, (remember the low ones have very weak sound)

Do you play guitar ? if not, use only common chords that everyone know.

The guitar will play the bass note sometimes but make the Bass play it always.

I would remove the "occassional" thing in the piano, I say you have to desice if you want it or not.

The drums are usually left to the drummer, ... just write more or less how it suppose he shoud play his part.

Use an Amply for the guitar or the drums will spoil it all.

Write you melody on your flute, something you can play, then chose chords to sustain your notes and write the bassline in the bass, you can write small variations between guitar and bass, like this progression:

Guitar: Dm, Dm, Dm, Gm, Bb, CM , Dm

Bass: D,--- C,-- Bb,--G,---Bb,--A,-- D

You can use a synthesizeer/keyboard instead piano, playing some strings and you just copy the same chord from the guitar, ... a keyboard playing string won't demand you a very extact construction like the piano part, and that will enhance the entire piece, ...

thank you.

Would you kindly examine this piece of music I've written for flute basing on a traditional Turkish song and tell me if it fits the pattern you described?

If the frame is ok I may go with adding synth as you suggested.

Ayrılık.pdf

Well the 10/8 technically is equal to 5/4 but I think you should use 5/4 unless a very clear aspect (which I didn't find) demands the 10/8 ...

98% of guitar players will kinda hate having to read that guitar part, ... if you don't play guitar, i stronly suggest you to use chord diagrams only, if you have a close friend who plays guitar give him the part to look it (and you also check how easy/difficult is to him to read the score)

don't feel bad, Guitar remains as one of the most difficult instruments to write for, not being a guitar player

there's a problem with the bass:

Electric Bass Guitar and Contrabasses (arco or pizz) is always written in transposition, all notes sound 1 8va lower than written, so, if your bass part taken as that, some lower notes are impossible,

Common Basses have this range (in written notes):

(sorry the pic size, that was the first I found)

! notes sound 1 8va lower

Higher notes are possible but most of the times are just not needed.

Lower notes are possible in these manners:

Moving down the 4th string tuning (which I DON'T recommend)

(in Contrabasses) having and extencion, (some orchestral player have those)

(in Elec Bass and contrabass) Using a 5 (or 6) strings Bass (the best option).

5 strings basses decend down to the B natural (belog that E you see on the pic)

Contrabasses extencions decend to C only.

the bass part must be changed, any bassist will reject it instantly.

----

Before suggesting you more thing about instrumentation, I want to know, is that piece written for people you know, to be performed soon, if not you can use different instruments, replacing the guitar and 2nd flute.

If you have yourplayers ready with those 2 flutes+guitar+bass ok, go ahead.

ok (i started to read the score) I think 10/8 or 5/4 is defenitely not suitable for you to begin, chose 4/4 and write a common melody, I found that one confusing in structure and the dialog you'll send to the listener will be unclear. if you really want to write something is larger that 4/4, well change the time in that bar only, but have 4/4 as main tempo.

The Guitar + Bass part can be easily merged into a piano part (if you wanted to call for a piano)

ok, think about it, meditate a liitle and if you want to experiment but you like this piece the way it is, ok leave that way and start a new project bassed on thing you have learned... Good luck.

Thank you, I've been studying what you wrote and learned a great deal already.

Those notes and time signature I took from a book which was written for Baglama(an instrument roughly similar to Banjo) so I kept the time signature but re-arranged the notes according to flute which basically putting staccatos and articulation etc.

Btw, I can only play flute -and to some limited degree- keyboard. No guitar. And top of all, there's nobody around to play the parts I write. I just have to go with notation now and ask to kind persons like you to find out how would it sound or be played. (How would it sound is somehow ok because I have a PC with Sibelius, Sonar 8.5 Kontak Native Instruments plus Roland Juno-g entry-level workstation. )

I use Sibelius for all these notations. Sometimes I let the software to do the chord part and then go over and alter according to my taste and sometimes I do the chord part from scratch basing on common chord progression diagrams. I particularly love the sound of acoustic and classical guitar that's why it's always in my mind. Besides I believe flute-guitar make a very nice tonal combination and form a pleasant harmony. I'd prefer guitar to piano when I intend to use with flute.

I didn't quite follow the things about the bass part but I'm scrutinizing it.

The one I'm sending you now has 4/4, it's famous La Cinquantaine. What I did here was to leave the piano part out completely(from the original MIDI), re-arranged flute part with again staccatos and articulations.

I let the drum part is written by Sibelius 6. But I did guitar and bass parts myself by following my basic knowledge of music.

1.How does it sound, harmony-wise?

2. Is any more instruments "necessary", you think?

3. What else can be done to "enrich" the sound, I know it sounds dull a little bit.

Thank you very much for your time.

La cinquantaine.pdf

La cinquantaine.mid

Thank you, I've been studying what you wrote and learned a great deal already.

Those notes and time signature I took from a book which was written for Baglama(an instrument roughly similar to Banjo) so I kept the time signature but re-arranged the notes according to flute which basically putting staccatos and articulation etc.

