How did you get into composition?

Well, for me, my brother had to do a finale project for school, and I got interested in it through that. My brother eventually stopped composing, but for some reason I continued. I wrote a few really bad things and then began become obsessed with how I could make real harmony. This search went on for quite awhile and included getting a simple music theory course (Gary Ewer's Easy Music Theory). This was at at about the same I began to become truly interested in music- I had played the flute for three years but never really enjoyed it. Once I discovered how harmony was actually done, my music improved (and so did my melodies, but not really through studying). I expiremented with harmony and chords in a simple short piece for flute and cello, and finally, with much toil and strain produced my first piece of any real size or substance- a christmas anthem for choir and brass (it is in the Choral Forum- please comment!) Right now I am hoping to write some sort of a mass for a SATB choir. Hopefully I will actually finish it.

Actually... it all started when I was about 8 years old. I'd come up with crazy CRAZY tunes in my head.. for "a video-game I'm gonna make when I'm all grown up!"... Hahaha. But slowly, as time pressed on, these tunes became more real.And, holy cow! It's a year today since I STARTED composing. I have horrible trouble reading music, though. I composed all I have by ear. It's like.. a whole other world, full of strange lands, and awesome music... It would be nice to share it with the world, you know? I'm actually more a visual artist than a musician, but it's nice, composing, and stuff.

Oh yes, I hadn't touched a flute until last year...

hmmm...well i started playing violin when i was five, and piano at eight...i don't really know exactly how it came about but around eight or nine i would write these little pieces for my violin in those Concerto staff line notebooks i was using at my piano lessons...they didn't really amount to anything, in fact my mom secretly kept some and showed me last year, it was a little scattered haha...i got some notation software, began working on a serious classical style Flute Concerto which I almost completed the first movement, and then i just stopped composing...i was losing my interest in classical and was getting into electric guitasr, and started improvising with friends and listening to Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Zappa, progressive rock...then I was getting more into sophisticated pop like Brian Wilson, The Beatles, etc. and wanted to become a songwriter...it was more difficult for me than classical, i see good pop music as compressed symphonies...fortunately i was getting back into violin and classical composing as a result of Stravinsky's The Rite Of Spring and other 20th century composers (Ravel, Schoenberg, Bartok, Shostakovich, etc.)...after having studied Piston adn Kennan and started doing harmonic analysis of post-Wagnerian music like Wagner, Franck, and Scriabin, and just completed my first piece, a piano prelude that sounds like Scriabin haha...so i am in progress, trying to make my knowledge's way up to 20th century music and getting in the habit of writing...

Well... I am little embarrassed to admit that I started late with music (I was 18). All began when I noticed that I have musical ideas in my mind (I was 16-17 years old). I told myself that it would be nice if one day I compose music, I felt that I would be very happy with that. Things evolved slowly... I didn't have a computer by that time, but a friend of mine did and he showed me Melody Assistant. It caught my attention and seemed to be a great opportunity. Soon after that I tried to compose some stuff. It was very minimalistic and simple, and of course, some things didn't sound very well... At the beginning, it was mainly for fun, but later (when I was 20) I became more serious. I met a piano teacher over the Internet and she told me to continue. After a conversation with a relative about scales and chords, I realized I need (and want) to know more about all this, so I focused on searching for books and learning basic theory, harmony, counterpoint, etc., which I found to be very very interesting. At this point I opened my heart and mind to all kinds of music and my love for classical music became much greater, though I wasn't composing classical music yet.

At the same time, I am an engineering student (this is my final year), so I have to study for my exams, too, but when I have time, I usually dedicate it to music. As for what kind of musical ideas I have - well, different, including electronic... Recently, I got more interested in classical composition, so I started to read more about forms (currently reading Schoenberg's "Fundamentals of Musical Composition"). But I usually combine this with participating in online boards, reading online tutorials and chatting with musicians. Sometimes I miss a composition teacher, because it is always good when a far more experienced person guides you, tells you how you are doing and encourages you. Not to mention all the moments of doubt when I was asking myself: "are you doing well, do you know enough, do you have any talent at all?".

I hope I will have more time to compose music after graduation (engineering degree).

Recently, I got more interested in classical composition, so I started to read more about forms (currently reading Schoenberg's "Fundamentals of Musical Composition").

How is that Schoenberg text? What's he mainly cover in it?

I think it is a rather good book, especially useful for composition. In Part 1 of the book, he writes about the construction of themes - motive, phrase, connecting motives and building phrases, periods and sentences. ... In Part 2, he describes small forms - ternary, scherzo, minuet, theme and variations... In Part 3 he writes about large forms - rondo, sonata-allegro.

By the way, I have Piston's and Kennan's texts, too. :)

Two songs I heard on the radio when i was maybe about thirteen prompted me to start composing. these were Right Here Waiting (how embarrassing) and the remake of the tears for fears song "mad world."

