Composing in your head with Absolute Pitch

[greg]

Is it possible? Has anyone done it with anything complex? I mean, like a whole symphony even.... i think some composers used to do this, but how?

[Josquin des Prez]

I can compose in my head all the time, whole symphonies and what not. I can even do fugues. Lot's of it is purely derivative drivel, but i get a couple of good ideas every now and then. Not that it matters. I have a terrible memory, and i can't read music anyway. Not sure why absolute pitch would have anything to do with it though. 

Jay Greenberg is said to have the ability to compose and orchestrate in his head on the fly like most other prodigies of the past. Perhaps you can ask him how he does it, if you can manage to contact him.

[greg]

I can compose in my head all the time, whole symphonies and what not. Lot's of it is purely derivative drivel, but i get a couple of good ideas every now and then. Not that it matters. I have a terrible memory, and i can't read music anyway. Not sure why absolute pitch would have anything to do with it though. 

I know what you mean by this..... but i was referring to composers with experience, who have a good sense of relative/absolute pitch (in contrast to perfect pitch, where supposedly it's possible to write nearly anything in your head, kinda like Mozart did, although not as fast lol).

I read that Prokofiev wrote his entire 1st symphony without the piano, and Mahler wrote his later symphonies without piano, yet both of the don't have perfect pitch. There's only 2 problems with composing in your head: 1) when making up stuff, knowing exactly which note it is; 2) remembering everything! Rhythm and stuff isn't much of a problem, it's pitch itself that's the main thing- if it were possible to easily get past this difficulty, i could write entire scores in my head.... but i've never figured out how to... has anyone else?

[Marcel]

I read that Prokofiev wrote his entire 1st symphony without the piano, and Mahler wrote his later symphonies without piano, yet both of the don't have perfect pitch. There's only 2 problems with composing in your head: 1) when making up stuff, knowing exactly which note it is; 2) remembering everything! Rhythm and stuff isn't much of a problem, it's pitch itself that's the main thing- if it were possible to easily get past this difficulty, i could write entire scores in my head.... but i've never figured out how to... has anyone else?

This topic is very interesting. I have the same questions about composing in head. I am waiting for any remarks.. 

[12tone.]

Karl on the board here talked with me about this very thing...about pitch.  He told me how to practice it.  You take a note on the keyboard and hum along as you hit it.  Then try to hum that note but don't touch the piano.  At least I think that's how he told me.

Anyway, once you get good at it, you can hear notes in your head and know exactly what note it is.  It just takes some practice at the piano.

[greg]

Karl on the board here talked with me about this very thing...about pitch.  He told me how to practice it.  You take a note on the keyboard and hum along as you hit it.  Then try to hum that note but don't touch the piano.  At least I think that's how he told me.

Anyway, once you get good at it, you can hear notes in your head and know exactly what note it is.  It just takes some practice at the piano.

thanks, 12tone! 
i'll pm him and see if he can add to this thread

(i'll try that btw) 

[Symphonien]

Is it possible? Has anyone done it with anything complex?

Is Ferneyhough complex enough for you? -

I have never used an instrument while composing, other than the flute, when working on details of some of my flute compositions.

There's an interesting little "interview" on Wikipedia, if you didn't know about it yet.

... 2) remembering everything! Rhythm and stuff isn't much of a problem, it's pitch itself that's the main thing- if it were possible to easily get past this difficulty, i could write entire scores in my head.... but i've never figured out how to... has anyone else?

Yes, this is my main problem as well. One can compose in one's head much faster than one is able to write it all down. Usually I just try to write out the melody or maybe sketch out the basic movements of the voices and maybe a couple notes on the orchestration. Then I find it much easier to remember what I had in mind and can then orchestrate fairly easily.

[greg]

Is Ferneyhough complex enough for you? -

yes 

There's an interesting little "interview" on Wikipedia, if you didn't know about it yet.

thanks, that was very interesting!
especially:

There are computer programs which can rapidly write you a symphony in the style of Mozart: what they are patently unable to do is come up with the flashes of perverse insight which makes a piece REALLY Mozartian

wait..... seriously? which ones? 

