Starting off

Hey everyone. I'm just starting off composing and I have a couple of questions.

My main problem is I get a bit overwhelmed when writing. I don't know how I should go about it. Write my melody first, bass, then harmonizations? I don't know how to approach it. Obviously there is no set way to approach composition, but what works best for you guys?

Also I seem to have trouble expanding my melodies into bigger phrases as I go further into a song.

Finally, I'm a guitar player and for the first time I'm trying to compose for piano... I find it difficult to accompany the melody I created. Any tips?

Sorry for all the questions guys! I'd appreciate your help!

Hey sparky welcome to YC

whats ur music knowledge , and can you play on the piano or not?? i ddnt get it . and also do you know how to read music?

i think you should now start composing to a few instruments like trios or duets , or piano with an accompanying instrument . no need to do a full piece , just experiment , find your week points and your strong areas in composition and be sure to upload them to YC as you'll get alot of help from here .i started very bad in composing but actually some members adviced me to read a few things on orchestration and music theory and i think thats what made me a better composer .

as for where to start , i think you should write the melody then any counter-melodies , then do the rest of the orchestration based on those two , and always follow the basics of harmony and counterpoint( no need to be a guru in them , just know the basics and when will a few notes together sound nice)

and btw i think you should study some scores for your favorite composers as it will help you learn their ways .

im not a music expert , i'm just helping you in what i know :)

btw if you have time please review my latest piece : http://forum.youngcomposers.com/t26851/steps-of-elegance-dance-music/

I do not play piano, but I can read music. As for musical knowledge I've been studying counterpoint/voiceleading, and know the basics of theory (harmonizing scales,cadences, etc.)

Thanks for the advice! I'll try doing a trio, sounds interesting. I'm way ahead of you in studying scores of my favorite composers :)

i never wrote a trio , but i guess it would be much fun . anyway as i said i studied music by myself , and i havent had enough time to check out alot of scores , till now i have only studied a few scores around 5 ( not symphonies) only pieces . so i guess most of the guys here are ahead of me :) . but thats because i dont have time at all , university wastes alot of time:S . anyway im thinking of studying the nutcracker - tchaikovsky . hopefully ill start this weekend:) . anyway good luck in your compositions and keep us posted :)

I really like the suggestion of trying a duet or trio. When I was first starting to write, I had alot of ideas floating around in my head and no idea how to transfer them to paper (or computer). I did the same thing, and it helped a great deal. I found right away that when writing for 2 or 3 instruments, I couldn't just write block chords like I had in every piece before, because if I did I'd run out of instruments to write things like melodies and countermelodies (or with 2 instruments there's simply not enough to make a chord! At first I'd just write really hard music full of arpeggios because I couldn't let go of having very clear block chord progressions, which of course was very hard to play). I quickly learned how to think about other textures, which was a huge help for me. I remember having a composition assignment my freshman year of college where we had to write a piece not using any chords, but just a melody and variations of the melody all wrapping around each other. We couldn't think about how the instruments were lining up to make harmonies, we could only think in a linear fashion. It was very difficult but really opened my eyes to thinking of music not just vertically in chords but horizontally in lines and phrases!

In terms of where to start on a piece in general, each composer finds something different that suits them, and sometimes they do something different for each piece depending on the piece, as each piece has different needs. One thing I often do that helps me is to chart out the overall shape of the piece before I write anything so I know about how long it will be, what instruments there may be, what sections there will be and what textures and moods there will be in each section. Then I go in and fill in the notes and chords and motifs. Sometimes though, it's just nice to write from the beginning and see where the piece goes without having it all planned beforehand. It just depends on how inspired you're feeling (charting a piece out is more stable a process for me and helps when I'm not running on an idea that's really driving my inspiration, it's a nice way to get around writer's block), and depends on each composer's personality. Hope that helps, and good luck!

Hey everyone. I'm just starting off composing and I have a couple of questions.

My main problem is I get a bit overwhelmed when writing. I don't know how I should go about it. Write my melody first, bass, then harmonizations? I don't know how to approach it. Obviously there is no set way to approach composition, but what works best for you guys?

Also I seem to have trouble expanding my melodies into bigger phrases as I go further into a song.

Finally, I'm a guitar player and for the first time I'm trying to compose for piano... I find it difficult to accompany the melody I created. Any tips?

Sorry for all the questions guys! I'd appreciate your help!

What I would recommend... is to work on writing melodies first. Don't focus to much on harmony. Once you get the foundation of melodic writing down (i.e. the melodies make sense.) Then try basic rudimentary chords. Focus small and then move big - just like with your training on an instrument.

Something I've never done, but which could help you greatly is try to mimic the composers you admire. Maybe choose a piano sonata by Mozart and steel his accompagnement figures and chords. If you try to write a new melody over it, you will get aquainted with handling these types of accompagnements. Maybe you can try to make a variation on the chord progression, but keep the same texture etc.

What I did was trail and error. By the time I had been trying to write music for three years I still knew virtualy nothing about music. Now that I spent more time learning theory I realise how nice it is that I have been practicing writing melodies, harmonies, structures etc. I can apply the things a learn much easier.

I quess what it comes down to is their is so much to learn that I doesn't really matter what you learn as long as you keep working on things you are not familiar with/good at. As Bach once said (approximatly): 'Everybody can be as good as I am, I just work much harder'. I think he forgot to mention something about talent in this remark, but to a degree I think he's right. Learn more about theory, learn about orchestration, learn about melodies, harmonies, form, learn to play piano, learn about instrumentation, learn about DAW's, about rhythem etc. and at some point things will come together.