To compose faster, and complete more works in a shorter time...

I love writing music, always have. But... I have a major problem. I am sooooooooooooooooooooo sloooooooooowwwww! I mean... so very very PAINFULLY slow, it drives me insane!

I mean, I've written 11 intstrumental pop/rock songs over the past TEN years, and over the past two years I've been working on two more common-practice styled pieces, for my composition major, but, I'm STILL working on them...

I don't know if anyone else has had this problem but, this is REALLY annoying. lol Does anyone have any tips/suggestions?

I am slow too, mostly in Orchestral.

My problem is that I get distracted with myself, because I want to do many different things at the same time, I think that's my problem, a few weeks ago i finished an orchestral piece (10min) about native rhythms, that took me a year :toothygrin: last week started another orchestral piece in Bossa-Nova style (odd isn't it?), a few days ago started a work per Choir+Strngs, (kinda religious one) also I have a incomplete piano sonata, a song for Rock band, finished another song in Pop, the ideas in my head is a complete mess, that's what makes me slow.

But what I can tell you, depending on the music sometimes one needs very much concentration, you know, no parties, not too much work until you get tired and then you want to compose, no listen to music that will take you away from your project, movies may distract too, perhaps leave the city...

If the project is not that big to request that concentration, easier activities may help you, like studying and/or playing pieces where you can learn stuff, (progressions, modulations etc) one of those might give you a new idea...

Not to be too strict or hesitate too much when writing, try different things, don't get stuck in the very same material, explore, risk, test, write.

i don't understand the problem at all. is your problem in finsihing a composition? getting the starting point is fast, but building it to a full song is taking alot of time?

do you write something and then rewrite it again alot? how well can you play an instrument? this helps alot also.

I'm with The J. What exactly is the problem? Coming up with ideas? Executing them?

In general, just write every day. Get in the routine of it. After a while you will start getting in a rhythm that will help you push out more material.

Different things, a combination of things. Getting the ideas from my head to the sheet, constantly wondering if a melody or motif I'm making hasn't been written already by someone else, being a perfectionist about everything, and eventually, because of all that, I tend to burn out REALLY quickly after working on a piece in one sitting.

well there you have it, you know it the answer yourself you just need to realize its what's holding you down. being a perfectionist means you have very high expectations from yourself, you might be able to hear in your mind the full song with its high production values, high performance,lots of instruments participating etc, or you might think you can hear it but when get down to writing it-it simply takes too long because of your current technique. so you must, if you want to create more quantity, lower your expectations, or find expectation that matches your technique.

for example, i want to improve my counterpoint writing, so i don't go and write a fuge with 5 voices, instead i find a motif i like and then take a really simply counter point to it, and limit myself-in length of piece or length of time to compose and see how long i can make the piece in the current sitting, or how well it can sound in that short length.

you have to start small, less instruments, shorter pieces, and it doesn't mean it will sound bad. make it bigger later after you can make the small ones fast.

it also depends on what level and style you want to achieve, where do you want to take your compositions, are you a songwriter/lyricists, or an orchestral composer, electronic composer etc etc. there simply too many things you can get better at so one has to focus in order to improve, does that make any sense as dr. phil likes to say?

That does make sense, come to think of it. And I have started with fewer instruments, but, I always end up needing to flesh it out, cause I always end up writing in a style that needs more than just a few instruments. For instance, a String Trio that I started is now a piece for String Orchestra that I'm working on. The trio was just too limiting. lol

I'd always worry about quality over quantity. Why write 12 bad pieces, one per month, when you can write 2 good ones over the same time?

You know what I think holds you down? The same thing that held me down for ages. Details. Lose the perfectionist attitude. Don't go about details like: should I be using this articulation instead of this one? Bass instead of cello? Double the violins with violas? All that stuff just slows you down and makes you think too hard until you forget what you set out to do. Just go at the piano, flesh out a skeleton for your piece on the piano, all 4-5 minutes of it, get the basic harmony, melodies and motives going, record it, have the whole piece down in a piano rendition. Then you can sit at peace listen to it and just think about the rest of the stuff, what you want to do with it, the instrumentation etc. And it helps to make a plan, I mean literally, make notes; I want to have this melody played by the horn section, I want the A part with strings but with the subtle piano intro, the B part percussions come in, I want to have snare and timpani... you know that sort of stuff. It's really helpful so you don't forget anything. And don't worry about details until the piece is really whole. Then you can go on about articulations, changing instrumentation and all that stuff.

good advice there phant, i wonder if marius utilize this too, it might be you use this skeleton system until you are sure you can do it without one.

good advice there phant, i wonder if marius utilize this too, it might be you use this skeleton system until you are sure you can do it without one.

Well I don't know about Marius, but we can always ask him :)

I actually learned this from a book, as I understood, lots of composers work this way.

my problem/nag about this method it doesn't give enough space for the sound and texture of a single instrument, the skeleton could be any sound or motif in any instrument that could give the most energy to develop the piece. that's how you record in tracks, alot of "guides" as they are called by some, are so good because they create the best feel for the song or theme, the producers actually use that "skeleton" instead of the high production and clean sound you get after the skeleton is off.