Karl on the board here talked with me about this very thing...about pitch.  He told me how to practice it.  You take a note on the keyboard and hum along as you hit it.  Then try to hum that note but don't touch the piano.  At least I think that's how he told me.

Anyway, once you get good at it, you can hear notes in your head and know exactly what note it is.  It just takes some practice at the piano.

is this like the official way of doing it, i wonder?
there's lots of programs for learning perfect pitch, but often they just don't work. And there's no way i'm spending that much money.
Weirdears told me something about ear training, but unfortuanetely he doesn't post here anymore...

[M forever]

It doesn't matter whether you have perfect pitch or not. Music is a language, it has a lot of vocabulary and techniques that you have to learn, process, understand, then you can put musical material together in standard or - if you have that level of creativity - innovative personal ways. Being able to imagine sounds precisely is much easier for people with perfect pitch, but even these people have to learn how to work with the material. Beethoven obviously composed his late works in his head, he didn't have a choice, and the fact that they turned out to be astonishing innovations is not due to his perfect pitch, but that he was an extraordinary musical thinker.

[greg]

It doesn't matter whether you have perfect pitch or not. Music is a language, it has a lot of vocabulary and techniques that you have to learn, process, understand, then you can put musical material together in standard or - if you have that level of creativity - innovative personal ways. Being able to imagine sounds precisely is much easier for people with perfect pitch, but even these people have to learn how to work with the material. Beethoven obviously composed his late works in his head, he didn't have a choice, and the fact that they turned out to be astonishing innovations is not due to his perfect pitch, but that he was an extraordinary musical thinker.

i don't mean to sound rude, but this is a pretty obvious point. 

my reasons for wanting to learn how to "write" a score in my head with knowledge of the exact pitches is that i'd love to be able to write whenever possible, wherever possible, and in the end just write it all down when it's done. Plus, i'll get more music written this way...... lately i've been extra careful when writing, instead of rushing the music, so it'd take forever to write something short at this speed. And what if you have more musical inspiration at a time where you can't sit down and write at the computer with the keyboard/guitar? The reasons are endless, really..... just hope it's possible....

[Maciek]

thanks, that was very interesting!
especially:

There are computer programs which can rapidly write you a symphony in the style of Mozart: what they are patently unable to do is come up with the flashes of perverse insight which makes a piece REALLY Mozartian

wait..... seriously? which ones? 

Take a look at this site:
http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/mp3page.htm
No Mozart. Will Bach, Beethoven and Chopin do?

[Josquin des Prez]

Plus, i'll get more music written this way...

That's most definitely something you do not want to do. I'd focus on a few but decisive works rather then spread out over a large opus nobody is going to listen to anyway. 

[M forever]

i don't mean to sound rude, but this is a pretty obvious point. 

No problem, but I don't think it is really that obvious to you. Otherwise, you wouldn't have asked the above questions. Think about it. If you think in an actua musical framework, everything falls into place in that. You don't necessarily need absolute pitches as reference points. There are other considerations as well anyway, such as how to write for particular instruments or voices, they also dictate part of the framework.

[(poco) Sforzando]

It doesn't matter whether you have perfect pitch or not. Music is a language, it has a lot of vocabulary and techniques that you have to learn, process, understand, then you can put musical material together in standard or - if you have that level of creativity - innovative personal ways. Being able to imagine sounds precisely is much easier for people with perfect pitch, but even these people have to learn how to work with the material. Beethoven obviously composed his late works in his head, he didn't have a choice, and the fact that they turned out to be astonishing innovations is not due to his perfect pitch, but that he was an extraordinary musical thinker.

