Compositional Problems I'm Facing Currently...

Hello all! I've just joined the YoungComposers forums and was wondering if I could have some advice?

I've been composing for one year now and have progressed rapidly in terms of musical knowledge in these past 12 months or so. I've composed a few pieces but none I want to add to my "official list of compositions" as most of them were composed when I didn't know that much about theory or form.

Lately though I've been having a few problems composing.

I usually don't find it hard to compose music (in a writer's block sense) but I find it hard to get motivated to begin/continue composing a piece. I often procastinate by going on my computer to listen to music instead of starting my own piece or continuing the piece I've just began.

I really need to get over this because I know Iove composing dearly and have hardly composed anything this year.

Thank you

-BenPritchard

motivation finds you

Sometimes I have the same problem. What I like to do is think of a new style of composition (I like to compose in multiple styles, not just a particular one). Then, when I've thought about a lot of music within that style, the music just comes to me.

Try little objective oriented exercises?

Sometimes in order to become a better composer, you have to spend more time listening to good music than you do composing - just so long as you're "listening" to the music, absorbing what you're hearing, and applying it, and not just enjoying the music. For this reason, I don't think you can seperate the process of listening to music to the process of writing it too much.

Some songs do have a mind of their own. They don't always want to be finished right away. I've revisited material that I originally wrote nearly half a decade ago before. Its only when you try to force it does bad material happen, and it's not worth writing bad material just so you can get pieces done sooner.

I can definitely relate to that. One thing I do is write down any little melody or chord progression that comes to mind. It doesn't even have to be a phrase. Sometimes it'll come to mind when I'm doing something else, like taking out the recycling. I just write it down, then I let it sit for a while, maybe a couple of days. Then come back and play it again and get a feeling for where it wants to take me.

I think everyone suffers this motionlessness in life at a time. I usually found myself struck in the middle of a procrastination crisis, so for me it's very common. I think it's more related to income/living of music, public acknowledgment of your work, sometimes personal problems...

But incredibly I work better when have time constraints to finish a work. I think I work better under a little pressure - I think my mind goes despair and starts to work continuously when I have, for example, a date to deliver the music. Less the time, more ideas I have. Weird.

Arianna makes a really good point.

Other than that, make composing the habit instead of procrastination.  Set a goal to write something new every day.  It doesn't matter if it's just a tiny portion of a piece, a short melody, a chord progression, whatever; just write something.  Write even if you don't know what to write.  Write especially if you don't know what to write.  If it sounds like crap, whatever, just write it.  If guided exercises help you, go for it.

At this point, your main concern should be producing as much work as possible, not with producing your first masterpiece.  Write, write, write.