Your First Attempt on Composition?

Hi guys! All of us here are composers, whatever level we are in. However everything has its beginning (and hopefully not end). We all have our first experience of composing, and start to compose more by having that first experience as the basis and build ourself up, whether by skills, knowledge, experience or taste. I would like to ask, why and when do you first begin composing? What is your inspiration of it? How do you compose when you may not have adequate tool and theory to back you up?

I wanna share my own experience. I started learning piano when I was 10 years old, a relatively late age. Then after months or a year or so, I suddenly had the impulse to imitate Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, since it was the first classical piece I had ever listened to, alongside his no.13 and noi.15 Piano Sonata. I remembered I knew nothing on composing and therefore just wrote some mess out, which might resonate with some of Beethoven's passage LoL, in a naive way. I didn't even have staff paper at that time, let alone PC and computer program to write the music out. I just wrote with the letter names on top and the note value under it like this:

A              G#           Fx              G#

Crotchet Crotchet Semibreve Minim (in note, not words)

I have already forgotten that piece, but that experience is unforgettable. There's no reason for me to begin composing, since no one has ever taught me so, but I still do that and luckily I am still composing.

Really wish you guys can share your first moments of composing to us!

Henry

I was 11, and had some weird TV Show in my head called Demon Hunters. We were learning to play Pirates of the Caribbean in Orchestra so I decided to try and write a theme song for the show. I don't remember what it sounded like, but I listened to it a couple years ago and even though it was about 2 bars in length, it was rubbish.

There were a few improv things I did earlier than that, but I dont consider them compositions.

I think my first composition was not inspired by any particular composer or genre but by my having a computer and midi program which gave me the capability to hear anything I put in which to me just opened up the whole world of composing.  My first piece was an impossible piano piece that could not be played because it had so many consecutive repeating notes (it wouldn't even be playable if one arranged it for four hands or two pianos LoL).  As I learned music through learning Clarinet and Piano with my best friend in Jr. High and High School, eventually my Slavic/Polish roots came out in my music as I composed a Polonaise type piece without even really trying to write in nationalistic/folk music forms.

But I like to think that a huge part of my attraction to music was because of my experiences of playing video games and listening to the kick ass music in classic Super Nintendo games from the 1990's.  With my midi software I was able to search the internet to find midi's of VGM tracks that I opened up in my sequencer and tried to analyze/understand and then (of course) imitate that.  I think a big part of my musical philosophy (which is basically that I believe that all music is playful) comes from those experiences of listening to really awesome video game music while having lots of fun playing games like Zelda: A Link to the Past, the original Star Fox, Sim City, Final Fantasy VI, and Chrono Trigger (all for the SNES).  I also tried to imitate those musics through writing short incidental/programmatic imaginary VGM tracks with a limited instrumentation.  All those old works are lost now but some of the melodies are still in my memory.

Another kind of music I tried to imitate when I was first starting out is Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 4 - Pizzicato Ostinato.  For some reason the string orchestra all using pizzicato all at once was a very attractive sound to me and I tried to write my own Pizzicato Ostinato piece which was one of my most chromatic and harmonically complex first compositions.  It included harp and I was told by a Violinist friend in University that it was in fact playable (to my surprise LoL).

But these days I feel like I've grown out of trying to imitate other composers.  Maybe I might still imitate certain genres I am not particularly familiar with if there's a purpose for that (like if I need to write that kind of music for my own future video game I'm planning to make).

Fortunately, my first attempt at composition was never written down

46 minutes ago, Jqh73o said:

Fortunately, my first attempt at composition was never written down

Since it was too bad or not? It was like an improvisation or you still remember the piece? I think most of our first compositions will be bad except we are Mozart, so nothing to be embarrassed of!

Henry

I did it like two and a half years ago, it was sort of an improvisation in c minor, I didn’t know how harmony worked so I stayed in the tonic for the whole minute that the piece lasted

Somehow it wasn’t dissonant, just too basic

I am embarrassed to say that I was staying in the tonic during 90% of the time the pieces I wrote lasted, and I knew nothing about harmony until seven months ago, when I started taking composition seriously

.

I made my first original music nearly 8 years ago. made it up in a car ride from a park or something and it was just a repeating motif and a bass line and it was never written down, but I still remember the melody to this day somehow. The first composition after being exposed to classical music was a piano sonata.

