How to begin?

Hi, I'm new on this forum.

I have registered here because I have some problems with my compostions.

I'm a piano student (by a private teacher), I only play this wonderful instrument from 2 years, but I'm also playing synth keybord from 4 years.

I use to have a huge quantity of music in my mind, classical, rock, pop, electronic etc. etc. in every moment of the day.

I have a big problem: I don't know how to start writing this music.

I tried to play that melodies directly with the piano, but there are also two problems: the first is that I have not a great experience in repeating melodies which I'm thinking to, the latter is that the instrument's sound in my ears have some kind of "negative influence" on my "flux of thoughts", which immediately ends or becomes something banal. :sweat:

I don't know what to do, if the solution is simply doing more practice or if I need to read some kind of book about compositions. Can you help me? Thank you very much.

That's a good question here... I started around 11yo and I'm 31... so I really don't know how I did begin at the very early stages. Maybe some recently 'borned' composers should express here how they started... that would probably help more. I guess I would have a too much theorical approch for someone beginning as you...!? (I wonder...)

Of course you'll have to learn theory, counterpoint, harmony, how to structure the passage of time... that is what music composition is about... sculpting the sound in time as a mean to express yourself. But I guess you should start with modest and small stuff to practice yourself at shaping and listening to your ideas.

But before starting to learn harmony, you should learn to reconize and appreciate the sounding quality of every intervals. What do you know about music theory !? Maybe just use a drone - a stable single note at the bass line - and listen to all the different intervals and see which expresses what for you. That would already been a good exercice for you to learn the intervals not only by their sound for also by what they mean for you should take those impressions or caracteristic in note (that will be interesting for you to see how your ear devellop with the years).

Have fun that the most important step at any stage of learningship !

As first thing, thank you for the answer. :sweat:

The question is that I don't know if I need to learn something about theory for this first period: luckily I'm very inspired, so it isn't the lack of ideas the real problem, in fact my tecnique consists in the rielaboration of what I have heard.

I don't know nothing about music theory, my only work during these 2 years of piano lessons was to learn piano basics, so how to hit the keys and how to keep hands on them, how to read notes, how to use the pedal; so how to play the piano. I'm quite able to play pieces of a certain difficulty.

Now I only have a great quantity of notes in my mind and I would like to express them, I know how to compose a piece because I listened too much music, but I'm not able to write it.

As first compositions, I would like to write minuets in Mozart style, with a few notes but with a great melodic taste, I only need of two melodic lines to do it, so I believe that these are the "modest and small stuff " you are talking about.

Do you think that recognize intervals would help me? But it would remain the problem on how to write music on paper.

The first question you should ask yourself is: "What kind of music do I want to compose?" For instance if you say classical, I will say to listen extensively to Mozart's Requiem and Sonatas and Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and Vivaldi, etc. So this is the most important and essential way to begin. And yes, you should definitely learn about harmony and theory. It's not essential, as I'm composing without most of the knowledge, but I'm learning and when I've learned a whole lot it will definitely help.

Good luck.

Thank you.

Mozart and Bach are my favourite classical artists and my main source of inspiration.

So, you both say that I have also to learn something about theory: what books do you suggest? Is it good the material written by Walter Piston, or is there something better? It would help me in learning how to transfer the notes from mind to paper?

Thank you.

Mozart and Bach are my favourite classical artists and my main source of inspiration.

So, you both say that I have also to learn something about theory: what books do you suggest? Is it good the material written by Walter Piston, or is there something better? It would help me in learning how to transfer the notes from mind to paper?

Yay! Another Bach fan! :closedeyes:

I've never heard of Piston, but in the UK the ABRSM books by Eric Taylor are excellent, as is "Harmony in Practice" by Anna Butterworth. "The Study of Counterpoint" by J J Fux is excellent (if a little quirky) for learning counterpoint, and I would avoid technical stuff like Schoenberg's book or Bach: Chorale Harmonization etc like the plague. Later you might find "The Study of Orchestration" by Samuel Adler interesting.

the latter is that the instrument's sound in my ears have some kind of "negative influence" on my "flux of thoughts", which immediately ends or becomes something banal. :closedeyes:

I have exactly the same problem, but I think you're the first person other than myself who's expressed this concern. My guess is that no one wants to admit it.

I deal with it by writing with pencil and paper without a computer or piano. If you're not able to do it, I would suggest practicing by taking musical dictation - have someone play something, and try to write it down - starting with just a melody and then adding more voices as you improve.

Walter Piston's Harmony textbook is very good.

Yay! Another Bach fan! :D

I've never heard of Piston, but in the UK the ABRSM books by Eric Taylor are excellent, as is "Harmony in Practice" by Anna Butterworth. "The Study of Counterpoint" by J J Fux is excellent (if a little quirky) for learning counterpoint, and I would avoid technical stuff like Schoenberg's book or Bach: Chorale Harmonization etc like the plague. Later you might find "The Study of Orchestration" by Samuel Adler interesting.

Ok, a huge quantity of material to read! Thanks. :closedeyes:

Walter Piston's Harmony textbook is very good.

Ok, I heard from somewhere the name of Walter Piston. Thanks.

I have exactly the same problem, but I think you're the first person other than myself who's expressed this concern. My guess is that no one wants to admit it.

I deal with it by writing with pencil and paper without a computer or piano. If you're not able to do it, I would suggest practicing by taking musical dictation - have someone play something, and try to write it down - starting with just a melody and then adding more voices as you improve.

I thought I were the only person on the world with this problem! :closedeyes:

So, you can understand what I'm talking about, it' frustrating and paradoxical to have the mind blocked by piano sounds, the complex and dynamic ideas which I use to have soon when I'm for example in absolute silence or just sitting in train become simplier... it's strange.

I would like to reach soon a direct approach with the paper, without passing through computer and piano, but this is the problem which I exposed in this topic. Thank you for the advice about music dictation, maybe it would be useful.

hi, i also took up this composing lark very recently, however, we have opposite problems, you have inspiration but lack the theory to convey your ideas, i have some degree of theoritical knowhow but lack inspiration!

I recommend getting some form of harmony textbook with exercises on intervals, triads, chord progressions and so on, then learn how to write SATB and how to harmonise melodies and stuff, that'll take you up to about the stage i am at at the moment, and you'll then start learning about form, instrumentation, orchestration and whatever else you want to learn, however, i believe a firm grounding in harmony is essential.

Mark

Thank you for the advice.

Where can I find this material?

My only advice for your "lack of inspiration" is to listen and listen and listen and listen and listen music! :dry:

Then repeating in your mind, each note of each track and try to elaborate it: then you won't have a lack of inspiration. ;)

After you've read through the common practice section of Walter Piston's Harmony textbook (around 3/4 of it) you can start doing some harmonic analyses of scores of your favorite composers to see how these concepts apply in practice. If you just have the theoretical base without analyzing scores you will find yourself using these techniques kind of rigidly. You can analyze the different chord progressions, the modulations or tonicizations, and secondary dominant harmony, etc. Studying harmony will reveal more about music than any single other subject.

This seems very interesting. Now I'm beginning to understand what harmony is. Thank you for the explanation.

Harmony is basically the study of chords and etc.

Ok. :sadtears: