Hello Everyone,
Many know me as an annoying poster here but I have thought about becoming a composer many, many times. I do not know how to read music, although I can read percussion as I played this in school, but I cannot read any other instruments. I'm thinking about studying music privately with someone who is highly recommended in my town. From here, I don't really know what could happen, but, if all else fails, I can always find another teacher and maybe even take a few classes at a college with maybe a strong recommendation? Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself here, but I have this urge inside of me that wants to express myself through music and even though I've played the guitar for 20 years, I still feel like an amateur because of my inability to read music.
Any suggestions or advice from composers here (i. e. Karl, Luke, etc.) would be appreciated.
I too have a growing desire to compose, but must put it off to concentrate on writing - it's possible to make a living writing novels, but not writing symphonies! I have a basic idea how to read music, going back to piano lessons as a child, but to compose I would need first to become much more practiced in thinking in those technical terms. The basics of music theory are I think much simpler than learning a language. Once you have access to those basics, I think the best way to get them into your head would be to get a keyboard and practice a lot, not to become a good player (pretty sure that's beyond me) but to learn to read music fluently. After that, things should move a lot more easily.
Quote from: eyeresist on May 12, 2011, 09:04:56 PM
I too have a growing desire to compose, but must put it off to concentrate on writing - it's possible to make a living writing novels, but not writing symphonies! I have a basic idea how to read music, going back to piano lessons as a child, but to compose I would need first to become much more practiced in thinking in those technical terms. The basics of music theory are I think much simpler than learning a language. Once you have access to those basics, I think the best way to get them into your head would be to get a keyboard and practice a lot, not to become a good player (pretty sure that's beyond me) but to learn to read music fluently. After that, things should move a lot more easily.
Yes, I've already bought several books on theory. I guess the only way to go about this is to simply get to work. One of the books I bought is this one:
(http://assets.sheetmusicplus.com/product/Look-Inside/covers/5817807.jpg)
I just haven't had time to go through it and study it. I'm horrible at studying by myself, which is probably why I did so poorly in school, but having a teacher might be the best way for me to go. I'm a very good visual learner.
Some things I think you'll have to learn yourself, e.g. memorising the key signatures.
Where are all the composers gone?
Here's one.
Speaking personally, I couldn't compose without being a pianist, though I know there are plenty - or at least some - who do. Someone with your taste for big sounds, complex luscious chords etc. etc. will need good keyboard skills in order to find new and exciting combinations of sounds of the sort that I suspect you will be looking for. Ravel - one of my very favourite composers, and yours, and the most wonderful craftsman there ever was in some respects - put it with surprising bluntness when he said, effectively, I couldn't compose without the piano because I use it discover new chords, and all his music, even the pieces that don't go near a piano, show the results of his pianistic thinking. Good strong fingers which have an intuitive feeling for what shapes might be interesting are a priceless tool, I think.
OTOH, a Berlioz went very well without the piano, and much of what is best and most distinctive and effective in his music stems directly from that fact . But Berlioz was a rare genius; I don't think that kind of intuitive knack comes along often!
Secondly, good aural and notational skills are an absolute must. You need to be able to hear what you want and to be able to write it down in such a way that a performer will play it correctly. That's obvious, although i think there is much more to the issue of notation than that. Score study, and lots of it, is a very important activity - learn how effects are achieved and also how they are written down, form the simplest to the most complex. See what leeway there is for the composer's individual idiosyncrasies and what limitations there are. This is a very big task, and one that can't really be taught - there are just too many highways and byways. Just immerse yourself in scores!
Orchestration skills might the most obvious thing, but they are really in many respects the easiest. There are things you need to know, and they can be listed, even if the list is a long one. Again, as much score study as you can do is recommended.
All of the above is only some of the equipment you need, obviously - an ability to find interesting sounds, an ability to write them down and to dress them up in appropriate colours. You also need, obviously, a good technique - you need to understand harmony and counterpoint and all those traditional skills. It might be tempting to think - I'm not interested in music from (say) pre-1850, so I won't need to learn about harmony as it was used before that date. But that, IMO and in my personal experience, is a shortcut that leads nowhere. Even if Debussy (say) is the anti-Beethoven, he still operates in the same sphere, his harmony 'makes sense' best, technically, if one understands what makes it different and individual, and to understand that, one has to understand the norms from which it deviates. So, study music throughout the ages - and I mean throughout. Be voracious - you can learn from everything. There are passages in music from the late 14th century which are shockingly avant garde in many ways and which have left their traces on some of the music I have written. I'd never have known that if I'd concluded, as I could have done, that nothing before (say) Bach had any relevance to me. Likewise with music from around the world - as you know with your love of Villa-Lobos, an openness to non-classical sounds is enriching. But it is also humbling and eye-opening, to see how fundamentally different is the conception of what music is and can be in different cultures. The latter may or may not help you as a composer - but at least it makes you aware of the wideness of the field.