Of course. But having a well-trained ear is an extremely valuable part of a composer's education. I don't want to say "essential," as Stravinsky after all composed always at the piano, and whether that reflected any shortcoming in his ear training I can't say. Stravinsky himself described composing at the piano as essential to his need to physically expereince sound as he wrote his music; and there's the famous anecdote about Carl Ruggles playing the same dissonant chord over and over at his piano ("I'm giving it the test of time!"). On the other hand, developing at least a very strong sense of relative pitch can be extremely valuable in that one doesn't have to use the piano as a crutch, and one can write more fluently. I started as a composition major at one of the better-known American conservatories after graduating high school; and one reason I eventually abandoned composing (the primary one being that I simply didn't have the drive or confidence to pursue music professionally) was that I felt my ear-training was too weak for me to write down my music without my having to resort to the piano for verification.

[greg]

wait..... seriously? which ones? 


Take a look at this site:
http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/mp3page.htm
No Mozart. Will Bach, Beethoven and Chopin do?

fascinating.... amazing. This idea totally smashes the idea that atonal music is inferior to tonal music in the sense that you can just type in random stuff into a computer and get a composition. Because you can, too, with tonal music.

Right now, i have just turned on the Mahler opera, and it does sound a lot like something he would've written, at least in the styles of his song cycles. If he really did put in a bunch of information and just hit a randomize button generator, that's really amazing stuff.

You don't necessarily need absolute pitches as reference points.

But if you're studying music, eventually you acquire absolute pitch/relative pitch anyways..... so proving this would be hard, since most musicians have a good sense of absolute pitch, eventually.
(if not, how do they even write or improvise on an instrument? lol)

[Symphonien]

Wow, 5,000 Bach chorales...

Thanks Maciek! Very interesting site indeed.

[Gustav]

(if not, how do they even write or improvise on an instrument? lol)

I doubt that improvisation has much to do with perfect pitch.

I don't think most musicians "write" music, but I haven known composers who do not have perfect pitch, but that didn't stop them from writing great things.

Vice versa, if there are so many people with perfect pitches (like you claim), how come we still only have so few truly "great" composers?

[Brian]

I can compose in my head all the time, whole symphonies and what not. I can even do fugues. Lot's of it is purely derivative drivel, but i get a couple of good ideas every now and then. Not that it matters. I have a terrible memory, and i can't read music anyway. Not sure why absolute pitch would have anything to do with it though. 

Absolute 100% ditto. However, I find it greatly helps the memory if, once you come across something really worthwhile, repeat it over and over in your head endlessly - get it stuck. Then find some sort of mnemonic device that will help you remember it, put it totally out of your head for a few minutes, and then summon it back. If you can recall it then, you will pretty much never forget it. I can still remember chipper and cheery tunes that danced around my head for a few weeks when I was 14ish. 

That said, lacking any ear training or pitch-whatever, or ability to read or write sheet music, it is hard to know if the tune is "on-key" when I recall it. The biggest opponent of the process, though, is my own taste, which mandates that even after months of going over and liking a collection of musical ideas, in a split second I'll decide it's worthless and cast it aside. Only a tiny handful of ideas have actually survived which remain on my good side.

[Maciek]

For the record: I think I first found that site thanks to GMG - but don't remember who gave the link or why, when etc.

[lukeottevanger]

Of course. But having a well-trained ear is an extremely valuable part of a composer's education. I don't want to say "essential," as Stravinsky after all composed always at the piano, and whether that reflected any shortcoming in his ear training I can't say. Stravinsky himself described composing at the piano as essential to his need to physically expereince sound as he wrote his music; and there's the famous anecdote about Carl Ruggles playing the same dissonant chord over and over at his piano ("I'm giving it the test of time!").

....and Ravel - who said something along the lines of 'one can't discover new chords without the piano'.

Personally, it depends on what I am composing. I often compose away from the piano, though not having perfect pitch I find it necessary to check things over. But when writing certain types of thing the feel of the instrument and the technique of letting my hands follow their flights of fancy is too useful to deprive myself of.