I heard the piano part for Right Here Waiting, and I realized that the left hand was playing a 5th and a 4th starting on a low note, and though i hadn't studied piano for several years, i decided to sit down and learn how to play the main theme of that song. i figured it out in C Major (i don't actually remember what key the song is really in) and i had a revelation: "i could write something like this."

by playing around, I discovered that the 5th-4th pattern could be moved around and corresponded with different chords.

from that point onward i taught myself (with my school music teacher explaining the technical terms for what i had discovered) the relationships between chords, inversions, basslines, passing tones, etc. (i think my interest was initially driven by the attention i got when people realized that i had written my own music.)

Each time i discover something new, i apply it to my own writing. needless to say, i try to listen to and analyze a huge variety of music. The more I learn, the harder it is for me to find music that i need to figure out

I've played piano since I was about 8. I learned a lot of stuff about basic chordal theory from my teacher, mostly because she was pruning me to play in church with her (A lot of the music we used was on lead sheets.) In the past couple of years, I've gotten pretty good at improv. I really hadn't written anything down until a couple of months ago, after I got Finale/GPO. Another big motivator was the music theory class I took last semester. We had to write a short chorale for the final project.

from that point onward i taught myself (with my school music teacher explaining the technical terms for what i had discovered) the relationships between chords, inversions, basslines, passing tones, etc. (i think my interest was initially driven by the attention i got when people realized that i had written my own music.)

Hey, that reminds me of me! Only I actually started a year ago...

I started playing guitar a few years ago and was researching weird guitarists when I found Frank Zappa. End of story.

Well... I am little embarrassed to admit that I started late with music (maybe too late? - I was 18) and I haven't been in music school... All began when I noticed that I have musical ideas in my mind (I was 16-17 years old). I told myself that it would be nice if one day I compose music, I felt that I would be very happy with that. Things evolved slowly... I didn't have a computer by that time, but a friend of mine did and he showed me Melody Assistant. It caught my attention and seemed to be a great opportunity. Soon after that I tried to compose some stuff. It was very minimalistic and simple, and of course, some things didn't sound very well... At the beginning, it was mainly for fun, but later (when I was 20) I became more serious. I met a piano teacher over the Internet and she told me to continue. After a conversation with a relative about scales and chords, I realized I need (and want) to know more about all this, so I focused on searching for books and learning music theory basics, harmony, counterpoint, etc., which I found to be very very interesting. At this point I opened my heart and mind to all kinds of music and my love for classical music became much greater, though I wasn't composing classical music yet.

At the same time, I am an engineering student (this is my final year), so I have to study for my exams, too, but when I have time, I usually dedicate it to music. As for what kind of musical ideas I have - well, different, including electronic... Recently, I got more interested in classical composition, so I started to read more about forms (currently reading Schoenberg's "Fundamentals of Musical Composition"). But I usually combine this with participating in online boards, reading online tutorials and chatting with musicians. Sometimes I miss a composition teacher, because it is always good when a far more experienced person guides you, tells you how you are doing and encourages you. Not to mention all the moments of doubt when I was asking myself: "are you doing well, do you know enough, do you have any talent at all?". However, I was happy there were fine musicians who encouraged me and told me not to worry.

I hope I will have more time to compose music after graduation.

:toothygrin: Tanks, It's nice to now that I'm not the only engineere-composer on the site (I'm in Automatization) I allsow started late at composing (about 16-17) while my first year of guitar studies (all I known then was that a melodie must be composed on a scale). -When I started reading this and saw that most of the people on the forum strated at 8-12 years I kind of got scared and almost ran away :)-. The first few melodies that I comoised were in guitar pro 5 (I hated that time normal notation and I used the TABs and the guitar, now I grew :)), I didn't new nothing of music theory, but people that heard my "compositions" apreciated them. I wanted to take the next step: improvising, I realy wanted to get the stuff from my mind in a fluid and light speed way. Trough a lot of practice and resarch on how the mind works I manged to impress many people.I couldn't be more pleased. But my melodies were preaty simple: a simple chord progresion (ex C F G), a solo, and after that I added instruments to create a deaper atmosfere(i will post my first melodies here)

Now I want to go complex. I listen day and night to great composisions and try to figure them out. I manged to creat entire melodies in my mind but when it comes to writing down its hard, bercause I hear the whole orchestra and I don't know what to write first and it all goes away. It is preaty fustrating :) . I am starting to get used to finalle note pad and hopefully I will get confortable whit it.

Another problem of mine is that I don't have my ear trained enough to write down music direcly on the papper (not enough confidence, this is beacuse I stared late). But I know this will be sorted out in time.

This is my story i guess.