All of the above might sound terrifically off-putting, because it involves huge amounts of time and work. OTOH, anyone with a hunger for music will relish the idea of spending time at a piano, or spending time with a score in hand, or spending time with a book learning what it was that the great composers were really dealing with and thinking about when they composed (personally, as a musician I feel privileged to understand and share, to some degree, the everyday questions and issues of harmony and counterpoint and so on that were in the minds of the composers I adore). I'm rarely happier, myself, than when doing any of this
However, for me, as a composer, most of the above was in place by the time I left university. I'd composed some good pieces, one or two of which I am still very proud of. And yet, I didn't really become myself as a composer for another six or seven years, I felt. All the experience and technique and knowledge was no help when it came to finding what worked best for me - once I'd acquired the knowledge came the time to strip away what I didn't need (although the knowledge, once it is there, can always be used and called on, of course). It was a long, painful and literally depressing process, working out my own methods of composing. I make no claims for my solutions - they work for me and I suspect for no one else. I am a believer in the fact that music, good music, comes from deep down, and that it's progress out into the real world of listeners and performers needs to be as unimpeded as possible by anything extraneous, which is why I believe that one needs to find methods and techniques that are completely in tune with one's personality in order to write music which rings true. That, for me, was the hardest thing I ever had to do compositionally speaking - and I am by no means claiming that the process is over.
Phew - it all sounds pretty hard, put like that! And it is, but it is also the most wonderful, productive, creative, fruitful, exhilarating, satisfying (I could go on and on with these words!) thing I ever do. To create something from nothing, something beautiful or enigmatic or...well, really anything. The best feeling in the world
Need to go - hope there is food for thought in there! Have fun!
What goes for music goes for literature, of which I know a lot. I agree completely with Luke. To master your art you must have an inner urge, a voracious intellectual appetite, stamina, perseverance, patience, humility AND pride. And that's only at the private side. To get things published or performed you must be able to communicate, you must know how to present yourself to grab the attention. The quality of the work itself is no guarantee of interest these days. Perhaps it never was. Wagner knew how to push himself. Havergal Brian was a disaster...
Quote from: Luke on May 13, 2011, 01:05:23 AM
Here's one.
Speaking personally, I couldn't compose without being a pianist, though I know there are plenty - or at least some - who do. Someone with your taste for big sounds, complex luscious chords etc. etc. will need good keyboard skills in order to find new and exciting combinations of sounds of the sort that I suspect you will be looking for. Ravel - one of my very favourite composers, and yours, and the most wonderful craftsman there ever was in some respects - put it with surprising bluntness when he said, effectively, I couldn't compose without the piano because I use it discover new chords, and all his music, even the pieces that don't go near a piano, show the results of his pianistic thinking. Good strong fingers which have an intuitive feeling for what shapes might be interesting are a priceless tool, I think.
OTOH, a Berlioz went very well without the piano, and much of what is best and most distinctive and effective in his music stems directly from that fact . But Berlioz was a rare genius; I don't think that kind of intuitive knack comes along often!
Secondly, good aural and notational skills are an absolute must. You need to be able to hear what you want and to be able to write it down in such a way that a performer will play it correctly. That's obvious, although i think there is much more to the issue of notation than that. Score study, and lots of it, is a very important activity - learn how effects are achieved and also how they are written down, form the simplest to the most complex. See what leeway there is for the composer's individual idiosyncrasies and what limitations there are. This is a very big task, and one that can't really be taught - there are just too many highways and byways. Just immerse yourself in scores!
Orchestration skills might the most obvious thing, but they are really in many respects the easiest. There are things you need to know, and they can be listed, even if the list is a long one. Again, as much score study as you can do is recommended.
All of the above is only some of the equipment you need, obviously - an ability to find interesting sounds, an ability to write them down and to dress them up in appropriate colours. You also need, obviously, a good technique - you need to understand harmony and counterpoint and all those traditional skills. It might be tempting to think - I'm not interested in music from (say) pre-1850, so I won't need to learn about harmony as it was used before that date. But that, IMO and in my personal experience, is a shortcut that leads nowhere. Even if Debussy (say) is the anti-Beethoven, he still operates in the same sphere, his harmony 'makes sense' best, technically, if one understands what makes it different and individual, and to understand that, one has to understand the norms from which it deviates. So, study music throughout the ages - and I mean throughout. Be voracious - you can learn from everything. There are passages in music from the late 14th century which are shockingly avant garde in many ways and which have left their traces on some of the music I have written. I'd never have known that if I'd concluded, as I could have done, that nothing before (say) Bach had any relevance to me. Likewise with music from around the world - as you know with your love of Villa-Lobos, an openness to non-classical sounds is enriching. But it is also humbling and eye-opening, to see how fundamentally different is the conception of what music is and can be in different cultures. The latter may or may not help you as a composer - but at least it makes you aware of the wideness of the field.
All of the above might sound terrifically off-putting, because it involves huge amounts of time and work. OTOH, anyone with a hunger for music will relish the idea of spending time at a piano, or spending time with a score in hand, or spending time with a book learning what it was that the great composers were really dealing with and thinking about when they composed (personally, as a musician I feel privileged to understand and share, to some degree, the everyday questions and issues of harmony and counterpoint and so on that were in the minds of the composers I adore). I'm rarely happier, myself, than when doing any of this
However, for me, as a composer, most of the above was in place by the time I left university. I'd composed some good pieces, one or two of which I am still very proud of. And yet, I didn't really become myself as a composer for another six or seven years, I felt. All the experience and technique and knowledge was no help when it came to finding what worked best for me - once I'd acquired the knowledge came the time to strip away what I didn't need (although the knowledge, once it is there, can always be used and called on, of course). It was a long, painful and literally depressing process, working out my own methods of composing. I make no claims for my solutions - they work for me and I suspect for no one else. I am a believer in the fact that music, good music, comes from deep down, and that it's progress out into the real world of listeners and performers needs to be as unimpeded as possible by anything extraneous, which is why I believe that one needs to find methods and techniques that are completely in tune with one's personality in order to write music which rings true. That, for me, was the hardest thing I ever had to do compositionally speaking - and I am by no means claiming that the process is over.
