This post might be a bit long, but there's stuff to listen to, so maybe you should stay a while and listen.
So I've been a musician for about 13 years, mostly performing, not really writing music. I'm trying to learn how to compose orchestral (film score) music. I've taken some theory classes, and I improve regularly just to see if I can improve my ability to generate good/great/interesting ideas.
Generally, I'm searching around for resources to study that will help my composition ability/knowledge. I have a friend who composes this sort of music, and we discuss music on a regular basis, but we spend 60% of our discussion time talking about technical things (hardware, VST limitations) rather than about melodies/harmony, etc.
He has no formal training, so he uses a more intuitive approach. I guess I'm kind of the same, but I have a little over a decade of performing experience, and SOME background in theory. Feel free to give criticisms. If you have any advice on composition/learning composition, feel free to share too.
(Keep in mind, I started composing recently, and I'm asking for criticisms so soon, since I think it'll help me progress much faster.)
I was listening to the orchestral version of gateways before writing it, so I was kind of trying to emulate things I heard, or things I thought I heard.
Now, the following two are some pretty good things composed by my friend. Since he doesn't know how to explain his mindset well/know theory, I would like for anyone willing to offer some insights about their composition and give me a clear, explicit of what these pieces are doing RIGHT that mine AREN'T. I feel I kind of have an intuitive idea of why (you'll hear them; this stuff is just way above what I am composing atm) but I think if I know them explicitly, I can work at improving them more easily.
There are books on orchestration. Some authors are Walter Piston, Rimsky-Korsakov, Samuel Adler and a few others. These deal with all the instruments and the basic stuff a composer needs to know to write for those instruments, like range and other limitations. Those books have examples that show some typical uses of those instruments. They don't tell you how to use an orchestra because that's impossible to do.
Unless you hear music in your head and you can just write it down, you need music theory to write music. You need to know counterpoint and how to voice chords well. Then you need to practice writing chord progressions and modulations.
In modern times we have handy tools like Finale and Sibelius. Before those software programs composers could write an orchestral score, but they could never hear how it sounded except by imagining it in their head, which is basically impossible to do unless you have tons and tons of experience.
Also, pop music that is orchestrated like Dimmu Borgir or Metallica are bad examples. Scores of symphonies are generally widely available. Now not all composers that wrote for orchestra were good at orchestration, but most that wrote symphonies were. You can also look at film scores, but I don't know if you can get the scores for those pieces. You should listen to some of those pieces while you read along.
Then get books on counterpoint and harmony, get into Finale/Sibelius and practice writing music following those exercises.
You say you have some background in theory. I don't really know what this means. But basically you want to know the basic and intermediate theory to how chord progressions and modulations work.
Film score music is a bit different to classical music. The lack of form makes it a lot easier to just write something. You can use the score to seed certain moods. Or you can just write impressive powerful music. Often you need to do both. You can get a OST of some movie you know you watched and then listen to all the tracks. Some are going to be pretty banal or silly music wise and you are going to wonder how the hell that worked and for what scene. But then when you watch the scene you don't really pay much attention to the music but the music has the right effect for that scene.
I can definitely hear the difference between your pieces and your friends. Now I'm no expert on this stuff but I think it may have something to do with acoustics. His sounds a lot more powerful where yours kinda remind me of the Age of Empires soundtrack. (Not to say its bad, they just sound like they were recorded the same way). This is just me guessing though but it may be something to think about.
As a musician myself, it just feels like your friend's music has an image behind it. The Film Test 3 one makes me feel like I'm in some LotRish world with some corny intense close ups of heros and people. It's a very nice intro, and definitely has potential with an intro and some more variations. It was simple and portrayed an idea.
The reasons why his compositions are better than yours (i can't tell what key/chords you guys are using from just listening to it...not that great yet):
You end on a climax and he resolves his pieces. In the 2nd link you posted, it feels like you basically killed the melody with an abrupt stinger note. Those stinger notes are usually only found in band repertoire, not lyrical pieces.
Your music is very one sided. In the first link, all I can hear is violin in my face. I heard a very faint accompianment viola I believe, and that was under the pizz cellos. Weird balancing, but I don't think that's your fault. Anyways, the first piece you posted had very little to go on to begin with. You can cut the ending and create a variation where a clarinet or a cello can come in with a second or counter melody, or just make it go into a more vibrant mood with flutes, clarinets , violas, cellos, and bases, keeping the solo violin.