Btw, I can only play flute -and to some limited degree- keyboard. No guitar. And top of all, there's nobody around to play the parts I write. I just have to go with notation now and ask to kind persons like you to find out how would it sound or be played. (How would it sound is somehow ok because I have a PC with Sibelius, Sonar 8.5 Kontak Native Instruments plus Roland Juno-g entry-level workstation. )

I use Sibelius for all these notations. Sometimes I let the software to do the chord part and then go over and alter according to my taste and sometimes I do the chord part from scratch basing on common chord progression diagrams. I particularly love the sound of acoustic and classical guitar that's why it's always in my mind. Besides I believe flute-guitar make a very nice tonal combination and form a pleasant harmony. I'd prefer guitar to piano when I intend to use with flute.

I didn't quite follow the things about the bass part but I'm scrutinizing it.

The one I'm sending you now has 4/4, it's famous La Cinquantaine. What I did here was to leave the piano part out completely(from the original MIDI), re-arranged flute part with again staccatos and articulations.

I let the drum part is written by Sibelius 6. But I did guitar and bass parts myself by following my basic knowledge of music.

1.How does it sound, harmony-wise?

2. Is any more instruments "necessary", you think?

3. What else can be done to "enrich" the sound, I know it sounds dull a little bit.

Thank you very much for your time.

One recommendation, in regards to writing for guitar, is to find yourself a Tablature paper. Most guitarists, if not all, know how to read those. The key to writing with tablature, though, is to actually think of the fingerings as you write the fret numbers on the paper. This helps really get the idea of the guitar itself.

From your original post, you made it clear that you want the guitar/bass/drums to all be accompaniemental to the flute. This last arrangement of yours the flute is anything but solo - in fact, you have it doubled with the guitar most of the time.

Flute along with this type of ensemble is quite common (think 1960s rock - and you have that combination appearing a LOT). What you should do is take that guitar part and work it to where it accentuates not the flute part BUT the accompaniement material!

>What you should do is take that guitar part and work it to where it accentuates not the flute part BUT the accompaniement material!

You mean guitar should play completely different thing yet in harmonic structure of the chord by being consistent with the main melody (with even maybe few accidental notes here and there to make it sound more interesting)

Did I understand right?

thank you by the way.

I think the shortest way to fix this is to change the guitar part to a 2nd flute like in other, and the guitar play the chords written with diagrams, so it would be:

Flute I (you current flute part)

Flute II (the guitar part)

Guitar (Playing chords only)

Bass

Drums

(I tried to add guitar chord diagrams intead "Dm" but the sibelius showed me just weird stuff... but with time you can create you own chords)

I think I want to keep guitar and flute this way. I changed the way you suggested and listened in Sibelius and didn't like it. But, I'll add a second guitar, a nylon guitar possibly that'll do a counterpart or something like that to make the piece more interesting.

sure, but remember computer plays it all, and leving person sometimes don't ...

I see you like the guitar... Sibelius 6 comes with a guitar fletboard (maybe you're already using it) use it to Think as a Guitar Player while writting the guitar part, and you can use 2 staves for each guitar part, 1 in staff and one in tablature, so your guitar player may fell more comfortable.

I do that each time I have created an score with guitar, because I honestly don't read the tablature, so I use staff for me (and to cearly see the notes) but I add the tablature because guitar players always ask for it, (many of them can't play at all without it)

Thank you.

As for counterpart and counter-melody, this is something I'd really wanted to learn a lot. I've read about it but the picture is not crystal clear in my mind yet.

I'm sending you a small MIDI of Mike Oldfield's Hergest Ridge. Could you kindly listen to it and tell me if the flute(original one was oboe) and guitar harmony at the beginning is what counter melody is all about?

Because this sounds sooooo lovely. If you separately listen to them they are independent to each other yet they form a perfect harmony when combined.

This is what I wanted to do in my compositions. In my previous works and others this is the kind of music I'd like to make. It sounds so rich and beautiful.

HergestRidge1.mid

Well what I noted is that the guitar is playing common chords sustaining the harmony, but I'd say you have to think on this as arpeggios of the chords Em D, C, C, D, Em and not as separated notes, look....

spread the notes contained in the chord to create motion instead an static chord:

If you wouldn't be using guitar I'd tell you others methods to create the counterpart, but for guitar + someone doesn't play guitar this is an easy secure method to write the guitar part (just be sure of asking possible position)

To create the staff+tab part, write it in the one you feel you understand what you're writting then just copy the bar to the other staff, I wrote the staff first, then I copy the bar to the tab and changed the finger position, you drag the number to the other string to fix the tablature position Sibelius suggest you...

Guitareasy.mid

Thank You.

I've marked the guitar part I'm not sure about after what you've written.

Below the marked line it seems like you're saying they're just chords turned into arpeggios but what about the line with blue marked i.e. first guitar section. Isn't it a counter-melody? or the composer just transposing main melody with few alterations perhaps?

yes is the couter-melody, so seem very interested in this, check the following links, are focused for classical music but it acn always be helpful to construct a minimum development:

Crash Course in Writing Fuges

16th Century Cointerpoint

Creating Melodies from pre-establisjed harmony

thank you, I'll examine them.