Phew - it all sounds pretty hard, put like that! And it is, but it is also the most wonderful, productive, creative, fruitful, exhilarating, satisfying (I could go on and on with these words!) thing I ever do. To create something from nothing, something beautiful or enigmatic or...well, really anything. The best feeling in the world
Need to go - hope there is food for thought in there! Have fun!
An inspiring post, Luke, thank you.Quote from: J. Z. Herrenberg on May 13, 2011, 01:27:11 AM
. . . The quality of the work itself is no guarantee of interest these days. Perhaps it never was. Wagner knew how to push himself. Havergal Brian was a disaster...
Entirely agree that [t]he quality of the work itself is no guarantee. But, knowing how to push oneself, is no guarantee, either. There has to be access to a certain network. To speak for myself, I believe I have reasonable self-promotion skills . . . but on the whole I feel something like a lavender plant in the Sahara. Maybe all I've got, is the quality of the work ; )
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 13, 2011, 04:45:13 AM
An inspiring post, Luke, thank you.
Entirely agree that [t]he quality of the work itself is no guarantee. But, knowing how to push oneself, is no guarantee, either. There has to be access to a certain network. To speak for myself, I believe I have reasonable self-promotion skills . . . but on the whole I feel something like a lavender plant in the Sahara. Maybe all I've got, is the quality of the work ; )
"There has to be access to a certain network." That's correct, Karl. And your communicative skills are excellent! After working in solitude for years, I broke out and went to literary evenings in Amsterdam week after week to listen to people, to talk, and to discuss, becoming known in the process. In my case, it has paid off. Though time will tell if the enthusiasm some people in the literary world already have for my work will be shared by the three major publishers they introduced me to and who are - as I write - assessing my novel (of which Part 1 is almost finished, finally!)
Just teach yourself how to read how to read and write scores, and then load up on a bunch of scores (IMSLP is the best source). Walter Piston's Harmony, Counterpoint, and Orchestration is a very good resource.
Quote from: J. Z. Herrenberg on May 13, 2011, 05:12:09 AM
"There has to be access to a certain network." That's correct, Karl. And your communicative skills are excellent! After working in solitude for years, I broke out and went to literary evenings in Amsterdam week after week to listen to people, to talk, and to discuss, becoming known in the process. In my case, it has paid off. Though time will tell if the enthusiasm some people in the literary world already have for my work will be shared by the three major publishers they introduced me to and who are - as I write - assessing my novel (of which Part 1 is almost finished, finally!)
Bravissimo on finishing Part I! (One of these years, I may just finish White Nights . . . .) I am so pleased for and proud of you, Johan!
:)
As a former composer, I would ask our budding Beethovens two questions:
Does original music enter your mind without your willing it into creation?
Are you able to create original music in your minds without any catalyst other than your willpower?
Some years ago I started a topic called Why I Am Not A Composer:
See:
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,4143.0.html (http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,4143.0.html)
I wrote a little essay at the beginning of the topic, which I will quote here for your consideration:
I have mentioned throughout the years here that I used to compose music, usually with exotic scales, sometimes utilizing a quarter-tone system, but gave it up decades ago, and not without a little regret. Somebody asked me why, and I said I would eventually respond, and today, while writing about Glazunov, I decided to clarify.
"Something in him holds him back" was Tchaikovsky's famous comment about Glazunov.
I could tell you that the hours needed alone for composition were not conducive to endearing me to my girlfriend and later my wife: she knew about my composing talent, but did not always comprehend it.
That is partially involved in giving up composition.
I could tell you that the frustration involved in dealing with musicians/professors/directors etc. was immense: promises of performances, promises and flattery, all leading nowhere. (I could write a novel about the trials and terror of working with a certain famous and duplicitous tubist on a quarter-tone tuba concerto! But I digress!)
That is partially involved in giving up composition.
The realization that what interested me the most - microtonalism - was still going to be a tiny niche market, was always balanced by the hope of a breakthrough. But that breakthrough never came, especially when I witnessed the rebirth of the neo-conservative movements of Minimalism and Neo-Romanticism.
That is partially involved in giving up composition.
But in the end here is what ended it: I realized that, when I heard my music, I did not want my personality, my soul, if you can abide the term, so openly exposed for public examination. When the few performances occurred, I realized that the experience was so private, that I could not feel anything but embarrassment, as if I were confessing my sins over a loudspeaker.
My best friend at the time remarked, after hearing one of the quarter-tone works: "Okay, that will be evidence at your commitment hearing!"
He was only half joking!
"Something in him holds him back."
In my case I turned away from the desire to compose because - oddly, when I finally succeeded in having a few things performed - I knew I did not want people to hear my music!