Your second piece is just the exact opposite; there's no clear melody that the listener can hear. I don't know what you were thinking when you made this lol. To me it's just a bunch of syncopated rhythms with a small thing of horn in there.
I think you should just experiment with variations on the melody and some nice counter melodies to go along with your main main melody. Your friend does it pretty nicely. He's got a drum cadence + bass thing going on, the strings come in with this majestic entrance, and the horns blend in nicely with the counter melody with the harp and percussion covering some of the weird transitions, and ends with something that you'd expect on the intro of a TV series.
Your pieces are just incomplete. His have a beginning, middle, and end.
There isn't one criticism that's going to fix anything perceived to be "wrong" with your pieces. But the most glaring as imBLIND said, they're just incomplete. I'd chalk it down to having a clear direction of what you want to convey...as cliche as it may sound. You have pieces of structure in place, it's just a matter of working out proper accompaniments, harmonies and as imBLIND also said, counter melodies.
If there was another comparison between your friend's and yours, I'd call it, concise decisiveness. He's simple where he can be simple, and engrossing when he wants to engage. The piece knows what it is at all points throughout.
I'll write more later, but I should've said earlier, that I don't consider anything of my own that I've posted remotely complete. I guess that makes it harder to compare, but this stuff you're saying is very helpful so far.
Your friend's music seems pretty flawless harmonically. If he really has no idea what he is writing down then that is pretty impressive. Also, his production is very good.
Yes, music is a language. In some sense a music has to have a beginning or an end, though I feel that is a limited analogy. Your piece had no harmonic movement. Besides, it had a 1.5 tone interval in the melody. Not sure if you wanted to create an exotic effect of like eastern music. Can you hear the dissonance in your melody? If not, you need to do a lot of ear training. It's like having 30 apm.
I think you would benefit from writing music using the chords of a certain key as building blocks.
As a musician your most important ability is to hear. At what level are you in recognizing intervals and chords? You may want to do some ear training. Also, what music do you listen to? Dimmu Borgir is limited music. It's like fast food. It's not healthy. As a musician you should force yourself to eat vegetables, so to speak. You want to listen to music rich in harmony.
Let's say your friend grew up with his parents playing Mahler, Ravel, Wagner or Beethoven all the time. He's going to have an advantage because of that.
Another thing is to learn what makes a great melody. In generally a melody needs to be continuous. So does a voice in an orchestral piece. If you make big jumps that's going to be discontinuous. So you should practice things in isolation. You want to practice writing a melody? Write just a melody. No rhythm and no harmony allowed. Want to write better chord progressions. Do just that. Pay no attention to melody and have each chord be one measure to have the most simple rhythm possible.
since we're on the subject, here's a short piece that I wrote last year + Show Spoiler +
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_lxZhT9H9I kind of a joke piece, but yeah. whatever
The general idea behind this piece is the gradual rise of negative emotion which eventually builds up into a shockingly dissonant outburst of pure nihilism. I hope you guys like it.
since we're on the subject, here's a short piece that I wrote last year
The general idea behind this piece is the gradual rise of negative emotion which eventually builds up into a shockingly dissonant outburst of pure nihilism. I hope you guys like it.
On August 11 2011 17:49 imBLIND wrote: Your music is very one sided. In the first link, all I can hear is violin in my face. I heard a very faint accompianment viola I believe, and that was under the pizz cellos. Weird balancing, but I don't think that's your fault. Anyways, the first piece you posted had very little to go on to begin with. You can cut the ending and create a variation where a clarinet or a cello can come in with a second or counter melody, or just make it go into a more vibrant mood with flutes, clarinets , violas, cellos, and bases, keeping the solo violin.
Not quite. For the majority of the first link I felt that the trumpets/brass were the dominant instrument, not violins. I honestly don't know what you're going at here. There is nothing wrong with starting a piece with just pure strings. Check out the sixth movement of Mahler's 3rd symphony , for example. Absolutely gorgeous + Show Spoiler +
On August 11 2011 17:49 imBLIND wrote: Your second piece is just the exact opposite; there's no clear melody that the listener can hear. I don't know what you were thinking when you made this lol. To me it's just a bunch of syncopated rhythms with a small thing of horn in there.
Not all music requires melody. In fact, I believe that to be a rather elementary assumption. I find music based on pure tone color and harmony to be quite fascinating actually. It all just depends on what you're going for.
On August 11 2011 18:34 Hekisui wrote: Your friend's music seems pretty flawless harmonically. If he really has no idea what he is writing down then that is pretty impressive. Also, his production is very good.
