Care To Help A Beginner Get On His Feet...? :)

Hello, everyone. I'm new here and I really need some help.

Here's my situation:

I'm not completely clueless, but I have very little musical technique or knowledge and no formal training.

I've always loved romantic-era music and have developed some musical intuition over the years of listening to it trying to play it.

I can play moderately complex piano and guitar pieces by ear.

I can construct interesting chord progressions and improvise melodies.

I understand the logic behind basic concepts like 12-note equal temperment, musical notation, scales and chords.

Every once in a blue moon, when I come up with a nice theme and it quickly dissolves into nothing in my mind, I strongly

regret not being able to express and develop it.

I want to study composition and I really need recommendations for some good reading material.

It should cover the basics and be practical and accessible to a layman while still offering some insight.

(When I say basic, keep in mind that I can hardly even read sheet music.)

I realize that I'm going to need a good instructor eventually, but I need something to get me on my feet first.

No good teacher would take up a talentless student and I can't expect them to take my word for it.

If you can hardly read sheet music, then I recommend making flashcards of all of the notes in treble, bass, and alto clef and memorizing the names of each notes. This should help you to read sheet music eventually once you have a good mastery of all the note names.

Then, I would suggest that you try playing some simple pieces on the piano with your new-found knowledge of the note names. Make sure these pieces are completely new to you (but there are youtube recordings so you know what it is supposed to sound like) - you want to practice sight reading so that reading music becomes second nature to you.

Once you can read sheet music with some speed, I would suggest reading either the Walter Piston Harmony book (I don't recall the exact name, but it's pretty well known as that and you can access it for free with a google search, I believe, in pdf form) or the Schacter Harmony book (again, I don't know the name, but it's well known, and you can buy it from amazon).

These books will give you the tools you need to analyze music and see the TOOLS of construction. However, they will not teach you HOW to write music. This is where the misnomer of "talent" comes in. I don't believe there's any such thing as talent - just people who limit their creativity and people who don't limit their creativity. If you are a creative person and know how to harness that creativity, then that may be considered "talent".

Also, another thing to keep in mind is that reading these two books will give you only some of the tools of construction... there are many many ways to organize music and be creative with sound, so keep an open mind to what you're listening to! There's no right or wrong way to express oneself.

Good luck!

If you can hardly read sheet music, then I recommend making flashcards of all of the notes in treble, bass, and alto clef and memorizing the names of each notes. This should help you to read sheet music eventually once you have a good mastery of all the note names.

Then, I would suggest that you try playing some simple pieces on the piano with your new-found knowledge of the note names. Make sure these pieces are completely new to you (but there are youtube recordings so you know what it is supposed to sound like) - you want to practice sight reading so that reading music becomes second nature to you.

Once you can read sheet music with some speed, I would suggest reading either the Walter Piston Harmony book (I don't recall the exact name, but it's pretty well known as that and you can access it for free with a google search, I believe, in pdf form) or the Schacter Harmony book (again, I don't know the name, but it's well known, and you can buy it from amazon).

These books will give you the tools you need to analyze music and see the TOOLS of construction. However, they will not teach you HOW to write music. This is where the misnomer of "talent" comes in. I don't believe there's any such thing as talent - just people who limit their creativity and people who don't limit their creativity. If you are a creative person and know how to harness that creativity, then that may be considered "talent".

Also, another thing to keep in mind is that reading these two books will give you only some of the tools of construction... there are many many ways to organize music and be creative with sound, so keep an open mind to what you're listening to! There's no right or wrong way to express oneself.

Good luck!

Thank you! I will check out those books.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean in the second part of your post.

Let's take painting, for example. They can't teach you how to be a great artist, but they can teach you how to draw.

I don't really know what exactly analysis means in the context of music, but I know it generally involves breaking something complex into smaller, well-understood parts and figuring out the logic behind their assembly.

Now, surely, I could learn how to analyze music, spend years analyzing different kinds of it and figure out the common principles.

I guess I was hoping that somebody has already done it... :eyebrow:

They can teach you how to be a great artist. It's called teaching creativity, and that's what you go to school for composition to study. Most students, when they go to a university to study composition, already know how to write music and they know all of the fundamentals really well. What they are looking for is new ways of inspiring creativity to break their musical horizons and expand their creativity in order to become great composers.

Analysis means understanding how music is constructed, yep. And yes, every single composer that ever was has already done it. And if you want to be a composer, you have to do it too. By understanding how music is constructed, you will learn how to create music that sounds good, since you're learning the rules that constitute what "sounds good". Also, by learning how music is constructed, you will know the ramifications of modifying some parameter while writing. For example, let's say that you're writing a symphony and in one 2 bar fragment you write (i - v - IV7) , you can decide whether you'd rather do (i - v(6) - vii/VIIo7 - IV7), which is actually the correct one. Since every composer will have a different idea of what sounds good and what doesn't, the only way that each and every person can have all the tools available to them to write creatively is by studying how others have done something in the past