Probably the feeling is mutual in many cases! 8)
So I wonder if Glazunov and other second-rank composers were perhaps held back not by a lack of talent, but by an emotional reticence, which compelled them to compose only "surface pieces" and prevented them from creating e.g. a Schumann Second Symphony , or a Mahler or Tchaikovsky Sixth Symphony.
MI, may I ask how old are you?
Quote from: Cato on May 13, 2011, 06:38:24 AM
As a former composer . . . .
Not to say, rehabilitated composer ; )A particularly good point of Cato's:Quote from: Cato on May 13, 2011, 06:38:24 AM
Are you able to create original music in your minds without any catalyst other than your willpower?
I think very big challenges are: stick to your own ideas, go out and reveal them to the public, and defend them. EDIT: Cato describes the feeling I'm referring to in his linked post: "I realized that, when I heard my music, I did not want my personality, my soul, if you can abide the term, so openly exposed for public examination." - I can very well understand this, in my case a question of my pesonality.
Quote from: Luke on May 13, 2011, 01:05:23 AMOrchestration skills might the most obvious thing, but they are really in many respects the easiest. There are things you need to know, and they can be listed, even if the list is a long one.
As a curious non-composer: What is this about? "Brass is for the triumph, Oboe for beauty and lament, Tipani for drama...", "instrument a and b don't go well together", "piccolo flute cannot be heard when all strings play at ff"? Thanks.
BTW, Shostakovich said, he had no problem with orchestration: music came fully orchestrated into his mind...
Thanks Luke and to all for your help. This is very inspiring!
Quote from: Mirror Image on May 13, 2011, 07:24:03 AM
I'm 29 years old.
Thanks for answering, many happy returns!
Well, go for it and good luck!
Quote from: Florestan on May 13, 2011, 07:25:57 AM
Thanks for answering, many happy returns!
Well, go for it and good luck!
Thank you, but I've to find a teacher first.
Quote from: Tapio Dmitriyevich Shostakovich on May 13, 2011, 07:23:44 AM
Quote from: LukeOrchestration skills might the most obvious thing, but they are really in many respects the easiest. There are things you need to know, and they can be listed, even if the list is a long one.
As a curious non-composer: What is this about? "Brass is for the triumph, Oboe for beauty and lament, Tipani for drama...", "instrument a and b don't go well together", "piccolo flute cannot be heard when all strings play at ff"? Thanks.
Well, there are two classes of Things You Need to Know Viz. Orchestration. There are The Hard Facts (the clarinet cannot play below a written E, the harp cannot play a B-natural and a B-flat at the same time, e.g.). And there are the Experiential Matters, which essentially weigh clichés like Oboe for beauty (what, the only instrument for beauty?) and Timpani for drama, and know their limits, and their practical contradiction.
Yes. And knowing why, is the key.
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 13, 2011, 07:32:06 AMAnd there are the Experiential Matters, which essentially weigh clichés like Oboe for beauty (what, the only instrument for beauty?) and Timpani for drama
OK, I mean the other way around: You can very well use a flute for describing innocence. This does not imply you couldn't use another instrument for this. Cliché. Hmm well, I'd not say cliché, but expectations of a specific listening society in a specific era and socialization.
Quote from: Leon on May 13, 2011, 07:44:32 AM
Having just finished a piece that included harp and consulting with a harpist throughout, I now know why and am very exciting about writing even more for harp. I love the instrument!
(* pounds the table *)
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 13, 2011, 07:41:29 AM
Yes. And knowing why, is the key.
Knowing the keys is why.
This is all getting rather Zen.... ;D
Leon, have you posted any of your music on GMG? Fancy starting your own composer's thread? It's been a very rewarding experience for me, having had a long-standing, on-going, stop-start thread here and on the previous board. Sympathetic, interested listeners, a chance to air your music, log its progress, discuss your musical thoughts.
Oh yes, I like it! I'm still glad that I don't cringe at the name of my thread, after all these years. It very precisely describes what it is and what it does....and quotes a piece by Nicolas Slnimsky into the bargain! ;D
Quote from: Luke on May 13, 2011, 08:56:04 AM
Knowing the keys is why.
The pedals are the key? . . .
Quote from: Leon on May 13, 2011, 09:02:31 AM
Thanks for the suggestion. I have thought about it and will probably do it, but the hard part is finding the right name for it. Leon's Den?
I like it, too; bring it on!
You mentioned you play the guitar. Have you ever composed music for the guitar?
Having composed music on a limited basis in the rather distant past, I think writing music that can be performed is very valuable. I don't understand the motivation of people who decide, out of the blue, that they must write a piece for 100 piece orchestra, double choir and 6 vocal soloists. :P
Quote from: Il Barone Scarpia on May 13, 2011, 09:14:20 AM
. . . I don't understand the motivation of people who decide, out of the blue, that they must write a piece for 100 piece orchestra, double choir and 6 vocal soloists. :P
On the other hand, if they've got a great piece in them for such forces . . . .
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 13, 2011, 09:18:00 AM
On the other hand, if they've got a great piece in them for such forces . . . .
Well, I don't mean to derail the thread, but there are lots of pieces that Bach wrote for keyboard that I can hear as chamber music. It is my "dream" to make such transcriptions. (Something along the lines of the well known transcription of the Goldberg Variations for string trio.) But the idea it is unlikely to find good musicians interested in playing them puts a damper on it.