Yes, music is a language. In some sense a music has to have a beginning or an end, though I feel that is a limited analogy. Your piece had no harmonic movement. Besides, it had a 1.5 tone interval in the melody. Not sure if you wanted to create an exotic effect of like eastern music. Can you hear the dissonance in your melody? If not, you need to do a lot of ear training. It's like having 30 apm.
I think you would benefit from writing music using the chords of a certain key as building blocks.
As a musician your most important ability is to hear. At what level are you in recognizing intervals and chords? You may want to do some ear training. Also, what music do you listen to? Dimmu Borgir is limited music. It's like fast food. It's not healthy. As a musician you should force yourself to eat vegetables, so to speak. You want to listen to music rich in harmony.
Let's say your friend grew up with his parents playing Mahler, Ravel, Wagner or Beethoven all the time. He's going to have an advantage because of that.
Another thing is to learn what makes a great melody. In generally a melody needs to be continuous. So does a voice in an orchestral piece. If you make big jumps that's going to be discontinuous. So you should practice things in isolation. You want to practice writing a melody? Write just a melody. No rhythm and no harmony allowed. Want to write better chord progressions. Do just that. Pay no attention to melody and have each chord be one measure to have the most simple rhythm possible.
Well, I've always liked dissonant sounds. I'm not great at recognizing intervals and chords, since my theory is limited to just knowing the major and minor scales, but not really using them with any clear purpose in mind. This is one thing I'm practicing a little, but not all that much. (But, yes. The dissonance in the first piece was intentional, and the "eastern" sound in the second was intentional as well.)
I listen to a lot of metal, electronic, classical. I'm not actually a big fan of Dimmu, but I like some of their orchestral stuff. It's quite cheesy, but I think that's why I like it. I could only talk about classical music in a superficial way. I don't know everything every composer wrote. The extent of my knowledge is pretty much the most well-known composers, what eras they belonged to, and a basic ability to recognize their sound. + Show Spoiler +
On August 11 2011 17:40 Hekisui wrote: There are books on orchestration. Some authors are Walter Piston, Rimsky-Korsakov, Samuel Adler and a few others. These deal with all the instruments and the basic stuff a composer needs to know to write for those instruments, like range and other limitations. Those books have examples that show some typical uses of those instruments. They don't tell you how to use an orchestra because that's impossible to do.
Unless you hear music in your head and you can just write it down, you need music theory to write music. You need to know counterpoint and how to voice chords well. Then you need to practice writing chord progressions and modulations.
In modern times we have handy tools like Finale and Sibelius. Before those software programs composers could write an orchestral score, but they could never hear how it sounded except by imagining it in their head, which is basically impossible to do unless you have tons and tons of experience.
Also, pop music that is orchestrated like Dimmu Borgir or Metallica are bad examples. Scores of symphonies are generally widely available. Now not all composers that wrote for orchestra were good at orchestration, but most that wrote symphonies were. You can also look at film scores, but I don't know if you can get the scores for those pieces. You should listen to some of those pieces while you read along.
Then get books on counterpoint and harmony, get into Finale/Sibelius and practice writing music following those exercises.
You say you have some background in theory. I don't really know what this means. But basically you want to know the basic and intermediate theory to how chord progressions and modulations work.
Film score music is a bit different to classical music. The lack of form makes it a lot easier to just write something. You can use the score to seed certain moods. Or you can just write impressive powerful music. Often you need to do both. You can get a OST of some movie you know you watched and then listen to all the tracks. Some are going to be pretty banal or silly music wise and you are going to wonder how the hell that worked and for what scene. But then when you watch the scene you don't really pay much attention to the music but the music has the right effect for that scene.
Hopefully no one finds my illogical order as I go backwards in the posts too irksome. As I said above, I was in orchestra. That said, I do have scores for two particular pieces I really liked. Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain," and Mendelssohn's "Die Hebriden." Now that I'm trying to write my own music, I'll go through them again while listening to recordings, but when I'm doing this exercise, is there any sort of thing to keep in mind?
A more dramatic/"cinematic" style of composition is ultimately what I'd like to write, but I don't want to limit myself to "just" that. Would you say there's anything I should or shouldn't do while trying to learn how to write this type of music? I've listened to a decent number of film scores, but probably not enough. Stuff by Zimmer, Williams, and a fair number of video game/anime/Asian film scores etc. I also really liked the OST to Psycho...
