Exercises

Hi

Does anyone have any good exercises in all fields that will just help my composing all round? I know that people will say music is an art form, not a science but if composing is anything like guitar playing, the greater your technical ability, the better equiped you are to express yourself!

I'm just looking for things that will improve my melody writing, counterpoint, orchestration andall the other skills needed to write music that sounds good.

Thanks very much, Mark

Hi

Does anyone have any good exercises in all fields that will just help my composing all round? I know that people will say music is an art form, not a science but if composing is anything like guitar playing, the greater your technical ability, the better equiped you are to express yourself!

I'm just looking for things that will improve my melody writing, counterpoint, orchestration andall the other skills needed to write music that sounds good.

Thanks very much, Mark

Just compose, I think that's probably one of the best things you can do to get better, just do it :w00t:

Arrange little pieces and melodies, then move on to more complex stuff until you know what is your composing style. I've found my style, luckly, so I can compose whatever I want following my own rythm.

Hope this advice help you.

Arthur Reglay

Care to explain what "style" is in detail?

Care to explain what "style" is in detail?

any style you want

I suggest to fellow neither ideas Mark. You're at a perfect age to learn not to do anything like lots of young composers do. You will forge yourself a personnal style in learning more and more technics and creating your own. Listen to a lot of music from everywhere in the world. Be able to distinguish Rameau's music from Vivaldi or others... be able to reconnize Chinese or Indian music. Learn theory and history of theory. Learn all you can and then with the potential you already have you will grow a strong, receptive and gifted composer.

Being close minded in doing 'only what you already know' and thinking it sufficient will lead you no where that is serious. Take advantage of your youth to be able to enter collegde in composition much more cultivated than the others.

That are my advices. Anyway, for the technics I already give you some. It not bad to ask tools to younger composer but since they usually have only very few (and don't want to learn more) I don't think it very useful for you.

I suggest to fellow neither ideas Mark. You're at a perfect age to learn not to do anything like lots of young composers do. You will forge yourself a personnal style in learning more and more technics and creating your own. Listen to a lot of music from everywhere in the world. Be able to distinguish Rameau's music from Vivaldi or others... be able to reconnize Chinese or Indian music. Learn theory and history of theory. Learn all you can and then with the potential you already have you will grow a strong, receptive and gifted composer.

Being close minded in doing 'only what you already know' and thinking it sufficient will lead you no where that is serious. Take advantage of your youth to be able to enter collegde in composition much more cultivated than the others.

That are my advices. Anyway, for the technics I already give you some. It not bad to ask tools to younger composer but since they usually have only very few (and don't want to learn more) I don't think it very useful for you.

I never said he should be closed minded Dunael, he asked how he could become a better composer, and I said to compose, that's really how you get better at anything, you just do it.

But there is methods to become better. Ways to pratice better. Just saying : compose doesn't answer his question and doesn't help. You this comment help you if you wanted to be able to reach a climax ??? Some one saying just : compose... ? I don't think so.

But there is methods to become better. Ways to pratice better. Just saying : compose doesn't answer his question and doesn't help. You this comment help you if you wanted to be able to reach a climax ??? Some one saying just : compose... ? I don't think so.

So........ what you're saying is that you can study really hard and not write music, but then just write great music? Expierence is important, incredibly important, in anything.

I didn't say not to write. I said acquire tools to write and culture... that doesn't mean not to write is that !? I'm going further than just writting... there a lot to learn before composing well, it's not only to be able to put notes one after the other. It's all a question of culture, knowledge, ability and skills. You cannot get that simple by writting 20 concertos of 3 minutes in 6 months. You don't learn when you do that... you use the amount of knowledge you've used. (well, you do learn but not much)

I didn't say not to write. I said acquire tools to write and culture... that doesn't mean not to write is that !? I'm going further than just writting... there a lot to learn before composing well, it's not only to be able to put notes one after the other. It's all a question of culture, knowledge, ability and skills. You cannot get that simple by writting 20 concertos of 3 minutes in 6 months. You don't learn when you do that... you use the amount of knowledge you've used. (well, you do learn but not much)

I agree in that sense, but I still credit expierence to a great deal of good music

thanks guys, i agree with both of you actually as i have learnt a hell of a lot from each piece i have written and even more from the feedback i've had on it.

what sort of piece (form, ensemble, structure) do you think i would benifit and learn most from writing at the moment? I'm mainly interesed in the baroque era and things like fugues and canons but i understand that these things may be too advanced at the moment. What do you suggest i compose that will help me most?