The key/key signature of the music is the key. Or - works this way too - the lever-keys with which one alters the notes on e.g. a knee harp. Bah. Hate explaining jokes! ;D ;D
Quote from: Il Barone Scarpia on May 13, 2011, 09:14:20 AM
Having composed music on a limited basis in the rather distant past, I think writing music that can be performed is very valuable. I don't understand the motivation of people who decide, out of the blue, that they must write a piece for 100 piece orchestra, double choir and 6 vocal soloists. :P
I've done almost precisely that, once! No double choir, but a solo piano, and only 5 vocal soloists! That was the last time I did something so unlikely to be performed, but I don't regret doing it. I had a deep wish to create that piece (and the similar one which preceded it), and I had to prove to myself that I had the stamina and orchestral imagination to do it, too. A foolish, extravagant gesture, perhaps, from the outside, but it certainly felt a valuable, worthwhile thing to do on my part.
Quote from: Luke on May 13, 2011, 09:26:34 AMI've done almost precisely that, once! No double choir, but a solo piano, and only 5 vocal soloists! That was the last time I did something so unlikely to be performed, but I don't regret doing it. I had a deep wish to create that piece (and the similar one which preceded it), and I had to prove to myself that I had the stamina and orchestral imagination to do it, too. A foolish, extravagant gesture, perhaps, from the outside, but it certainly felt a valuable, worthwhile thing to do on my part.
But that wasn't your first substantial work, I assume.
Depends what you mean by substantial. They were, and remain, the biggest pieces I had written in terms of forces required, by a long way. I was writing them with no real hope of performance, but the fact remains that once written, performance is at least possible, however unlikely. And that counted and counts for a lot for me personally. I realise that it is an illogical position, in some respects. But there - I have written two very large orchestral pieces, that probably won't ever get played, but that could potentially be done. That's something, anyway. More important, to me, is that I know the pieces have some quality in them, somewhere (though I like them a lot less now than I did at the time)
I should also say that as a much younger proto-composer - a 14 or 15 year old - I wrote orchestral pieces (or attempts at such) farily often. I loved toying with writing scores, and it was a great discipline for me, even though none of them (thankfully) ever saw the light of day. As far as orchestration goes they got better and better and eventually, when I did have orchestral pieces that could be and were played, I found that my orchestration was good, in the sense that the sounds I wanted were the sounds that emerged. It was all those dry-runs that got me to that place and meant that I didn't have to spend time tinkering with the orchestration of the performed works once their orchestras got their hands on them.
I see. I guess nowadays you can also feed your orchestral score into a midi synthesizer and hear some approximation of how it would sound.
That can be less gratifying than in may seem ; )
Quote from: Mirror Image on May 13, 2011, 07:28:10 AM
Thank you, but I've to find a teacher first.
The reason I asked you that question is that I am myself in your position --- not as a composer, but as a pianist. It is my dearest & wildest dream since I was a teenager to learn playing the piano; of course, not as a pro. I am now almost 40 and still dreaming... But I am determined not to die before being able to playing "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" on the keyboard! ;D
Quote from: Florestan on May 13, 2011, 09:50:59 AM
The reason I asked you that question is that I am myself in your position --- not as a composer, but as a pianist. It is my dearest & wildest dream since I was a teenager to learn playing the piano; of course, not as a pro. I am now almost 40 and still dreaming... But I am determined not to die before being able to playing "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" on the keyboard! ;D
Well if it gives you any hope...I started learning the piano 4 years ago, at the age of 42. It was due to a stroke of luck: I rented an apartment which had a piano in it, and I decided to take advantage of the situation. I got myself a teacher and applied myself. I'll never be a good pianist, but practicing almost every day for 4 years does have an effect.
By the way, I'm always puzzled by people who play music but can't read it. Learning to read music isn't difficult: you can learn the basics in a day or so. I don't understand why anyone who wants to play music, not just listen to it, would feel daunted by the task.
No, learning to read music is easy. Or it ought to be. And it certainly always seemed easy to me. But in my real job as music teacher I have to face the fact every day that for some pepole it simply isn't easy. Brains are wired differently, and what seems simple and obvious to one is not for another. It's harder, too, for older students. What happens, sometimes, is that the pupil, struggling with reading the music, ends up memorising the piece by default - they've had to repeat it so often just to get the notes up to some kind of speed that it fixes itself in their memories. Which is all very well for that one particular piece, but no help if you're looking to be able to play (or play through) anything and everything. Which is why I ask my pupils to sightread lots, to keep confronting themselves with music they haven't seen before, play through it and move on to the next piece. It's the best way of becoming familiar with a variety of musical 'situations' and at the same time quickly leads to greater fluency with music reading in all its aspects.
Quote from: Luke on May 13, 2011, 10:06:45 AM
No, learning to read music is easy. Or it ought to be. And it certainly always seemed easy to me. But in my real job as music teacher I have to face the fact every day that for some people it simply isn't easy.
Not to sound like a prodigy, but I had deduced how to read music on my own by looking at my grandmother's piano music for about 15 minutes, when I was in early grade school.
I believe there might be a sort of snobbishness in being a musician who deliberately cannot read music: Paul McCartney comes to mind: the idea that despite this "huge gap," look what I can still do!