If your theory is limited to just knowing major/minor scales and you're composing at this level, that's quite something. I actually like your second composition (sounds like it's centered around Eb minor) better than your friend's second song (centered around C minor). The Eb- one sounds like borderline exotic which I did enjoy, whereas the C- one is rather too typical / generic for me. I could easily imagine your Eb- one being used in an Asian movie for a romantic scene in a temple garden with light drizzle in the background.
The more upbeat ones though, I agree that your friend's composition seems more complete. He seems to understand the orchestration enough to utilize the right sounds (right instruments) to achieve different things in the music (tension, relief, etc.). Although, I would have liked if the resolution passage (Eb F D- G- Eb7 F G-) came a little later down the line, it felt like a really short build-up, resolution, then re-build up into improper resolution.
Well, that's my feeling, and everyone has different preferences =) Continue your passion and keep up the great work!
Thanks. I try working with him, whenever I can, but it's just so intuitive for him, and he has put much more time and effort thus far into music.
I guess it also helps to have a nice computer with several dozen terabytes of storage (for VST's and nice samples) and some other great hardware, but I still think this should be doable without it. When I talk to him, he makes it just seem like listening to a shit ton of other composers is ALL it takes to make music that good, lol. I guess his mind is just too different from mine.
Edit: I just looked around for some more books, but I forgot that Korsakov's "Principles of Orchestration" is the text that the guide to orchestration on Northernsounds is based on, so I DO have some exposure to such texts..
On August 11 2011 18:34 Hekisui wrote: Your friend's music seems pretty flawless harmonically. If he really has no idea what he is writing down then that is pretty impressive. Also, his production is very good.
Yes, music is a language. In some sense a music has to have a beginning or an end, though I feel that is a limited analogy. Your piece had no harmonic movement. Besides, it had a 1.5 tone interval in the melody. Not sure if you wanted to create an exotic effect of like eastern music. Can you hear the dissonance in your melody? If not, you need to do a lot of ear training. It's like having 30 apm.
I think you would benefit from writing music using the chords of a certain key as building blocks.
As a musician your most important ability is to hear. At what level are you in recognizing intervals and chords? You may want to do some ear training. Also, what music do you listen to? Dimmu Borgir is limited music. It's like fast food. It's not healthy. As a musician you should force yourself to eat vegetables, so to speak. You want to listen to music rich in harmony.
Let's say your friend grew up with his parents playing Mahler, Ravel, Wagner or Beethoven all the time. He's going to have an advantage because of that.
Another thing is to learn what makes a great melody. In generally a melody needs to be continuous. So does a voice in an orchestral piece. If you make big jumps that's going to be discontinuous. So you should practice things in isolation. You want to practice writing a melody? Write just a melody. No rhythm and no harmony allowed. Want to write better chord progressions. Do just that. Pay no attention to melody and have each chord be one measure to have the most simple rhythm possible.
Well, I've always liked dissonant sounds. I'm not great at recognizing intervals and chords, since my theory is limited to just knowing the major and minor scales, but not really using them with any clear purpose in mind. This is one thing I'm practicing a little, but not all that much. (But, yes. The dissonance in the first piece was intentional, and the "eastern" sound in the second was intentional as well.)
I listen to a lot of metal, electronic, classical. I'm not actually a big fan of Dimmu, but I like some of their orchestral stuff. It's quite cheesy, but I think that's why I like it. I could only talk about classical music in a superficial way. I don't know everything every composer wrote. The extent of my knowledge is pretty much the most well-known composers, what eras they belonged to, and a basic ability to recognize their sound. + Show Spoiler +
On August 11 2011 17:40 Hekisui wrote: There are books on orchestration. Some authors are Walter Piston, Rimsky-Korsakov, Samuel Adler and a few others. These deal with all the instruments and the basic stuff a composer needs to know to write for those instruments, like range and other limitations. Those books have examples that show some typical uses of those instruments. They don't tell you how to use an orchestra because that's impossible to do.
Unless you hear music in your head and you can just write it down, you need music theory to write music. You need to know counterpoint and how to voice chords well. Then you need to practice writing chord progressions and modulations.
In modern times we have handy tools like Finale and Sibelius. Before those software programs composers could write an orchestral score, but they could never hear how it sounded except by imagining it in their head, which is basically impossible to do unless you have tons and tons of experience.
