Composing tunes

Quick question:

This theme is in D Major, and am curious why the composer would choose this key? Also, is it playing in a mode?

YouTube - Shadow Of The Sun

It's in B minor, the minor relative.

Sounds pretty normal... the composer may chose that key to be playable in the guitar I don't know... what do you feel curious about ?... why that key ?... can be several reasons...

Many of the reasons to choose a key are outlined in this article: [[Key signature]]

Also, we've begun a small compendium on all of the keys individually. B minor is not yet covered, but you're welcome to check out the existing entries here: Category:Keys

Thanks for the help guys.

To be honest, I don't know what to think anymore. I mean, I know how scales are constructed, and to compose you simply stay within that scale. No matter how much I look at it, I don't know what I'm doing, yet it seems so simple and straight forward.

I'm just finding it really hard to execute a decent chord progression with the mood setting I want, yet it doesn't work. So, A. I'm just stupid or B. I'm even more stupid than I thought :ermm:

No, you're just inexperienced. Go ahead and keep writing. Even if you don't get what you want, you're still learning, and that's how we all progress and figure HOW to compose what we want to compose. Above all, never stop trying new things.

Also, you don't have to stay completely in one key. You can get all chromatic-y if you really wanted to. (Although it would probably be best to wait until you have some more experience before you start playing around with different keys and stuff.)

Hey, it's embarrassing for me to go and look at stuff I wrote when I started composing 4-5 years ago. But through listening to a LOT of classical music, studying scores by great composers, and working with my composition teacher, I've improved a lot.

Practice is key. Even if you don't like the sound of what you write, you'll eventually stumble across something that you and everybody else likes so much, you'll start to develop your own style around it.

And here are a few hints for down the road (things I learned the hard way - involving my scores and so much red ink the paper literally melted):

1) Use parallel motion sparingly

2) NEVER double the leading tone! (that was my absolute biggest mistake)

3) Landing on a random dominant chord sounds really tacky - use dominant 7ths sparingly. (You can go as crazy as you want with as many V-flat 9 chords as you can think of... it worked for Beethoven!)