Organizational Techniques

I find that I'm coming up with a lot of good ideas to use in songs.

it's great actually.

it's just that in one period of time of composing, I usually find it difficult to slow down to organize and to develop all the ideas in fear that I might lose the mood. as a result, it's hard to finish anything. Instead, I'm working on three different songs right now. I guess there's nothing too bad with that, but I'd like to be able to get things done without worrying about the details. How do you usually approach organizing, devleoping, and working through your compositions?

I suppose my approach is designed to deal with the fact that I don't have a whole lot of time on my hands. I tend to work on any single piece for months or years, but have two or three projects that I'm working on at any given time. I usually start with a main theme for each movement, and every musical idea that I have gets placed into a pool of ideas for the movement that I think it fits best, which leaves the mood of each movement relatively cohesive over the long periods of time that I work on it. When I have a second theme or motive for a movement, I can already start thinking about form, and how I plan to use the two themes together; as a result, I normally have the entire form of a movement planned out long before I finish writing it.

I suppose my approach is designed to deal with the fact that I don't have a whole lot of time on my hands.  I tend to work on any single piece for months or years, but have two or three projects that I'm working on at any given time.  I usually start with a main theme for each movement, and every musical idea that I have gets placed into a pool of ideas for the movement that I think it fits best, which leaves the mood of each movement relatively cohesive over the long periods of time that I work on it.  When I have a second theme or motive for a movement, I can already start thinking about form, and how I plan to use the two themes together; as a result, I normally have the entire form of a movement planned out long before I finish writing it.

movements? I struggle with just attempting to create short piano pieces.

I usually can only come up with a few measures on piano. After that, I don't know how to work around them or develop them. So I just start on a new project with a different idea. And then rinse and repeat, leaving me with abunch of unrelated ideas scattered into different finale files. oy =/

But as long as you're holding on to an idea...

When you come up with a new idea, it may be worthwhile to go back over older files, and see if you can combine it with something you've done before. You might be surprised at how much you can piece together from your own scraps.

That's excellent advice.

I just put together a major work doing just that, including a complete reworking of the Scherzo from my scrapped 1st Symphony (written when I was 19), and several other old ideas I resurrected or reworked. It was an odd sensation at times, because I don't usually do much editing or reworking, but it was gratifying to save things that otherwise would have disintegrated on the junkheap.

actually, that's what I ended up doing in my first composition in the critique forum. They were a few separate ideas I came up with at two different times. Then one day I decided, hey, what if I add this to that.

I'm not sure if it really worked out smoothly, though. It's kind of hard for me to tell if one idea fits with another after listening to it a few times.

The problem is that I don't really hear the music in my head when I try to compose something. I have to be at a piano, which kind of limits me, I think, especially since my command over the instrument is so limited.

Edit: Maybe I do hear it sometimes.

When you come up with a new idea, it may be worthwhile to go back over older files, and see if you can combine it with something you've done before. You might be surprised at how much you can piece together from your own scraps.

Recycling ideas is a must for me... I'm seriously considering taking a five minute snippet I have worked out for my second symphony and just using it on a completely different piece (a opera). Call me lazy and just looking to complete the opera, but damnit, i.t. f.i.t.s. s.o. p.e.r.f.e.c.t.l.y. that I can hardly resist. :P

Oh well, for now I haven't given into that temptation as I try to push myself for original material, but it's basically a forgone conclusion...

I used to get fed up with my folder of unused ideas and delete it from time to time. Not a good thing. Nowadays if little ideas are bothering me I'll hide them on myself if necessary but never get rid of them. Who knows, after all, when I'll need them again?

My advice would be: don't ever throw anything away. Not sketches, not scraps, not unfinished works...nothing. Even if they never end up useful to you, they'll be priceless to those who come after you trying to figure out what you were doing and how you accomplished what you did...even if you only intend to do this as a hobby. If, after we're gone, someone comes along and throws it all away, it'll make no difference to us - but if we throw it away, and someone after us comes looking for it, it will matter a lot to them.

I've never thrown anything away, not because I think everything I've ever written was deathlessly great - quite the contrary - but for exactly the reasons I stated...archival purposes, and the off possibility that something I sketched or doodled umpteen years ago will someday find its place. And it's paid off.

Wasn't it Brahms that destroyed all his early work, so that all we have of his now are his mature compositions, and we have no idea how he got to that level? It was his prerogative, but it was a bit control-freakish of him...criminal, really. Heaven forbid anyone should think of him as anything less than having sprung fully mature as a composer straight from the womb. Sheesh.

Ravel did the same.

You should not be ashemed of your immature works. They are your road to skill.

Maybe these composers were afraid for the thing that happened to Chopin with his Fantasie-Impromptu. But then again, Chopin ordered it destroyed too, it's just that after he died Fontana didn't listen.

So you think that a composer should keep everything. Even if it's horrible and what if it's written wrong. I mean....I destroy some music, but ONLY after I have re-written somewhere else "correctly" or "better".

I'm somewhat ashamed of my first piece I wrote. It was a bunch of random ideas and just didn't go together. Anyways, I will most likely not throw it out.

I can't tell you how many times I've written a piece, hated it, but kept it to learn from or even adapt. I've actually gone back many times and recomposed a piece or just used certain parts to create a new song. It's really quite interesting to see where I've come since I started and I use it really for learning what works and what doesn't... but that's just me.