Also, pop music that is orchestrated like Dimmu Borgir or Metallica are bad examples. Scores of symphonies are generally widely available. Now not all composers that wrote for orchestra were good at orchestration, but most that wrote symphonies were. You can also look at film scores, but I don't know if you can get the scores for those pieces. You should listen to some of those pieces while you read along.
Then get books on counterpoint and harmony, get into Finale/Sibelius and practice writing music following those exercises.
You say you have some background in theory. I don't really know what this means. But basically you want to know the basic and intermediate theory to how chord progressions and modulations work.
Film score music is a bit different to classical music. The lack of form makes it a lot easier to just write something. You can use the score to seed certain moods. Or you can just write impressive powerful music. Often you need to do both. You can get a OST of some movie you know you watched and then listen to all the tracks. Some are going to be pretty banal or silly music wise and you are going to wonder how the hell that worked and for what scene. But then when you watch the scene you don't really pay much attention to the music but the music has the right effect for that scene.
Hopefully no one finds my illogical order as I go backwards in the posts too irksome. As I said above, I was in orchestra. That said, I do have scores for two particular pieces I really liked. Mussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain," and Mendelssohn's "Die Hebriden." Now that I'm trying to write my own music, I'll go through them again while listening to recordings, but when I'm doing this exercise, is there any sort of thing to keep in mind?
A more dramatic/"cinematic" style of composition is ultimately what I'd like to write, but I don't want to limit myself to "just" that. Would you say there's anything I should or shouldn't do while trying to learn how to write this type of music? I've listened to a decent number of film scores, but probably not enough. Stuff by Zimmer, Williams, and a fair number of video game/anime/Asian film scores etc. I also really liked the OST to Psycho...
If you are really serious about learning to become a composer of the orchestral type (regardless of film or classical idioms), and a competent one, you cannot forego theoretical learning, this is the single most important thing that you should focus on. Once you learn proper theory, you will be able to decipher why some of what your doing in your music are hindering the perception, or effect of your work. Here are some major texts on theory, orchestration and techniques that every composer should have in their library:
The last two, for your needs might not be necessary if you never actually write music on paper, or in score format (though this knowledge is vitally important if you ever work with actual musicians). I would also recommend you look at extended technique texts, these will help you understand and learn how to write with them. The most seminal one, though very outdated now is New Sounds for Woodwinds, by Bruno Bartolozzi, though I think it's out of print..
Space in music (ma) is perhaps the most overlooked element, especially for young composers. Your first piece lacks space, both vertical and horizontal. There is a sonic phenomenon in orchestration sometimes referred to as the 'wall of sound' (I know super technical), whereas the listener is bombarded by the same musical sounds for an extended period, in other words, the same orchestration, the same registral placement, the same instrumentation, etc.., with no breaks. This taxes the ears considerably as you aren't giving any space for the listener to properly digest what they're hearing. Sometimes this is a style or affect that someone is looking for (Harrison Birtwistle for example), but often times it is because of a lack of orchestration knowledge. When you have many instruments in the same general register, they if doing somewhat similar things, tend to fight eachother and become counterproductive to what your doing. Minimalist music might be the only exception that I can think of at the moment, but even that music is carefully crafted with that in mind.
Uh, I should probably define vertical and horizontal space.. Horizontal space is most readily noticed in phrasing and seen when a composer gives some kind of space, whether a breath, or a change in orchestration that allows the ears a change in stimulus. This is either an actual change, or a perceived one, either way the result is the same, the ears register a change in stimulus The same works vertically, but is much more dependent on orchestration and registral placement to create or manipulate those changes.
In picking music to listen to, pick some that you enjoy, but don't oversaturate with them, part of the learning process as a composer is learning and studying different styles. Think of it this way, if an actor only studied how to play romantic or heroic roles, how could he ever hope to play someone like King Lear as he's deliberately not studying part of his craft?
It takes a long time and a lot of studying in order to fully understand the art of composition, so don't get discouraged if it seems like a ton to learn, because it is, and all of us did it at one point, and likely still are to an extent, it's an ongoing process. I'll bet you if you talked to Elliot Carter, that he'd tell you that he's still learning things about his craft, and he's 102 btw.
Well, I am somewhat similar to your friend in that I have little "formal" training, but music has been a huge part of my life from the beginning (my Mother's band opened for Black Sabbath in the 70's, and she showered me with all kinds of music from birth). I took guitar and piano lessons for several years in grade school, then just taught myself after that, and later the drums. I've played guitar, bass, and drums (not at the same time lol..) in probably 10 or so bands since then, switching from grunge (my first band), to punk, to ska/reggae, to hard funk, then jazzy jam style. After all the countless gigs both big and small, and probably ten times as many practices, the best part was writing originals, either together with the band, or at home alone and getting input from the others later (which could lead to some big arguments lol..).
