New (Old) Composer

I am new to composing but not to music. Here is some brief background on me...

I am trained as a mathematician and have been a software developer and entrepreneur for many years but retired a couple of years ago. I am a very skilled amateur musician and have played in community groups for many years. Historically my main instrument is clarinet, but I started playing bassoon about six years ago and am currently the principal bassoonist in the Madison (WIsconsin) Community Orchestra as well as the Madison Municipal Band.

In spite of being a skilled performer, I actually had never had a formal music theory training so this Spring I took the full 3-credit Music Theory class at the University of Wisconsin. I had a great time, learned a lot, and discovered that I really enjoyed composing during the course and seem to have a knack for it. I started composing in March during the course. Technically, the piece that I will be uploading, Prelude in C Minor is actually my fourth completed work. I wrote a theme and variation piece for piano about 6 weeks into the course, completed a bassoon-clarinet duet in early May, and by the end of May had also completed a five movement work – Pentatonic Suite – which is entirely written in the pentatonic scale. At the moment it is a piano piece but was always intended to evolve into a work for band targeted at an advanced high school level. That work was inspired by a Youtube video of Bobby McFerrin demonstrating the universality of the pentatonic scale (

). I plan on starting a major revision to that work in the near future now that my composition skills have improved a lot.

I am currently working on a new work for Piano that will be much more difficult to play than Prelude but it think has a lot of potential. It may evolve beyond a piano work, but that is not clear yet.

My focus on composition is on producing accessible works. For now I am focusing on piano but will shortly move on the composing for woodwind quintet and then full concert band and orchestra. I already have two people planning on playing Prelude in C Minor sometime next Spring.

I am taking private composition training from a post-doc composition major at the University of Wisconsin school of music.

In addition to my interest in music/composition, I am an avid tennis player and a gourmet cook. I also love all things chocolate!

I am new to composing but not to music. Here is some brief background on me...

I am trained as a mathematician and have been a software developer and entrepreneur for many years but retired a couple of years ago. I am a very skilled amateur musician and have played in community groups for many years. Historically my main instrument is clarinet, but I started playing bassoon about six years ago and am currently the principal bassoonist in the Madison (WIsconsin) Community Orchestra as well as the Madison Municipal Band.

In spite of being a skilled performer, I actually had never had a formal music theory training so this Spring I took the full 3-credit Music Theory class at the University of Wisconsin. I had a great time, learned a lot, and discovered that I really enjoyed composing during the course and seem to have a knack for it. I started composing in March during the course. Technically, the piece that I will be uploading, Prelude in C Minor is actually my fourth completed work. I wrote a theme and variation piece for piano about 6 weeks into the course, completed a bassoon-clarinet duet in early May, and by the end of May had also completed a five movement work – Pentatonic Suite – which is entirely written in the pentatonic scale. At the moment it is a piano piece but was always intended to evolve into a work for band targeted at an advanced high school level. That work was inspired by a Youtube video of Bobby McFerrin demonstrating the universality of the pentatonic scale (

). I plan on starting a major revision to that work in the near future now that my composition skills have improved a lot.

I am currently working on a new work for Piano that will be much more difficult to play than Prelude but it think has a lot of potential. It may evolve beyond a piano work, but that is not clear yet.

My focus on composition is on producing accessible works. For now I am focusing on piano but will shortly move on the composing for woodwind quintet and then full concert band and orchestra. I already have two people planning on playing Prelude in C Minor sometime next Spring.

I am taking private composition training from a post-doc composition major at the University of Wisconsin school of music.

In addition to my interest in music/composition, I am an avid tennis player and a gourmet cook. I also love all things chocolate!

what a lovely post. You sound like a great person :) . It's funny you are trained by post doc at the U of Wisconsin, becuase, even tho i am from england, I tried to register with the uni of wisconsic, becuase it offers a distance learning composition course, i triedd to register, but she is fully booked. How did you manage to get private lessons a post-doc.

looking forward to hearing your stuff.

warm welcome.

I have just joined too

Regards

Andrew