When did you start composing?

For me I, wrote music since the first time I have ever played a note. I was 10 and that was 7 years ago. I always had trouble remembering techniques. So, anything that I was taught and that I thought was important I wrote my own song for as a reference libary in my mind for future use. If you can belive it, I can still remember almost every little song I wrote. I'm now in the process of writing them down while at the same as composing others. No belives me that these song are stuck in my head and I'll never forget them. They are forcing me to write them down. It's a long, long process!

I just found what could be my first piece of music I ever wrote, at probably age 6.

It's for organ, and it's called, "The wite prinses." I presume that was meant to be "The White Princess."

It consists of a bunch of letters with sharps or flats by them and numbers over them, which is I guess how long to hold each note.

I guess I just felt the need to get my idea down even though I didn't know how to notate as of yet. I think maybe that was a good sign.

Whether I knew it or not, music has always been my thing. My first encounter with music that I remember is sitting at my Grandma's organ and tinkering with it. By the age of four, maybe five (I forget ;) ) I was able to play Fur Elise on the organ without ever having a lesson (this was the melody as it was written and a left hand accompaniment of my own invention (I couldn't figure out the original accompaniment)). Soon, I started to play my thoughts or feelings on how the day went, but I couldn't read or write music, I just knew that it was in me.

I guess you could say my uncle got me into writing music in an indirect way. He gave me CDs that he no longer cared for. Most of it was music that i knew very well, but did not like much. But one day, as we were taking a car ride, he pulled out Mozart and gave the CD to me. Oh, it was magic!!! I took it home and played it with a smile on my face. I decided to learn everything I could about Mozart. And with the power of the internet, I did. Haha!!!

So by this point i knew what music I liked and soon after, pieces started playing in my head.

In sixth grade (the year I began my first Orchestra class (I was 11 then)) my teacher was passing a CD with Finale Notepad on it around the class to people who wanted to download it. I eventually got it and used it and became so frustrated that I could not make the music in my head come out of the computer that I gave up composing until November of 2005. As it turns out, 4 years of Orchestra class is enough to make people know how to write music! I finally quit using Notepad and upgraded to Finale '06 and I'm the composer I am today.

-Jon

P.S. I still have my first Mozart CD memorized.

I made my first piece when I was 7, but it wasn't really that serious, so I don't count it. I didn't start taking composition seriously until I was around 14. I've been composing for about a year (I started February of '05).

I've written interesting pieces through my time, but none of them have an appealing charm until now. Hah, I still remember a piece I wrote beacuse I was feeling weird. It was a song that was in 7/4 but occasionally switched to 5/4... it was so weird, but I lost it. >.<... I think I deleted it, 'cause I didn't like it.

I started composing when I was 15. I kept writing short piano pieces and bringing them in to my piano teacher, who then encouraged me to get composition lessons, which I did. I took composition for two years at the Rennaissance Center in Dickson, TN. I now use Finale and write pieces mostly for choir and piano. Those are my specialties, but I also write some for smaller instrumental ensembles. I'm getting ready to go to college in the fall to study music composition.

-Adam

I started composing around 17,

I have been into the orchestra sound of music for 3 of those years.

I wish I had gotten into composing much sooner than I did. I was a really insecure teenager and didn't think I could "cut it" in music. Not that my high school music teacher was of any help :(

I started hearing music in my head when I was 14, inspired by film and video games. I didn't know how to transcribe it down on paper so I let my ideas sit in my head for two-three years. I went to a summer music camp that offered a composition class for the first time the last year I went (went for three summers, later went to teach at it for five more). I had volunteered myself to write something for a play, but I had never written anything before. I learned some techniques at this camp and became obsessed with writing. I got into college for music ed but switched after a year when the whole composing thing got a lot bigger than I imagined. I got a bachelors in music theory and a masters in music composition. Now I live in LA and I'm trying to get into writing music for film/tv/video games. I joke it was a hobby that got out of hand. I've now been composing for nine years.

And the Los Angeles YC club continues to grow......... I think we're starting to rival Canadia now. :(

And the Los Angeles YC club continues to grow......... I think we're starting to rival Canadia now. :(

guys....you were really young when started composing!!~:ermm: :huh: ~

well, i just started formally composing 10 months ago.... :laugh:

I hear ya Recorri!

I really just started composing about 4 months ago. I think what got it started was a couple of music teachers I had last quarter. One in particular was a musical genius and really inspired me to keep up with my music (i've been playing piano since I was about 8 or 9). So one day in one of the piano rooms, I just heard a melody in my head. So I started writing it down on the bus ride home, and finished that day. It was very strange considering I had never written anything down in my life. Anyway that's about how it happened. :blink:

Not counting the one composition I wrote as an exercise when I was 7 for my piano lessons, I started writing music the summer that I turned 14. I was just about to start high school, and as fate would have it, the high school's production of Romeo & Juliet was looking for incidental music for the play, so I offered some of the stuff I had written, and they accepted it. It was really crude, and I feel like I'd lose brain cells if I went back and listened to it again, but it was what really got me interested in the possibility of composing as a career.

I just got Sibelius back in May and Finale around July so just started

I started composing at the age of 11 if I remember well... though I never had composition classes until I was 23 :P

Just out of curiosity... since I just read cavatina's survey results, I'd like to know how many of us actually started early in composition. Also I thought I might as well take a survey of what the distribution of experience levels is.

One other question that I'm also interested in: what originally got you into composing? (Not on the poll above, because it's more open-ended.)

I haven't been composing long. Since January 06. But i have approximately 100 songs written. I am currently composing a wind ensemble, an opera, a second symphony, a piano/violin sonata, a piano sonata for eight hands, and a suite.

Wow... I write seriously only since I'm 23 (that means 8 years) and got less than one tenth... Are you eating or sleeping ??

I've been composing for say... 2 years. Theirs not much else for me to put here.

Since I was 11... so about a year and a half now.

I've been composing for 5 years since I was 9. My very first piece was called sunaby, my first actual piece was a prelude in A minor which I will post, I made it when I was around 9/10.

what the hell is composing?

haha jk i started probably two years ago or so. i'm lazy though, so i haven't done much. i do a lot of arranging mostly. so when i was 15 or 16 i guess is when i started.

I made it when I was around 9/10.

Holy scraggy... 9/10!!! You've been composing since then?

That's like..umm.. 10.8 months!!

Not even 1 year old..

I've got some catching up to do :w00t: :blush:

Holy scraggy... 9/10!!! You've been composing since then?

That's like..umm.. 10.8 months!!

Not even 1 year old..

I've got some catching up to do :) :blush:

hahahaha1!! :w00t:

Seriously for 5 years

But really forever...

I started composing when I was 14 (13 years ago) because I discovered trackerprograms. I use trackers.

I started composing in my late twenties and I'm 47 now. I'd let my Musical Education (clarinetist, saxophonist) go by the wayside post Highschool. After a pause of about 9 years - I started to experiment with writting down small ideas. ( For not having touched a woodwind instrument in nearly a decade its amazing how much my instrumental training stuck with me.) I don't know if I could do composing professionally, but as a hobby its getting to be fun.