Composing Advice:

So many people get started with lots of things at such a young age. 99% of the things I started that I got very good at, I was 14+ years old. Take chess for instance, in six months I was able to beat international masters, something that takes some people years and years to be able to do. I just recognized this ability, but 99% of the best chess players today have played when they were at least 4 years old seriously. Same thing with music, only I have an advantage since I'm pretty good on the piano. I got a keyboard for my birthday one year, around May when I was five years old. I took piano lessons for a couple of years, stopped, and then got a new teacher a couple of years later. I think total, I've had about eight years of piano. I hardly have any experience with composing or music theory, although I'm working on that very seriously now.

My concern is that nothing has really become serious in my mind until a few of years ago. I never really understood the meaning of passion. So many have written so much up until the point they turned fifteen or sixteen. I haven't written one full length score, beyond just unfinished pleasant melodies, but instead have racked up a lot of inspiration.

I'm starting to read theory books like The Study of Counterpoint, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Theory, and I want to buy a couple of books on orchestration, and I also want to purchase Finale.

I know it's obviously not too late to do anything, but you can't deny the advantage many others have against me. When I'm thirty, I'll have fifteen years experience, when someone else is thirty, they may have twenty-five years.

When I look at many biographies on many different composers, some famous, some just here at this site, so many people have already written sypmhonies, fugues, sonatas, concerti, choral works, etc., and I still haven't written anything.

What is your advice?

Ok. So it seems that you're 15, irght?

If you honestly want to compose, it will come.

I started composing pretty early in my life cause I was stuck at piano with bad teachers who thought that in order to continue you have to do 29 out of the 30 studies of Czerny! And thus while stuck to something I absolutely loathed studying I started writting my own music to enjoy better.

Plus I imporved on sight reading since I was not studying at all at home :D

But in the end I had composed something like 10 compositions when I was at last 18? No more than that! Anyways at some point I just sat down, decided that I want to become a composer, saw what I had to do and started doing it.

It's not late. You're 15! Composition is not something that you work from a very young age. And even if Wolfgang did it, who give a sh*t really? Mozart is one in the world forever. Don't listen to myths (not that they are not true, but well Mozart has gained a mythical status), and stay true to what you want.

IF you honestly like composing, start now! Write something you will enjyo playing in the piano. No force, no nothing, no reason to be jealous of anybody, or to start finding errros in your work. Just do what the heck you want! Post it and see the reactions. Repeat. ;)

I hope it was kinda helpful...

Is it possible that I can create a great song in my head, but it turns out I was using microtones, so it really won't be possible to play on the piano? I have perfect pitch, but when I have to think at the keyboard/piano/computer I have much more trouble than if I'm walking around and come up with something. But once I come up with something, I can never do anything with it at the piano, and it takes me forever to come up with other parts during the day, when I'm not at the keyboard.. If it takes me such a long time to finish one short piece, will I ever be able to pursue a career in musical composition?

Even Mozart wasn't quite the intimidating genius that everyone makes him out to be.

Keep in mind:

1) Although he started young, almost everything that Mozart's present reputation is based on was written when he was 18 or older - which is to say, he'd been composing for over a decade before he wrote anything that we'd call a masterpiece.

2) As prolific as we say Mozart was, if you consider the length of time he was active, he actually wrote only about 25 pieces per year - or one every two weeks or so, as a full-time composer. That's still considered very fast - which of course means that other composers were highly successful writing at a much slower pace.

Even Mozart wasn't quite the intimidating genius that everyone makes him out to be.

Keep in mind:

1) Although he started young, almost everything that Mozart's present reputation is based on was written when he was 18 or older - which is to say, he'd been composing for over a decade before he wrote anything that we'd call a masterpiece.

2) As prolific as we say Mozart was, if you consider the length of time he was active, he actually wrote only about 25 pieces per year - or one every two weeks or so, as a full-time composer. That's still considered very fast - which of course means that other composers were highly successful writing at a much slower pace.

and lest we forget, Mozart DID study harmony, counterpoint etc... like a MADman... he didn't just suddenly decide to become a composer. He started out as a child prodigy performer (pushed by his father), so he certainly had a great deal of contact with music.

Why are you raising the question of age ? What has age got to do with creative output of any kind ? In fact, the older works of most artists are the greatest ones. Beethoven, whose every work out of his 160 odd is considered a masterpiece, thought his later string quartets were the best, and he proved right. Bruckner started at 41! Not everybody is Schubert, who composed an astounding 998 pieces, most of them of the highest quality, within his 31 years of life!

Does it really matter if you create your best works after 50 or 60 ? What really matters is whether you are remembered for those works. Even one really great work can make a man immortal. People will always remember Carl Orff for his magnificent oratorio - Carmina Burana.

I know Handel created the oratorio, but are they all in English? I know Handel's were, but are all of them?

No. Bach also wrote oratorios... and obviously Orff's Carmina Burana was in a mixture of Latin and medieval German (which, of course, differs substantially from modern German).

How many people listen to Haydn? He wrote at a very fast pace and was praised for his symphonies but how many of them are as famous as "Eine Kleine Nachtmusik" or "Piano Concerto No. 1"?

Whose 1st piano concerto? A lot of people wrote them, y'know...

I listen to a lot of Haydn man, as do lots and lots of music lovers everywhere.