After composing all the different styles of music in completely different bands, I lost the passion to keep up the practice/perform game. So, the past few years, I have simply been composing all kinds of originals (mainly on piano or guitar to get the basic core down) and trying to produce them as best I can, but the only problems I have had are technical, such as mixing and finding the right VSTi's or plug-ins, as well as the time... I can write a whole song in the shower over 15 minutes, but it will take countless hours to produce correctly (which are growing fewer these days sadly). Anyway, didn't mean to write my biography, just thought it might shine a light on my methods of composition.
Nearly half of my music simply pops in my head as I hum to myself driving or in the shower (I try to not think and just listen to what comes out, although most results are uninteresting), either a catchy melody, verse, or chorus, then I can usually put other parts and enhancements to the original idea quite easily. I wouldn't make this a go to method for song ideas, but if you have a creative subconscious, it may be rewarding to take heed.
If things don't randomly pop in your head, or at least nothing that you like, a loose standard method should serve. Simply sit at the keyboard, guitar, or whatever instrument you are most comfortable playing for general musical ideas. You can try the not thinking method and let your hands go until you hear something you wish to build upon, or simply think of how you are personally feeling, or how the feeling you want to convey would convert to sound waves (ie- you want to convey a deep sadness mixed with a dry humored acceptance to the cause, you could begin with minor chords/melodies growing more dissonant with each progression followed with a consonant resolution, or minor chords/melodies straight to a resolution but followed and ended in dissonance for a more perpetual, hopeless vibe).
Probably my biggest rule when composing though is to not pursue something I am not feeling. I have made countless little riffs, progressions, etc. that sounded fine and others would probably like, but they just did nothing for me, and were forgettable/unmoving. This of course is completely different for every person, such as my music may invoke that apathetic yawn to another artist, while likewise with his music I feel little to no connection or long term interest. This has nothing to do with quality, there are countless insanely awesome technically masterful tracks that I can appreciate on a professional level due to their masterful crafting, but never listen to more than once because the melodies or scales were of those I find boring and forgettable. On the other side of that coin, a poorly crafted song that has a chord progression I love, and/or gets me bobbing my head, getting into it, I will listen to quite often. Basically my point is while technical skill is great to have, if your work does not move you personally, it will make additional ideas much harder to come by, as well as turn a fun project that brings a feeling to life to a tedious chore with an impressive, but soulless result.
I read many books om music theory, from simple to advanced, from tonal to atonal.
Classical music is music obsessed with both harmony and form. Western music makes melodic compromises towards harmony, as a system. This is obvious when compared to Indian music. Also, rhythmic is is often very very simple as music often had to be danced to.
I wrote both based on theory and on what I hear. But I never hear completely new music in my head. I only hear how to continue or how to change what I already had on paper. Often I would either start with a melody or with a set of chords and mold that into a piece.
For me very important is form. So themes have to be introduced and developed. Also, I keep things like the sonata-allegro form in the back of my mind. For film score music it is probably better to have themes or characters or settings. I don't know if you actually want to write a score to video or a computer game or you just want to compose more casually and not call it actual modern classical absolute music.
I would always keep track of the roman numerals of the chords. Often in two keys at once. Normal harmony was not enough for me. Most of my music was tonal but I tried to spice it up without it getting dissonant. The days of Handel are over and to me such chords are too plain for modern music. The main tool for a beginning composer is probably the cadence. I would always use it and try to put it at the right point. Romantic composers went far further than V7-I. They stacked all kinds of dissonances on top of the V triad. Call it the Tristan chord(Wagner) or the Prometheus chord(Scriabin). Often I had also sections that had no clear tonal center despite it all being proper chords. I would also take apart a melody and a harmony and have the melody appear again under different chords or have the same chord progression appear again but then with a different melody.
Once you have control over what you do you can get so many purely theoretical ideas to avoid 'writers block'. And then you just change it until it sounds good.
Often melodies I would get from improvising at the piano or by just putting in notes into Finale and playing them back until I got the right result. Then I can just change key with the press of the button and figure out in what key I like it most.
