Starting a composition is a difficult task. Getting your inspirations, thinking creatively, applying your creative thoughts to your music and supplementing your ideas with additional composition are all difficult tasks to accomplish.
For starters, your current state of mind will greatly affect the music you write – whether you feel angry, joyful or sad chances are your musical composition will in some way reflect this mood.
Different times of day and different seasons affect your composing as well as current affairs and any stress’s you might have.
The varieties of factors that can influence your composition periods are immense and hopefully these few pointers will demonstrate some methods of breaking out of the psychological restraints placed on you.
• Colours – If you are looking to compose a piece of music based around a certain mood find a relevant colour that matches for instance orange gives the impression of energy and drive. Eventually you will learn to bias your mood to suit the composition you are aiming for.
• Character – it is well known for actors to really get inside the character they are portraying through their acting. Understanding key emotions and various behaviors help the actors ‘ live ‘ as their proposed character. If you are creating a theme for a character (think darth vaders theme tune) you need to be demonstrating and describing that character through sound. If you follow the same process as an actor would you will eventually unravel hidden details that will help refine your composition, make it more realist and detailed and allow for it to be much more creative and expressive.
• Nature – a lot of creativity and inspiration can be got by observing nature. From birds communicating through a song like speech to the rustle of leaves in a summer breeze. Trying to emulate nature is an excellent way to begin a sound-scope – or incorporating nature into a character theme for example to express an angelic quality, singing like the birds (fast trills on piccolo or glissandos on the violin)
• Memories – another great source to tap into is your memories. A lot of emotion will go into compositions that are personal in some way to yourself. Spend a few minutes reflecting on your past – try to imagine the memory in great detail – sounds, smells, colours the weather – anything that will give you a good image and story to compose about.
These are just a few sources for inspiration – use your imagination – it has never ending possibilities!
With so many possibilities to compose about and now that your creativity is running, the next area to discuss is music theory.
The last thing that you want to happen is to have all these wonderfully creative ideas for your composition but being held back by the lack of musical knowledge.
A rugby player could develop his passing techniques and his scrum techniques but if he doesn’t know the rules of the game he won’t be able to perform during a game.
Although music composition and as a whole is not bound by any rules you still need the knowledge of writing music – in the same way as a poet needs a knowledge of his language to write a poem.
Some of the key areas you should know about and be constantly revising are:
• The Staff, Bar Lines, Clefs, Time Signatures.
• Note Values, Rests, Phrasing, Rhythm
• Articulation, Instrument Specific Techniques (pizz, con sord)
• Key Signatures, Circle of Fifths, Accidentals, Cadences
• Major, Minor, Diminished, Pentatonic, Diatonic Scales
• Modes
• Chords, Extensions, Inversions, Sequences, Arpeggios
• Instrument Ranges, Timbres of Each Instrument, Difficult Areas of an Instrument (The break on clarinet for instance or seventh position for trombones)
Of course it is not absolutely essential you know about all of this but it will mean that your creativity is weakened due to lack of a means to fully communicate.
Use music theory books – go through them and notate comments on the pages, take notes on to blank flash cards to memorize scales and extended chords, use past music theory exam papers to test and analyze your knowledge and then act on your weak areas, purchase a aural perception CD to recognize different cadences and the general sounds achieved from different combinations of notes and chords – there are many ways to learn all of this but find the way that you are comfortable with and stick to it.
Finally the last piece of advice in this article is to keep your composing active.
Aim to compose a short piece of music each day, maybe before you go to bed you can reflect on your day through a composition. Mix it up – compose for different orchestrations and different abilities.
Composing is challenging but by keeping active like this will greatly benefit you and your compositions – and you never know – you may accidentally stumble upon your masterpiece!
Within the musical community, there is a debate about the value of music theory that will probably never end. Is it important to study music theory scales, or is it much better to just dive into the music and experience it viscerally. The proponents of learning the theory regarded it as an essential part of knowing how to play music. You can learn by trial and error, they say, but you would do much better to benefit from the knowledge of other people. Not learning music theory when you play music is like refusing to learn arithmetic when you are studying math.
The other side, however, has just a strong of an argument. They claim that music theory worksheets are stifling. The point of music, they argue, is creativity. You should dive into it and experience it viscerally. Learning the theory of music too early on can stifle the imagination. Although it is alright to learn music theory chords later on, it is much less important than having some experience actually playing music.
I used to be on the latter site, but I have recently switched opinions. You see, I learned music without music theory. I didn’t even know music colors theory, much less the more formal and rigorous stuff. To me, you see, playing music was almost a physical experience. I could feel the sounds and textures around me. I didn’t really need someone telling me what the structures meant. I could tell what they meant with my entire soul.
As I have matured as a musician, however, I have seen the use and the need for music theory. I have even begun to use music theory worksheets, and I hope to understand it pretty thoroughly within the next couple years. You see, the most important thing about theory is that it gives you a good vocabulary to talk about music.