Yes, people are often mystified by abilities that others have, who view their talents as quite natural and no mystery at all!
Then you had people who were in the studio with Monk, under the misprision that he could not read notation . . . .
Quote from: Velimir on May 13, 2011, 10:00:00 AM
Well if it gives you any hope...I started learning the piano 4 years ago, at the age of 42. It was due to a stroke of luck: I rented an apartment which had a piano in it, and I decided to take advantage of the situation. I got myself a teacher and applied myself. I'll never be a good pianist, but practicing almost every day for 4 years does have an effect.
Actually, a piano proper is certainly out of my financial and physical reach: firstly, I couldn't afford it, secondly it wouldn't fit in our apartment --- but I expect a keyboard to land this year. :)
Good luck and have fun with it. You might be interested in this thread on the subject, which I started a couple of years ago:
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,10365.0.html
Quote from: Velimir on May 13, 2011, 10:39:08 AM
Good luck and have fun with it.
Thanks, I'll certainly have --- and I think I'll start a new thread when ready. :)
Quote
You might be interested in this thread on the subject, which I started a couple of years ago:
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,10365.0.html
Interesting stuff there.
Now, back to
MI and
his thread. :)
Quote from: Luke on May 13, 2011, 10:06:45 AMNo, learning to read music is easy. Or it ought to be. And it certainly always seemed easy to me. But in my real job as music teacher I have to face the fact every day that for some pepole it simply isn't easy. Brains are wired differently, and what seems simple and obvious to one is not for another. It's harder, too, for older students. What happens, sometimes, is that the pupil, struggling with reading the music, ends up memorising the piece by default - they've had to repeat it so often just to get the notes up to some kind of speed that it fixes itself in their memories. Which is all very well for that one particular piece, but no help if you're looking to be able to play (or play through) anything and everything.
The translation of "written note"->"what key to press" for an oldie newbie (I'm 39!) is pretty much a question of concentration, it least for me. But it's getting better and it's rewarding, because for the first time I'm being able to understand the written stuff. Admittedly, my range only goes from g up to b' ::)
Quote from: Luke on May 13, 2011, 10:06:45 AM
No, learning to read music is easy. Or it ought to be. And it certainly always seemed easy to me. But in my real job as music teacher I have to face the fact every day that for some pepole it simply isn't easy. Brains are wired differently, and what seems simple and obvious to one is not for another. It's harder, too, for older students. What happens, sometimes, is that the pupil, struggling with reading the music, ends up memorising the piece by default - they've had to repeat it so often just to get the notes up to some kind of speed that it fixes itself in their memories. Which is all very well for that one particular piece, but no help if you're looking to be able to play (or play through) anything and everything. Which is why I ask my pupils to sightread lots, to keep confronting themselves with music they haven't seen before, play through it and move on to the next piece. It's the best way of becoming familiar with a variety of musical 'situations' and at the same time quickly leads to greater fluency with music reading in all its aspects.
You are failing to distinguish different senses of "reading music."
read notes on page -> play notes
read notes on page -> play notes on instrument in real time
read notes on page -> hear them in your head
hear musical notes -> recognize and write them down
read notes on page -> understand harmony in abstract sense
Learning to read music on a rudimentary level is easy, but developing the related skills can be quite challenging and depends on talent as well as effort.
Quote from: Cato on May 13, 2011, 06:38:24 AM
Does original music enter your mind without your willing it into creation?
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Every single day. I aid and abet it, of course; for instance, I have a mental bookmark of some air-conditioner noises I heard in an art museum in Sydney, Australia in 2006 - two repeated tones, the second a step down from the first - and on Wednesday morning, to get my brain going for a train trip to the Netherlands (you have a wonderful country, Johan! I'd have PMed you about this if it weren't a school trip) - anyways, for just over 50 minutes my brain spun out a fantasmagoria on those two notes, for full symphony orchestra, starting with
piano trombones and swelling to include some
Petrushka-like festival scenes, a nocturne, a Mexican dance, and a grand summing-up.
Original music pours into my head, sometimes fitfully, sometimes not at all, sometimes in a flood. It's for that reason that I want, nay, need to devote attention to learning the art of setting music to paper, and for that reason that I've taken lessons from posts here by Luke, Cato, and others, and will continue to read with enthusiasm.
:)
P.S. When it's time to finally practice, I plan to warm up with a transcription of Eroica, mvt i, for string quintet. Seems prudent to start with something where the transfer of mind-creation to paper can produce tangibly right or wrong results, MI, so you may want to begin with an arrangement too.
Quote from: Brian on May 13, 2011, 02:50:15 PM
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Every single day....
Original music pours into my head, sometimes fitfully, sometimes not at all, sometimes in a flood. It's for that reason that I want, nay, need to devote attention to learning the art of setting music to paper, and for that reason that I've taken lessons from posts here by Luke, Cato, and others, and will continue to read with enthusiasm.
So that is a start! Still, there are no guarantees of course, but that is a first step! 0:)
I would recommend determining whether you can accurately notate what you are imagining. I have read that there are online courses, as well as courses that one can buy, for ear training. Do not despair: even
Arnold Schoenberg admitted that his ability to concentrate and correctly write down what he was imagining, even with his perfect pitch, faded with fatigue, especially as he aged.