Aside from a couple of Anglican chants my first shot was at secondary school. The schools had music on the curriculum offering instrumental tuition on borrowed instruments. Among those a "music set" emerged and within that an ensemble. I wrote a set of small songs for it, sung by a boy with a very high soprano voice and good at non-tonal harmony.  I don't know who influenced me - probably Berg with his 7 early Songs. 

Point is, mostly forgotten now, all but two of those scores lost, the timbre of the voice stayed with me and about a dozen of my things include either a coloratura or mezzo soprano, no matter who might had influenced me otherwise. 

Harder to work out how and why it happened.

I've always had an interest in composition, but it wasn't until later in high school, and college that I began exploring my interest in composition. I started with simple piano improvisations, then went on to arrange original hymns and hymn arrangements, and now I'm studying composition. I am currently working on a piece for flute and harp.

My earliest attempts at composition were probably me banging on the piano at home when I was very, very young.  A bit later when I learned to read music, I would write stuff by just drawing staves on lined paper - but of course it was all complete rubbish.  I kept at it, and continued to be terrible at it for a very long time.  I remember with horrible embarrassment telling the music teacher at my elementary school that I was writing music, and then playing a little bit of it at her request; she just very politely smiled and nodded. 

Then when I was in 8th grade, I got Rhapsody, a rudimentary piece of music notation and MIDI software, for Christmas, and it was only at that point, when I could hear a playback of what I'd written at the press of a button, that I actually started to improve.

Way back in 1998. Music was mandatory in school and I hated it.

I did kinda like playing guitar though and I always would imagine songs of my own in my head. We just learned basic G C D chords kinda thing, but that was the only thing I didn't hate about music class.

Then when I was 11, I found my mom's surviving hair metal cassettes (I used to shred the tape as a baby) and those changed my life. Specifically Guns N' Roses Appetite For Destruction. Probably not appropriate music for an 11-year-old, but my parents were just glad I was now into their music. I decided I wanted to write my own music like that, and so I asked my mom if I could have an electric guitar some day (A colossal request given my parents really had no money) but she did, as mom always does, whatever she could so her kids wouldn't feel left out and she got me the cheap stratocaster and little solid state practice amp everyone starts with.

I don't remember what my first attempt at a composition was, but it was probably the first thing I attempted to do when I go that guitar. 

I do remember a revelation though: One day, a guitar riff (and entire song) I came up with sounded so much better than everything else I was trying and I didn't know why. Somehow, I've forgotten how, but I learned it was the pentatonic scale.

That sent me on the obsession of studying music theory, the methods behind the madness, and becoming an unrepentant tonal-music supremacist. 

I had always wanted to write music but had no idea where to start. Then I met someone who composed music all the time, and I thought to myself that if he could do it then so could I. Eventually, on Christmas, I got a piano which made it possible for me to easily try my hand at composing things. My first piece was in E minor and consisted of arpeggios moving in contrary motion to each other (my friend had told me that contrary motion was to be striven for). I wrote it because I enjoy expressing myself and wanted to impress him. Unfortunately, he stopped talking to me because he apparently felt threatened by my creative efforts. In the end, I chose music composition, something I find fun and addicting, over sham friendship. I have no regrets.  

When I was in first grade, I wrote a song, lyrics, melody, accompaniment, and all. My mom ended up taking the lyrics and printing them with my picture, because she was so proud- I've attached that here. I performed it for my elementary school, for a poetry competition, but I didn't win; I was disqualified, because the administration was convinced I had plagiarized it, because they didn't think a first grader could do that. They couldn't tell us who they thought I plagiarized from, yet still disqualified me. I'm still salty, and it's the reason I don't really do competitions/contests.

4 minutes ago, CashComposer said:

When I was in first grade, I wrote a song, lyrics, melody, accompaniment, and all. My mom ended up taking the lyrics and printing them with my picture, because she was so proud- I've attached that here. I performed it for my elementary school, for a poetry competition, but I didn't win; I was disqualified, because the administration was convinced I had plagiarized it, because they didn't think a first grader could do that. They couldn't tell us who they thought I plagiarized from, yet still disqualified me. I'm still salty, and it's the reason I don't really do competitions/contests.

 

That's bad! But competition really doesn't matter much! Just focus on yourself and write good music will be great. And that's years ago, maybe if you try now I am sure your pieces won't be disqualified!