Composing music is most like solving a rubic cube. When you put one note right at one point, you may have changed another note for the worse. The trick is to find a way that solves the problem at both places. Sometimes there are more than one solutions. Sometimes there is no solution possible and you have to either accept it how it is or change it completely even if it all sounds great despite that one note.
The biggest problem I had is in listening to my own stuff and judging it well. Because I had listened to it maybe 100 times already before it was finished, I couldn't hear it for what it really was. Because I heard it so many times I accepted it for how it sounded and it was hard to say if it flowed well enough and smooth enough. It was impossible for me to know how it would sound to an average person who was going to hear it for the first time. I already hear music differently, and hearing something many times, you can't imagine it going differently from how it goes. This was my biggest problem in composing.
As with regards to orchestration books. If you don't actually write for a real orchestra but instead for a bunch of samples then technical limitations of the real instruments become meaningless. Even Blizzard doesn't use an actual orchestra. Basically using samples is so much cheaper, you only still write for a real orchestra when it is actually going to be played live by one.
So about 50% of the stuff in those books may now be obsolete.
I read many books om music theory, from simple to advanced, from tonal to atonal.
Classical music is music obsessed with both harmony and form. Western music makes melodic compromises towards harmony, as a system. This is obvious when compared to Indian music. Also, rhythmic is is often very very simple as music often had to be danced to.
I wrote both based on theory and on what I hear. But I never hear completely new music in my head. I only hear how to continue or how to change what I already had on paper. Often I would either start with a melody or with a set of chords and mold that into a piece.
For me very important is form. So themes have to be introduced and developed. Also, I keep things like the sonata-allegro form in the back of my mind. For film score music it is probably better to have themes or characters or settings. I don't know if you actually want to write a score to video or a computer game or you just want to compose more casually and not call it actual modern classical absolute music.
I would always keep track of the roman numerals of the chords. Often in two keys at once. Normal harmony was not enough for me. Most of my music was tonal but I tried to spice it up without it getting dissonant. The days of Handel are over and to me such chords are too plain for modern music. The main tool for a beginning composer is probably the cadence. I would always use it and try to put it at the right point. Romantic composers went far further than V7-I. They stacked all kinds of dissonances on top of the V triad. Call it the Tristan chord(Wagner) or the Prometheus chord(Scriabin). Often I had also sections that had no clear tonal center despite it all being proper chords. I would also take apart a melody and a harmony and have the melody appear again under different chords or have the same chord progression appear again but then with a different melody.
Once you have control over what you do you can get so many purely theoretical ideas to avoid 'writers block'. And then you just change it until it sounds good.
Often melodies I would get from improvising at the piano or by just putting in notes into Finale and playing them back until I got the right result. Then I can just change key with the press of the button and figure out in what key I like it most.
Composing music is most like solving a rubic cube. When you put one note right at one point, you may have changed another note for the worse. The trick is to find a way that solves the problem at both places. Sometimes there are more than one solutions. Sometimes there is no solution possible and you have to either accept it how it is or change it completely even if it all sounds great despite that one note.
The biggest problem I had is in listening to my own stuff and judging it well. Because I had listened to it maybe 100 times already before it was finished, I couldn't hear it for what it really was. Because I heard it so many times I accepted it for how it sounded and it was hard to say if it flowed well enough and smooth enough. It was impossible for me to know how it would sound to an average person who was going to hear it for the first time. I already hear music differently, and hearing something many times, you can't imagine it going differently from how it goes. This was my biggest problem in composing.
As with regards to orchestration books. If you don't actually write for a real orchestra but instead for a bunch of samples then technical limitations of the real instruments become meaningless. Even Blizzard doesn't use an actual orchestra. Basically using samples is so much cheaper, you only still write for a real orchestra when it is actually going to be played live by one.
So about 50% of the stuff in those books may now be obsolete.
With respect to the last block of text-- even if I AM using sampled instruments, isn't it good to keep in mind the technical limitations of real instruments? I mean, if I play notes outside of an instruments normal range, isn't that going to sound unnatural? Or perhaps you were referring to something ELSE when you say "technical limitations of the real instruments," I can't think of any other example of this....
and thanks to everyone for their insights, I'll probably keep referring to this thread for a few months as I work on my musical knowledge and ability.
I read many books om music theory, from simple to advanced, from tonal to atonal.
Classical music is music obsessed with both harmony and form. Western music makes melodic compromises towards harmony, as a system. This is obvious when compared to Indian music. Also, rhythmic is is often very very simple as music often had to be danced to.