You might try e.g. a church hymnal for practice: as you read the music, can you "hear" the melody of hymns you are not acquainted with? (This is an especially good activity during dull sermons. 0:) )
An enjoyable way to train your ear is to read scores while listening to recordings! 8)
To Mirror, eyeresist, Brian, and anyone else similarly inclined:
I think it is highly laudable of each of you to have some desire to compose. I really would like to see all classical music lovers make such an effort. The experience of putting notes on paper and trying to create something musically coherent is challenging in a way that listening by itself is not; and if nothing else, you will probably gain more insight into how other composers' works are constructed and you may feel even more esteem for the music you already admire.
That said, even if you hear music of your own on a train trip or whatever, that's a long way from actual composition. Once you try putting those thoughts into tangible notes on tangible music paper, they have a way of fighting you and forcing you to rethink what you have written until you wrestle through the problems and come out with something that satisfies you.
I'm emphasizing the "writing-down" part because as I think it essential to learn how to read music and master basic theory before you can attempt to be a composer. Composing is not just a matter of spinning out ideas in your head, but in one sense the job of being a composer is not so much to "create music" as to produce a notated score, which the composer then turns over to a performer or performers to realize as music in sound.
I think the idea of seeking out a teacher is a good one, as it's easy to acquire misconceptions about theoretical matters that a teacher can easily correct. (I remember one poster here many years ago wanted to know the difference between the three types of minor keys – natural, harmonic, and melodic.) You can take private lessons, but I think for basic theory a college course will do perfectly well. A good theory teacher will also drill you on sight-singing and dictation in order to help develop your ear. I myself was accepted at the Oberlin Conservatory in 1966 to major in composition, but one reason I left the program was that I never felt my ear training was sufficiently advanced or secure for me to compose the kinds of music I wanted to write.
But I wish you all the best with whatever level of success you achieve in composing. No matter what that may be, it's to be encouraged.
Quote from: Brian on May 13, 2011, 02:50:15 PM- and on Wednesday morning, to get my brain going for a train trip to the Netherlands (you have a wonderful country, Johan! I'd have PMed you about this if it weren't a school trip) -
Blasted school trip! But we'll meet on 17th July. And yes, I'm quite positive about the Netherlands, too...
Quote from: Luke on May 13, 2011, 10:06:45 AM
But in my real job as music teacher I have to face the fact every day that for some people it simply isn't easy. Brains are wired differently, and what seems simple and obvious to one is not for another.
I couldn't agree more.
To reply in brief and with great thanks to Cato and Sforzando:
Ear training sounds like the most important way to begin. It's an uphill climb and I'll need to start working hard on being able to hear music and know how it could be notated, how composers achieve what they want. The hymn idea seems a good one - best start with baby steps, I suppose! Sforzando, the fact that writing music is so much harder, more challenging, than "hearing" it is in fact exciting to me. I can't wait to face those challenges. The music I dream through a day would not (usually) be something I'd ask performers to actually play, as I'll often spend a few minutes working out and developing themes etc. or thinking about pre-existing music that appears to be influencing what's going on, and each pass over the material yields new different results and directions.
I've got a few works which my brain came up with years ago and which every passing year brings new changes, ideas, reworkings, and new instrumental writing as I mature, and so it makes sense to me that a Mozart-in-Amadeus-style process of simply hearing perfect music, scribbling it out, finding no flaw in the creation and immediately dispatching it to the opera house would in fact be a very disappointing creative process rather than a fulfilling one.
In Thomas Mann's novel Doctor Faustus, the composer Adrian Leverkühn has a hallucinatory conversation with The Devil about the life of a composer.
The Devil laments that "composing has become devilishly hard," given the exhaustion of the tonal system, and that any inspiration, which seems original at first, will suddenly remind one of Rimsky-Korsakov or some other composer, and so the composer despairs.
The Devil then offers inspiration in a deal: his gift seems awfully close to Schoenberg's "composition with12-notes." >:D
But now..."Schoenberg est Mort!" 0:)
Thomas Mann's devil is not wrong: composition has become devilishly hard. Modern music is hemidemisemifragmented among assorted -isms: the audience is perhaps less fragmented, but (let's face it) has not come to terms with many of the -isms.
40 years ago Minimalism and Neo-Romanticism and even Neo-Medievalism seemed to bring some new life to tonality. Electronic instruments offered new sounds and tunings: the latter remains, in general, unacceptable to the audience, the former perhaps moreso.
Some alternatives to the well-known -isms went nowhere: Avenir de Monfred's "New Diatonic Modal Principle of Relative Music" (a system of polymodality) and Tibor Serly's curiously named "Modus Lascivus" (a polyphonic and scalar method of invigorating tonality) and Alexander Tcherepnin's "Interpoint" (a polyphonic method) stayed in the domains of their inventors. (If anyone knows of a composer using their methods, please let us know!)
So what does the budding composer do? How can one guide one's inspiration into musica incognita ?
Perhaps one needs to become very acquainted with all these possibilities, and follow one's inspiration after absorbing them: perhaps the inspiration will lead to a variation on one of them, or a synthesis, or by rejecting them and knowing what they have done, the inspiration will create a new path by avoiding the past.