Henry

Yeah, when I look at competitions now, I'm rarely impressed- it's usually all male judges, maybe one token woman who's 'not like other girls', and a similar amount of representation in applicants. I'm not interested in competing and representing 50% of the population, whether consciously or not. That's why I went to an all girls college for undergrad (both of my majors were heavily male dominated), so that I could focus on myself rather than holding that weight on my shoulders.

On 1/4/2024 at 4:05 AM, CashComposer said:

Yeah, when I look at competitions now, I'm rarely impressed-

Agree. I don't see Art in any form as a competitive sport. 

On 1/4/2024 at 4:05 AM, CashComposer said:

That's why I went to an all girls college for undergrad (both of my majors were heavily male dominated), so that I could focus on myself rather than holding that weight on my shoulders.

Can understand. We have a tenant, a female who'd make a great surrealist composer if she / when she puts her mind to it. She went to a close-by college as an undergraddy but hated most of the curriculum. I happen to know her mentor, however, and over a whisky he suggested I might help her. Introduced us. I don't think I've been much help but at least she felt free and could stomach the college stuff..

He too doesn't like his profession, agreeing with me that you can't "teach creativity." He gave her the degree all the same because he appreciated her passion for composing. I should mention that as a male I ditched a college course part way through.

I came with this somewhere are the 3rd grade.  It basically became this: Wick's Groove

On 1/17/2024 at 1:52 PM, maestrowick said:

I came with this somewhere are the 3rd grade.  It basically became this: Wick's Groove

This one is real soothing to listen to!

On 1/16/2024 at 6:37 AM, Quinn said:

Agree. I don't see Art in any form as a competitive sport. 

If Beethoven’s late quartets are put into competition it will fall to the last place since no judges can decipher its genius. It’s easier to have competitions of performance but still the pieces can be different, but it’s useless to compete for compositions since they are utterly different from each other and they can all be great on their own ways. Putting a score and rank for them is real foolish. 

On 1/16/2024 at 6:37 AM, Quinn said:

Can understand. We have a tenant, a female who'd make a great surrealist composer if she / when she puts her mind to it. She went to a close-by college as an undergraddy but hated most of the curriculum. I happen to know her mentor, however, and over a whisky he suggested I might help her. Introduced us. I don't think I've been much help but at least she felt free and could stomach the college stuff..

He too doesn't like his profession, agreeing with me that you can't "teach creativity." He gave her the degree all the same because he appreciated her passion for composing. I should mention that as a male I ditched a college course part way through.

I always think that, if you wanna learn, why don’t you learn directly from the masters who compose those great pieces, instead of through secondary elites like professors to teach you? Those academic books and theories are great, but they can always only act as the secondary source to help with your composing. Pure theoretical reason is important for music writing, but always only the secondary position since it’s not science.

Henry

I started composing right after the last exam of my primary education. I started learning piano and joining band at around 13, 2 years bf this exam, when I here and there had the desire and inspiration to compose, but never manifested them.

I started off with drawing those fives lines on paper as a substitute for actual printed " manuscripts ". This was partially becos I did not know how to get a proper manuscript paper and also cos I wanted this endeavor to be secret. Later on, I got tired of it and wanted to get actual manuscripts to write on, using the excuse of writing music notes. Eventually I had known how and where to get them myself. Those are v cheap and simple music manuscript notebooks, which are A5 sized. Then as I had written more and more, I began buying the A4 sized notebooks and small stacks of spare manuscript papers for drafts and/or movability. I have only used pencil and eraser, and no pen and what nots. Thus began three years of composing on paper... bf my years of musical stagnation due to academics and an ironic revival of my music composing in software in govt service, which gna end soon. This is elaborated in this other thread - 

I still have the very draft of the very first piece - which is so difficult to finalize due to confusing timing and key and deciding on both the time signature and key till today. I still wanna re-create that piece becos it sounds rly interesting and adventurous. Hope I'll be able to do so asap!

These first few pieces were kinda all like that- weird, almost atonal, kinda without a fixed time signature, before me more or less settling down on more disciplined, but also more rigid, grounds. And yes, I haven't even decided on their titles lol...

So yes, I still remember those pieces, but this still has been really relatable:

On 11/24/2023 at 3:07 PM, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

that experience is unforgettable. There's no reason for me to begin composing, since no one has ever taught me so, but I still do that and luckily I am still composing.

Thanks for the sharing and discussion!