I believe that you can learn to play anything without music theory. What you can not do, however, is to talk to other people about it. If you don’t know the names of the chords, the different scales and progressions, and the rhythmic patterns that define various forms of music, how can you tell other musicians what you want? Learning about music is almost as important as learning language if you really want to collaborate with other people. Without it, it is very difficult to express yourself and ask people for what you want. Why make life difficult?
We use a Macintosh computer for music sharing. The application we have come to rely on is called Acquisition. It’s a great, user-friendly music sharing program exclusive to the Macintosh platform. It allows you to download and upload concurrently, and provides helpful ratings to ensure that you are sharing with a reliable peer.
Acquisition is highly compatible with ITunes. We have been able to organize and play hours of music for parties by collaborating between Acquisition and ITunes. The combined technology of these two programs is incredible and so easy to use, that even our kids have learned how to search and locate music of their choice.
If we are trying to locate a particularly elusive music file, we also have come to depend on a bit torrent client called Azureus. Azureus is more than a music sharing program however; you can share all sorts of files. However, while Azureus can often allow us to access more obscure titles, Acquisition is still our first choice as a music sharing program due to its ease of use, quicker upload and download times and minimal steps required to acquire music files.
One of the best things about Acquisition is that it can be used free of charge got an extended period of time. You do have to tolerate occasional pesky nag messages, however, this does little to interfere with the overall process, and is a small annoyance when you consider how great a program Acquisition really is.
The other great thing is that almost all files have been pre-verified. That means that most times you will be able to acquire the actual title you have selected. Nasty surprises are very rare. Also, the benefit of working on a Macintosh computer is that the chances of getting an infected file are much lower, since most viruses are created to attack PC computers. Since macs aren’t as mainstream, they aren’t as plagued with viruses. Just another benefit that we’ve found with use.
In the past, we have tried a few other music sharing programs including Napster, Limewire and Kazaa, however since switching our file sharing usage to our Macintosh we have come to rely on Acquisition, as well as, Azureus from time to time. We’ve found that in order to maximize our download times and access to files, the best thing to do is to enable or allow file sharing amongst peers. Of course, this is not an absolute requirement, but you may be viewed as a ‘freeloader’ if you only take from other users, but never allow sharing of your files with others.
Another thing to keep in mind, depending on where you live, is that sharing of music files is a grey area. Meaning that there is a lot of controversy over where to draw the line when it comes to copyright infringements. If you want to err on the side of caution, your best bet is to only download music files that you actually own the rights to – in other words, you need to own the album. The only purpose this serves is to give you an MP3 version of a song, rather than only a CD version. Whether this holds value to you or not, is up to you to decide.
Guitars are one of the most common instruments that music lovers choose to play. You can recreate sounds from your childhood or from the past after learning a few simple cords to strum. However, learning to play such an intricate instrument such as the guitar is the same with everything else; it takes a large amount of practice and determination. You have to be willing to practice on a daily basis in order to excel with the instrument. If you do not have the time to practice, then learning the basics of beginner guitar is probably not for you. But, if you take the time to go forth with the instrument, you will be amazed at how well you can be playing in such a short amount of time.
Your first step is to decide how you are going to learn to play the guitar. If you have had any previous musical experience, such as knowing how to read music, then the process with go much more smoothly. You can teach yourself with a beginner’s guitar book; however, if you have a person to help you it will be much easier. If you are not able to read music, many of the beginner books will show you how to do that as well.
While purchasing a guitar online might allow you to find a better deal, it is often a better choice to ask a local music store for suggestions, or your instructor. The strings on some of the guitars are very hard to hold down for beginners, and you cannot learn to play on these types of strings until you have built up enough calluses on your fingers.
Many beginner guitars have strings that are slightly looser to help with the learning process. It might not be a wise choice to purchase a very expensive guitar your first time around. You need to make sure that the investment will be worth it, and you will not know this until you have mastered the art of the guitar. However, keep in mind that extremely cheap guitars are harder to keep tuned and often harder to play.
One thing that can help you excel is to listen to guitar solos in songs. Listening is usually the best type of learning. Many instructors also recommend this and they will usually have you choose a song that you want to learn and request that you listen to it over and over again. Choose wisely, because a very hard song is not always the best option. You have to go slowly and learn the basics first.
“Wonderwall” by Oasis is a great song that is simple for all beginners to learn. The song made the top 10 list in the U.S. and the hot top 100 in 1995 when it was first released. You can search online for the guitar tabs to the song on search engines such as Google. Neil Young’s song “Heart of Gold” is another easy song to learn. It made the Rolling Stone top 500 list, and it has a deep meaning. Overall, the song is easy and very popular for beginner guitarists. There are many sites online that allow you to download these songs for free so that you can listen to them.
The desire to learn the guitar is often not enough in order to learn. You also have to have determination and the ability to have patience when you are not able to get it right the first time. Try not to get frustrated, and know that your fingers will eventually toughen up enough for you to be able to play on any guitar. The first steps are the hardest, but after you learn, it is like riding a bicycle; you will never be able to forget.