I wrote both based on theory and on what I hear. But I never hear completely new music in my head. I only hear how to continue or how to change what I already had on paper. Often I would either start with a melody or with a set of chords and mold that into a piece.
For me very important is form. So themes have to be introduced and developed. Also, I keep things like the sonata-allegro form in the back of my mind. For film score music it is probably better to have themes or characters or settings. I don't know if you actually want to write a score to video or a computer game or you just want to compose more casually and not call it actual modern classical absolute music.
I would always keep track of the roman numerals of the chords. Often in two keys at once. Normal harmony was not enough for me. Most of my music was tonal but I tried to spice it up without it getting dissonant. The days of Handel are over and to me such chords are too plain for modern music. The main tool for a beginning composer is probably the cadence. I would always use it and try to put it at the right point. Romantic composers went far further than V7-I. They stacked all kinds of dissonances on top of the V triad. Call it the Tristan chord(Wagner) or the Prometheus chord(Scriabin). Often I had also sections that had no clear tonal center despite it all being proper chords. I would also take apart a melody and a harmony and have the melody appear again under different chords or have the same chord progression appear again but then with a different melody.
Once you have control over what you do you can get so many purely theoretical ideas to avoid 'writers block'. And then you just change it until it sounds good.
Often melodies I would get from improvising at the piano or by just putting in notes into Finale and playing them back until I got the right result. Then I can just change key with the press of the button and figure out in what key I like it most.
Composing music is most like solving a rubic cube. When you put one note right at one point, you may have changed another note for the worse. The trick is to find a way that solves the problem at both places. Sometimes there are more than one solutions. Sometimes there is no solution possible and you have to either accept it how it is or change it completely even if it all sounds great despite that one note.
The biggest problem I had is in listening to my own stuff and judging it well. Because I had listened to it maybe 100 times already before it was finished, I couldn't hear it for what it really was. Because I heard it so many times I accepted it for how it sounded and it was hard to say if it flowed well enough and smooth enough. It was impossible for me to know how it would sound to an average person who was going to hear it for the first time. I already hear music differently, and hearing something many times, you can't imagine it going differently from how it goes. This was my biggest problem in composing.
As with regards to orchestration books. If you don't actually write for a real orchestra but instead for a bunch of samples then technical limitations of the real instruments become meaningless. Even Blizzard doesn't use an actual orchestra. Basically using samples is so much cheaper, you only still write for a real orchestra when it is actually going to be played live by one.
So about 50% of the stuff in those books may now be obsolete.
With respect to the last block of text-- even if I AM using sampled instruments, isn't it good to keep in mind the technical limitations of real instruments? I mean, if I play notes outside of an instruments normal range, isn't that going to sound unnatural? Or perhaps you were referring to something ELSE when you say "technical limitations of the real instruments," I can't think of any other example of this....
and thanks to everyone for their insights, I'll probably keep referring to this thread for a few months as I work on my musical knowledge and ability.
You are absolutely right on that one. Technical limitations on acoustic instruments is an extremely important factor when dealing with sampled acoustic instruments. You have to know regardless that a computer is 'performing' how an instrument reacts/performs in the real world, because if someone like myself listens to a piece and picks up an impossibility (technical or registral) with an instrument, it's gonna rub me the wrong way, and will make you look amateurish, neither of which are a good thing.
Also, to look at it from a psychological standpoint, even if the listener doesn't know that there is some problem when using an instrument in a way that it could never do in the real world, their ears will still understand that something funky is going on with the music, even if they can't identify it. This is kind of dependent on the techniques you are using, so it is somewhat situational, but the more you distance yourself from real world norms, the more artificial a piece is going to sound, and I guarantee you that listeners will pick up on that.
It's also probably both a good and bad thing that these VST's are being designed very intelligently, with regards to such limitations.
Most of the VSTs I have can't play notes outside of their register.
So if I fire up Kontakt4, and load up some cello patches, they can't play notes over a certain register, because there are no samples of notes that high..
if you talk to people who study formally, they'll tell you that orchestration is just a technique; what they mean of course is to emphasize firstly composition, distinct and separate.
in my personal opinion so much of the old "rules" and "textbooks" has more to do with taste and practical matters concerning contemporary orchestras than principles. principles and textures you'll learn just as much from studying modern music production as you will from old orchestration textbooks. i.e, instrumentation in all frequencies sounds full, etc.
but things like.. how to voice your winds... that is merely taste and oldfashioned in the world of film music etc imho
EPT