Thanks very much, Mark

That is probably the most important, peoples feedback who have a great amount of experience composing, all of which should be taken with a grain of salt.

I have found my own style, and at the university about 2/3 of the composition professors love it, and the other 1/3 i'd say don't quite get it.

It's quite funny in the jury at the end of the semester, they listen to what i've worked on, one professor will say to change somthing, and then another will say to leave it as is :P

You should probably start off with a solo instrument, or a simple combination of two instruments. The first piece I chose to write was a Violin Duo, with an orchestration book by my side the whole time.

You should probably start off with a solo instrument, or a simple combination of two instruments. The first piece I chose to write was a Violin Duo, with an orchestration book by my side the whole time.

I agree. As I told you to do in fact. You'll have enough time to spend on any larger ensembles. For exemple, at the conservatory (which gives the firsts five years of university levels) it is only at the end of these five years that we write an orchestra piece that is played by the conservatory's orchestra. We have passed through basic training, lots of writing, theory, musical writing classes, history, etc... and we are ready to write serious music for a real orchestra. But to arrive there, you should learn each instrument as I told you already... but learn the theory of it, the mecanisms, the different timbral possibilities with the knowledge of how to write it and the acoustic principles that makes it work. If you just take one month now learning ONLY one instrument... it will take you around 15 months (and so you'll be at the age of 15-16 yo like a bunch of starting composer's here) to learn wholly almost all the instruments of the orchestra... It's all stuff that you learn at university... but nothing oblige you to wait all this time. It would give you discipline in writing and deep knowledge.

Of course... that an ideal...

Mark, I reckon that composition is one of those things where knowledge and experience have to go hand-in-hand. It's dead easy to get SO tangled up with theory you can't see the woods for trees!!!

Equally, if you don't bother with theory, you never know quite what you're doing and analysing the work of others becomes hard work.

If you want to write fugues the very best is to study the work of composers who did well at that. You won't go wrong by studying Bach and you can probably get the scores of the 48 free on the internet. Choose a couple and play slowly through the fiugues taking care to see exactly what he's up to! (He's quite good at harmony generally :P and you'll find lots of weird modulations among his works.)

If you want to learn polyphony, you need to study composers like Palestrina and Lassus, alongside a book on species counterpoint.

When you start scoring, start with Mozart chamber music first - the scores are cheaper and they're sometimes pretty clever/difficult, like the times he writes in different time signatures simultaneously! His writing for wind instruments is exemplary. Even if you don't want to "rewrite" classical music, these people are excellent teachers.

Good luck.

:P

This all takes time, though. Someone's already given you the best tip. Just do it.

Hello, this is my first post.

I thought I would offer some advice. I have been composing since the age of 8 and playing the piano since I was 3 yrs. old.

My Mom - a classically trained pianist - gave me some advice that I never followed until two years ago. She told me to run my scales everyday. Since following her advice not only has my playing improved, but my composing is so much stronger because I am able to improvise to a greater level - I wish I had listened to her years ago.

Also, practice with simple songs - practice making them your own - writing extensions to the piece, playing them in different ways with different techniques, etc.

One more thing, learn all the classical pieces you can! Many of my compositions were inspired from Mozart, Bach and Beethoven. Just playing these pieces will give you new ideas AND train your hands to flow a certain way as you play!

FYI – I must warn you..

I have no formal training, I've never even taken a piano lesson - but I find exercises such as these really help me think out of the box and help find my signature.

Good Luck, Artgirl

I fully agree with Dunael. None can develop his art by just "doing it" - that's true for footballers as well as to painters and composers. In fact, just to know "what to do" needs a lot of knowledge, practice and listening.

As for exercise, there are lots of them in any music text book. I cannot understand why you need to search. Anyway - go to the Net and Google, you'll surely find what you want.

Here are some links : Exercises

eMusicTheory.com practice