Quote from: Mirror Image on May 12, 2011, 08:41:12 PMI have this urge inside of me that wants to express myself through music and even though I've played the guitar for 20 years, I still feel like an amateur because of my inability to read music.
Hmm, I'm 29 as well and although I've been
making music (mostly songs & experiments on the computer) since my late teens, for the last few years I've been pondering the very same thing. Doesn't really matter to me if it's a good idea or not – it's just something I feel being pulled towards.
So, best of luck to both of us, eh?
Quote from: Leon on May 14, 2011, 07:54:02 PMThe problem is when "you" try to write like someone else. Which reminds me of the trite saying, "be yourself, everyone else is taken".
This.
Quote from: Luke on May 13, 2011, 10:06:45 AM
What happens, sometimes, is that the pupil, struggling with reading the music, ends up memorising the piece by default - they've had to repeat it so often just to get the notes up to some kind of speed that it fixes itself in their memories. Which is all very well for that one particular piece, but no help if you're looking to be able to play (or play through) anything and everything.
Exactly my case. I'm playing the piano simply from visual memory (of which keys to hit) and I've yet to play a piece I don't know by ear, which helps me "cheat" (by not paying attention to the length of notes, for example). I hope I'll be able to gradually lose all these bad habits and learn to read music properly.
Quote from: Leon on May 14, 2011, 07:54:02 PM
It is my belief that composing music, or creating any kind of art, is hard, but has always been hard, and is not any harder today than at any time in the past. The point is to find a process, system, method, whatever, that you enjoy using and just go for it. If writing tonal music is your thing; do it and don't spend time worrying if your music will be "new" enough. You are the only you and by definition the music you write will be unique, or at least, being the best "you" possible will produce results uniquely yours. The problem is when "you" try to write like someone else. Which reminds me of the trite saying, "be yourself, everyone else is taken".
True to an extent:
Thomas Mann's devil is of course referring to the difficulty of competing with the past 300 years for people's attention e.g.
Handel did not need to compete against the entire 19th-century, from
Beethoven to
Bruckner, not to mention now the entire 20th century, from
Ives to
Copland.
The 21st-century composer finds himself competing with everyone from
Vivaldi to
Stockhausen, so determining one's individual sound is more difficult than ever: to be sure,
it is not impossible. Two composers here at GMG,
Karl Henning and
Luke Ottevanger have developed distinctive styles. Their antecedents hover, but do not impose themselves.
"Yeah, that sounds like
Hindemith." How should the budding composer react? A compliment? Or dismayed that his work "sounds like Hindemith" ? :o
Quote from: Leon on May 15, 2011, 04:37:35 AM
Competing? That is not my attitude.
In ways, though, it is the reality. You write a piece. It would be nice if this orchestra, or that chamber group, might play it. They feel that they need to program music that people already know, that people already like (the 300 years of established literature): you cannot compete against that.
Or, they do like to program the occasional piece of new music! But they go to living composers who already have a name: tough to compete against that.
Quote from: Leon on May 15, 2011, 05:17:41 AM
Sure - but, mainly, like 90% of my thinking is not about those issues but instead trying to figure out the piece I am working on that week and the hope to get it where I will be satisfied with how it came out.
Absolutely!
My impression is that Mann (in something of the same milieu as Brahms) felt that the accumulated great Literature of German Composers breathed down one's neck. No, I don't feel that way, either.
After reading about that novel in the Rest is Noise, I've had a hankering to read it. Anyway I don't think that any fledgling composers should feel the burden of the past, they're not out to be the next Beethoven, just write some music, so they should just write what they like imo, what but do I know? :)
Quote from: Leon on May 15, 2011, 06:12:49 AM
So, now you went back to haydnfan?
:-X
Yeah I decided to stick with it, and just remind people in the text below who I am. :)
Quote from: Il Barone Scarpia on May 13, 2011, 09:24:39 AM
Well, I don't mean to derail the thread, but there are lots of pieces that Bach wrote for keyboard that I can hear as chamber music. It is my "dream" to make such transcriptions. (Something along the lines of the well known transcription of the Goldberg Variations for string trio.) But the idea it is unlikely to find good musicians interested in playing them puts a damper on it.
I would like to transcribe Prokofiev's piano sonatas to string quartet. I can't help feeling he wrote them for the "wrong" instrument.
Quote from: eyeresist on May 15, 2011, 06:47:49 PM
I would like to transcribe Prokofiev's piano sonatas to string quartet. I can't help feeling he wrote them for the "wrong" instrument.
I can see the 9th or the 7th working out just fine. The others (especially 1, 2 and 6) I just couldn't imagine...
Yes, the late ones more than the early ones.
Well, follow your bliss, and all that . . . but . . . the late Prokofiev piano sonatas, written for the wrong instrument? . . . I'm not on board there, at all, at all.
I had the notion once of transcribing the Ring Cycle for string quartet. Fortunately I never followed up on this plan.
The string quartet must send you flowers annually, in gratitude ; )
Quote from: eyeresist on May 15, 2011, 06:47:49 PM
I would like to transcribe Prokofiev's piano sonatas to string quartet. I can't help feeling he wrote them for the "wrong" instrument.
Karl Henning is right!
To quote
W. C. Fields on dealing with feelings about exercising, lie on the bed until the feeling goes away! 0:)