Ths Study of Music Composition

[Kelvin]

Hi, I just joined this forum a couple hours ago.

I was wondering if all the composers on this forum went through any formal studies in music composition and whether you could recommend some books on composing for films. I am also wondering if all of you were full time composers or if any of you are composing as a hobby/part time career.

I am actually a physician who once aspired to be a musician. I have not had much time for music till recently and just begun composing, and playing the piano(after a long hiatus). I would appreciate any advice you could give me regarding my works and whether it is even remotely possible that I could be as good as you guys are in terms of composition.

I love this site and the works represented here!

Thanks

[Don Kim]

Just wanted to second Kelvin's thanks. I found all the responses in this thread quite informative!

[Mike]

Thank you SOOO MUCH for the links to
PRINCIPLES OF ORCHESTRATION by Rimsky-Korsakov
and
Petrucci Music Library

the book is invaluable to me as I do not have the book knowledge of orchestras. (I just write what I hear in my head)
and the music is great!! I do not have access to a music library and this will help me grow THANK YOU!

we need to compile a list of such links.

also thank you for the insightful information in the other reply's this forum is very helpful indeed!

[Jonathan Adamich]

Si, I currently attend Cornish College of the Arts to major in classical music composition

[Steve Chandler]

Hi Kelvin,

The real question is what do you want to compose and why? From your responses in this thread I'm gathering that greater harmonic sophistication is one thing you aspire for. I've come to the conclusion that the human mind (at least this one) learns best by doing. So write a melody then harmonize it, strive toward greater chromaticism through the use of secondary dominants, augmented sixths, neopolitan sixths, etc. When you feel you've learned that fairly well then learn about jazz harmony (sevenths, ninths, elevenths, thirteenths and borrowed chords and much more) and modal stuff. Then if you're so inclined pick up the Persichetti 20th century Harmony book and puzzle through some of that. If you haven't learned the principles of good voice leading do so because it really does help your music sound more elegant.

A few years ago I was trying to compose a work for choir (my first attempt in the genre). One bit of advice I got was do some time singing in a choir. The community choir I joined had just found a new director who was a stickler on developing reading skills, so he was drilling solfegge for a while (drove some people crazy). I loved it as I'd never really drilled on solfegge before and it was just what I needed at the time to improve my ear training (which was always pretty good). If you have the time any type of choir work is great ear training. It will help your melody writing and improve your harmonic capabilities.

Hope that's helpful.

Steve Chandler

[Luigi]

Hi,well I am not a full time paid composer,but I can't really say that music is my hobby....as all I basically care the most about,is music

I have studied as a self-taught off serious college books (MacPherson, Paul Sturman) and I have learned all the foundations of classical harmony off a Schoenberg's treatise. I am not a symphonist or anything,I am still learning and have a lot to learn,but as an adult who wasted a lot of time (I have concluded that self-teaching oneself is very time consuming) I would suggest that you either take private lessons or enroll in a part time course. All I can say is that if I were you,I would think it over... studying to be a composer for films,it seems to be,requires an astounding amount of dedication. I am currently doing an online course called Music For The Media....it's very good but if I could choose again,I would just enroll in a college. It's better to interact with other people and learn from them too. Good luck

[Jan Civil]

I think if you have even a little bit of talent, your limitations are dictated only by the level of your desire.

Personally I feel that a conservatory education is bullshit for a composer. It's an academic thrust, an education for the academy... if you want to be a professor, you probably have to go this way. If you want to be a musician in the real world, you're wasting 90% or more of your time in what you are made to do in the academy. To write music that sounds like Brahms, you need to know the backstory of that style really well. But who needs to do that? Spend that time in the library, study what you need to know, particular to your own desire for information>for knowledge. A conservatory exists to conserve a music. It tends to be a limiting experience, a necessarily limited world view to be what it is. That view is entirely euro-centric, and acts as if the temperament of an octave into 12 equal steps is the alpha and omega of music, for the most part. Music is infinite, and needs no such continental boundaries.

Personally, I am a full-time composer with no job. Everything right now is 'on spec'. I feel I have no choice but to be. I don't necessarily recommend doing what I do. Not at all. But if you have no choice but to do, that's all you can do.

[Dankk]

I have had no formal training unless you would want to count 4-5 piano lessons when I was 9. I might have been 10. Regardless, I have no true understanding of theory or how to even read sheet music. None-the-less, I can still write music and play. Many people are self-taught.

I digress, I wish that I would have had a LOT of training. I write by ear. Play by ear. It definitely has its shortcomings. Other than the occasional, "wow you do that by listening to it" it is really not that great at all. It seems that there are those that think that if you play by ear, you are somehow special. I just tell them that I pay careful attention. Nothing more really.

Formal training will not prevent you from writing great music. It will, however, help you make it more refined, polished, etc... That is my opinion only and not based on any sort of study. It seems that way to me i guess is what i meant to say.

[Jan Civil]

I think a class in harmony, one in counterpoint, get a course in form and analysis, fantastic, or you can just go to the library. I happened to get two good harmony teachers, and I happened to enjoy part writing in that 19th century style at the time. It served me well, part writing, voice leading. Once I had that, I got the f out of dodge.

I play by ear. I always played by ear. I have the ability to get out my own way and not really think while doing. A gift maybe, who knows. But I wouldn't think in terms of by ear versus knowing stuff. Study, training is just a matter of acquiring vocabulary. Linguistic analogy: some people speak just fine, you know what they are saying most of the time, but they can't *write* in that language. They might be unclear on how to structure a sentence, much less get a paragraph up.

But you can get all that on your own; once you have the basics, you can do in less time than having to do it according to all this curriculae you get at conservatory. Like, I wish I'd gone to Berklee like I first had the idea to, it's real world-basis for the information, or more so than a classical joint.

[Aryan Kermanchi]

Music is all mathematics. It has rules, structure, formulas and even calculations!

I suggest you to learn Harmony, then Modulation, and then learn different types of music (Preludes, Fuges, inventions, and more...).

That's the best way to start composing, and it gives your mind the power to manage notes and themes. :)

[Dankk]

i could not agree more about music being all mathematics.. Complex mathematics however... Very, very complex...

BTW.. what in the world is an "invention" in music? I have a song with the word in it and it is also part of the title to my compilation.

[Chuck Lucy Finale]

I often hear something that I think juxtaposes nicely with something unrelated. This can be Black Metal and Strav's Le Sacre du Printemps, or Billy Joel and Das Wohltemperierte Klavier.

I then stay up all night scratching out the rough draft on Finale or in my head. I worry more about feeling conveyed in each bar. I don't focus chordally, melodically, texturally or even timbrally. I deal with all that at the same time. As a fellow new composer, I'm a bit idealistic. I think anyone can be the next Bach, Cage, Gaahl, Zorn, Mike Patton or Geezer Butler.

[Chris Alpiar]

I just wrote a very long article here and when I went to submit it I closed the tab by accident! Im sorry I dont feel like retyping but the most important thing I said was to buy "THE STUDY OF ORCHESTRATION" by Samuel Adler, and make sure you also buy the CD set and Workbook that go with it. Expensive but well worth every penny! It will open up great doors for you as well as be a reference for life