The question here is one of passion and love for anything we do. A dilettante hardly produces anything, while people with a lot of theoretical knowledge too cannot produce great works - otherwise all those millions of music teachers would write masterpieces.

People will always remember Carl Orff for his magnificent oratorio - Carmina Burana.

minor correction: Carmina Burana is not an oratoria (by definition, an oratorio is a religious work), but rather a large scale secular cantata.

And while the general public may "remember" Orff for Carmina Burana because of its frequent use in commercials and film, Orff is remembered in the musical community for his fervent work as an educator as well as for a number of his other large-scale choral works.

Thank you for the correction, but I meant "general public", Carmina Burana has been popular since 1937 - long before today's "age of mass media".

Moreover, I meant that even a single work like that can make a composer immortal; does that mean Orff only composed one great work ?

minor correction: Carmina Burana is not an oratoria (by definition, an oratorio is a religious work), but rather a large scale secular cantata.

There are oratorios that are not religious in subject matter. Haydn's "Creation" oratorio is not religious.

Another serious question:

What can I do starting now to enrich my musical life with piano, composing etc., i.e. classes, or anything like this.

First and foremost, buy some CDs....lot's and lots of CDs...or tapes, records, 8-tracks... What I mean is...LISTEN to as much music as possible. Constructive, structured listening as well, not in the background while doing the dishes. Pay attention to what you hear, what you like or dislike and why.

...

I meant more along the lines of getting involved out of the house, either in competitions, classes, etc.--I've been listening and sparking inspiration for a while now, which is why I want to actually start doing. I compose in my head, but I wanted to have a plan for myself for the next few years.

Being in a music school, or conservatory helps a lot.. Mingle with other like minded poeple... Play with them, find a bad, write music in a paper or computer and not in your head. Play this music (if it's for piano or another instrument you play), or render it with samples. This is what you're looking for as an answer? not quite sure I understood what you wanted...

Thank you for the correction, but I meant "general public", Carmina Burana has been popular since 1937 - long before today's "age of mass media".

Moreover, I meant that even a single work like that can make a composer immortal; does that mean Orff only composed one great work ?

Actually... mass media began in the late 1920s. And, TV started using sound in the very early 1930s.

Please tell me when Carmina Burana was first used in Ads!

How many people had TV upto the 50's ? Let alone TV, how many could afford to buy a radio in the 30's ? Was there Sattelite Cable TV ? Internet ?

Read this if you like : After Carmina burana

I meant more along the lines of getting involved out of the house, either in competitions, classes, etc...

Ok. You asked how to 'enrich your musical life'...I told you the best way. You want how to EXPOSE yourself...

Now you're ready to take the headphones off, do this:

Get out there.

You compose in your head, good...now write the friggin' things down.

Play... (by play I mean perform, as an instrumentalist or composer)

Find/start an ensemble - and rehearse.

It's invaluable having a working ensemble to write for, bring new charts

some will be good, some will suck.

Work it out - fix problems, find what works/doesn't; what you like/dislike

...many other things you can do...but here's a start.

...

Please tell me when Carmina Burana was first used in Ads!

How many people had TV upto the 50's ? Let alone TV, how many could afford to buy a radio in the 30's ? Was there Sattelite Cable TV ? Internet ?

I reckon this work got famous in the early 60s when the first worthwhile recording arrived (Ormandy - still holds its own as one of the most natural, unaffected performances) and the whole thing fitted nicely with the 60s liberation in W.Europe, such that it became a set work for advanced level music exams in the UK. It did a lot better than its associated works.

Another great piece is his Oedipus der Tyrann...haunting. Shame we don't hear more of that. Still, it doesn't have the sex/drink/gambling/sacrilegious uproar of Carmina that so captured the young of the 60s.

Ok. You asked how to 'enrich your musical life'...I told you the best way. You want how to EXPOSE yourself...

Now you're ready to take the headphones off, do this:

Get out there.

You compose in your head, good...now write the friggin' things down.

Play... (by play I mean perform, as an instrumentalist or composer)

Find/start an ensemble - and rehearse.

It's invaluable having a working ensemble to write for, bring new charts

some will be good, some will suck.

Work it out - fix problems, find what works/doesn't; what you like/dislike

You summed it up all right. If musical activities aren't handed you on a plate, go and ask until you find some and, unless you're the only musician in town, you'll find them sooner or later.

Be ready: organising can be hard going. I don't know what standard you play but you may have to practice. Even getting on the sound cart of an amateur film group can be fun and you do start to build up contacts.

Good luck.

What about competitions.... do you know of any that I would want to enter?

You summed it up all right. If musical activities aren't handed you on a plate, go and ask until you find some and, unless you're the only musician in town, you'll find them sooner or later.

Be ready: organising can be hard going. I don't know what standard you play but you may have to practice. Even getting on the sound cart of an amateur film group can be fun and you do start to build up contacts.

Good luck.

And for those of us who are, or might as well be the only musician in town?!

I doubt that, to be honest... I used live in a town of 50,000 people (not that much) but it had 3 conservatories...

If there is indeed noone at your hometown, the move (kidding...). The internet could help you out actually. Maybe not in the acutaly playing, unless you got a super duper broadnband connection, but through composition and mp3 sharing and so on...