Searching for general/technical advices in composing (e.g. Cello-Sonata)

Hello everyone,

I am a "hobby-musician", which enjoys writing some melodies from time to time. Even tho i have basic understanding and some ear experience, i struggle strongly with every technical aspect of composing.
At the moment i reworked an old Project of a never finished Sonata. It just came naturally to be for Cello (just from the melody i guess?).

So I sit down with different fragments , which i like but which also arent really connected. Usually i just have a completely new "genius" idea and there never is a real "developement"...which at times feels like lucky strikes and most of the time simply frustrating and overwhelming.

 then i recently re-discovered this beautiful composer-plattform. And since i am again impressed by the amount of high quality music and insightful discussions , i thought this might be the place to ask for help .... is it?

i ask here for quite alot, since it is so general, so we can just focus on one of the following questions 

• Get a feeling for Forms and how close i should follow them (i have difficulties to follow rules , in general)
• Get a feeling of motif identities: rhythm / melody / harmony / direction of movement / expectations etc..
• Get a feeling of the glue, transitions, breaking the rules
• Get a feeling of instrumentation, a feeling if a written line is "lived out / real" music, which can actually be played and enjoyed (especially from the artist). 
• hundred other things...

Many thanks in advance ,

have a good day, Jo 

Hi, Jo, and welcome to the forum!

You pose very interesting—and very important—questions here.

The best advice I can give is to study what the masters have done. These days, many scores are available online (for free!), and you can easily enough find recordings of virtually all the works of the great composers. My favorite place to find free scores is here: https://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page. I recommend starting with Mozart or Beethoven symphonies, since their orchestration is smaller than Romantic or modern composers. I believe you'll begin finding the answers to many of your questions after only a few listens and readthroughs!

I hope this helps! Feel free to ask more questions as you have them!

Agree with Tonskald.

It'll take some work and time but if you love doing it you should be able to make time. It's worth learning a little of the theory. Unless you compose atonally (without any sense of key) - well, even if you do, learn how to write all the major and minor scales and put triads on the notes, which will help a lot with harmony (especially the implied harmony in a melody). But as Tonaskald suggested, choose a fairy easy score, listen to a recording, learn to follow the score so you can learn about how melody and harmony work. Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik would be a start.

Quote

Hi, Jo, and welcome to the forum!

[...]

I hope this helps! Feel free to ask more questions as you have them!

Thank you very much for your warm welcome and your offer and interest!

16 hours ago, Tónskáld said:

The best advice I can give is to study what the masters have done. [...] I recommend starting with Mozart or Beethoven symphonies, since their orchestration is smaller than Romantic or modern composers.

[...] I believe you'll begin finding the answers to many of your questions after only a few listens and readthroughs!

I absolutely see your point . There is alot of knowledge easily accessible . i will certainly try to do this on my own, also to keep some "indiviual understanding". I feel honored you expect me to have much success working through masterpieces tho. I had struggle in the past because i was missing orientation what to focus on and how to understand what i am actually seeing and hearing. 

So to make my original post more precise: maybe a better way of putting my goal is something like a "Mentor", who provides me some guidance, e.g. with a "template" (from a maestro)  for a concrete piece i am currently working on, and then i can understand through doing and comparing. (that was my unsproken intention when posting the 2 fragments 😉 )  

14 hours ago, Quinn said:

But as Tonaskald suggested, choose a fairy easy score

yes the easier the better ! I would like start as basic as possible.

E.g. A great learning experience was, when a friend of mine gave me a task like:
Write a 3/4 dance with 8 bar motif and only with basic chords (C,Am,Dm,D,G,G7,Em,F) or something along those lines.

And at that point it suddenly was so easy and fun to work because everything shrinked to simple decisions in a "little" space of possibilities. (still alot of freedom)

SO All in all , this is a good and nescessary step . Important advice! But is there the possibility of regular exercises (many others might benefit aswell)? Maybe it makes sense to found a Subforum for it?

Many thanks to you, Jo

On 11/7/2020 at 1:49 PM, NiceyMcNice said:

E.g. A great learning experience was, when a friend of mine gave me a task like:
Write a 3/4 dance with 8 bar motif and only with basic chords (C,Am,Dm,D,G,G7,Em,F) or something along those lines.

And at that point it suddenly was so easy and fun to work because everything shrinked to simple decisions in a "little" space of possibilities. (still alot of freedom)

Hence the value of learning some theory. Scales always follow the same pattern of intervals between the notes. Major ones are easy, minor ones are just a tad more complicated. Modes aren't too difficult either. Then you can write triads on each scale note.

Next you number all the notes off in the scale from 1 to 7 (normally we use roman numerals I II III IV V VI VII). Then you quickly realise that chord sequence can be repeated in any key using those numbers. You've abstracted them away from any particular key.

Assuming the key in your example was C major, the chords would be I, VI, II, II#, V, V7, III, IV.

So let's say the piece sounded better in F major. You can now pick out the chords in the F major scale easily - 

F, Dmin, Gmin, G, C, C7 Amin Bflat.

I     VI        II       II#* V  V7  III    IV                      *raising the flat in Gmin by a semitone. It would be 'B natural' but what this means is the third of the chord is sharpened. You can do it other ways: II-nat3. (Can't do a natural sign here)

It gets you to where you want to be a lot quicker - maybe some upfront work but when you get into more complex stuff it pays off. Just a step further and you'll listen to a song and easily work out its chords by ear.