An experiment in a pen-and-paper composing general, made for all the theory autists
This differs from /prod/ in that it is more focused on art music and music theory. That is not to say /prod/'s electronic music is unwelcome, by all means, post here! But follow in the footsteps of the classical composers of the 20th century who experimented in electronic music. But remember, this is NOT /classical/. Any art music, such as jazz, is acceptable
Post clyps, and please post accompanying notation so we can accurately critique your composing from a theory perspective
I know it didn't really take off but it's nice that it's still here
Elijah Foster
What if we organized a peer to peer learning series in these threads, where some experienced anons could demystify this literature through practical lessons?
some kind of step by step program that teaches people how to compose in a different form each week could have a big impact and a year from now we might have the board making digital symphonies instead of vaportrap drone albums.
Ryan Mitchell
/prod/ itself isn't in a good health these days it's good to have /comp/ coming back to life for a few weeks sometimes
Kayden James
vaportrap drone is cool though
Jeremiah Watson
but imagine what it would be like if a few dedicated and knowledgeable people showed us how to do this other stuff, cause then we would get orchestral midi vapor.
Luis Nelson
>orchestral midi vapordrone my erection is transcending the concept of hardness
Anthony Lee
I think it would be really cool. We just really need someone who's willing to hold the hand of dummies like me on this board and show us how to do this shit.
Liam Harris
I can hand hold anyone really trying to learn, need we come up with some step by step program thing or what do you mean?
Like rudiments, harmony, counterpoint, form, orchestration, blah blah blah?
Elijah Lopez
Looking for feedback from a knowledgeable composer or anyone who has a good ear for music to judge my stuff. Feel free to check my other stuff out too.
This is a good idea. I'm not all /that/ knowledgeable in music theory myself. I think we should create a new thread series.
Thread 1 - Basic music notation (Western style) Thread 2 - Basic tonal, diatonic harmony Thread 3 - Basic melody (ow should it be explained in tandem with harmony?) Thread 4 - Basic Contrapuntal Motion Thread 5 - Basic progressions (especially cadence) Thread 6 - Writing periods Thread 7 - Writing sentances
Then like higher structural forms
Christian Walker
yes. I'm not sure how to break it down but ideally something that could take a total beginner and show them how to write a symphony, or working up to that from sonatas or the like.
I'm trying to think of a different skill as an analogy, this is kind of a stupid one but couch to 5k. idk.
maybe there's some kind of google docs or something that could help with this.
Christopher Collins
if we could pull this off it would literally create a new Renaissance on Sup Forums. maybe even all of Sup Forums if other boards adopt the same mentality to their skills.
I'm sick of this place being just an endless time sink and guilty pleasure. Lets make this into a place you are proud to associate with.
Jaxon Peterson
Alright, alright. Maybe I make a /comp/ YouTube channel, mabe we have a some live Q&A sessions.
Nolan Foster
Well I could begin writing a basic tonal harmony guide, just starting with the I and V chord, and we could have little composition challenges at each lesson (Write a I-I-V-I phrase in 4/4 in F major or whatever)
Theres already enough guides on reading music, i dont think a new one needs to be made
Eli Garcia
adding on, i think the problem with alot of harmony guides and things like that are the lack of examples, but i could easily come up with 10 examples for every basic diatonic chord progression or use just from say Mozart alone
showing how someone actually made something as simple as I-V, V-I or i-vii, vii-i sound very interesting would be a plus in my opinion
Especially when I learned harmony I had to do alot of extra work to gain a sense of how to meld it with melodic ideas semi-effectively
Jack Cox
I'm not fully understanding the point of ties. If you tie two notes together it extends the sound but why not just put the note the tie is equal to in place of the tie?
Liam Reed
that would be cool.
i feel like there really isn't a good youtube for this stuff, at least not compared to all the EDM/trap/vapor tutorials and things on there.
Speaking as a bleep blooper pretty much anyone can figure out making a beat in a DAW just messing around. That kind of technology, the DAW, makes it accessible to creative people who otherwise wouldn't have had the focus to program a computer to make sounds like that. Part of what makes it understandable I think is the ease with which you can make things, even bad things, quickly. Having exercises that translate into easily repeatable processes that yield a tangible result for the learner could be an aim to making the learning system successful.
i agree about the reading music. most people can learn to read music (although read slowly) without much trouble
These are just my rambling thoughts on the topic. I know a fair bit about production and a little broadly about music theory. I will gladly be a guinea pig for this project to learn and give feedback about what parts are difficult to understand so we can make them better as we go.
Blake Nelson
its just for notation purposes, for example, when a notes duration crosses a bar line.
Also, you may see something like an eigth note tied to a quarter note after, this is just standard notation, it makes it easier (rhythmically) for the performer to read (and its just the standard)
William Taylor
Thanks, that would help loads. Are you ?
Contact me at [email protected] Peovide proof of identity with screenshots of and We can work together like that. I'm creating a YouTube channel and testing some screen capture software for live streams right now. I'll be working from MuseScore. I don't have a webcam and may not have a microphone, so communication during streams could be difficult.
Is any other user interested in broadcasting on YouTube? I've no experience at all, but YouTube is being surprisingly helpful.
John Nguyen
dubs
Liam Rogers
Alright, the stream should be up. Literally just a blank screen. This is a test of the emergency /comp/casting system. Please go to youtube.com/channel/UCqUEaKts92UIstFjrz9BfcA/live And see if my stream is up
Tyler Allen
i see a black screen
Levi Martinez
thats the ponit
Brandon Miller
now it says offline
Brandon Campbell
oh
Aaron Roberts
im getting it back up, testing the screen capture now
Great! I closed the stream now, so lets start talking hours.
How many people here are interested, and what time can you catch the stream? I'm think of doing it on Sundays
Hudson Parker
I can do whenever but I'm gonna be away this sunday and till wenesday :(
Wyatt Adams
Alright, alright. Anyone else? Composition teaching from Sup Forumsfags, here.
I do wish to wait for to create a guide. I t wou.ld benefit both my teaching ability and provide a resource for Sup Forumsfags to read
Kayden Thomas
ya ill try to make something up im not sure what format though (ie where to post it)
Aaron Kelly
what knowledge should i assume? All id need ideally is for people to know what a major and minor scale are, and understand what i mean when i write "5th of the scale" or "raised 7th" or whatever
Parker King
I'll explain that simple stuff, don't worry. This guide can be meant to be in tandem with the stream. I wouldn't suggest anything beyond scales and note alterations, though.
Charles Wood
If this takes off please add me guys, I've made a couple of OPs now and love teaching what I know, which albeit is now confined to Romanticism and some post-modernism but not much.
Colton Cooper
Totally fine with that, bro. Right, now, I'm the one with the YT channel, (I'm original OP by the way), and is drumming up some guides for the streams.
If a nice amount of anons, 5 - 7 maybe, show up fot the first stream, I'll be confident enough to make a nother one, and your help would be appreciated.
Jose Gray
could we make a mailing list about this to let people know when?
Jason Williams
Ok, you got contact info? I'd recommend a trip solely for this thread, makes it easier to know who's who.
Henry Anderson
im this guy (guide guy)
Christopher Gomez
Yeah, contact info - [email protected] Provide proof of identity through screenshot of posts or I'll probably ignore you. Not really much to discuss until more anons can clue us in on what time they can catch the stream.
Yeah, yeah, sure (how do we do that, I don't know)
Christian Perry
just a group email telling people when the lessons are would work
Caleb Hill
Alright, then
So anyone who sees this, /prod/fags saddened by the fall of their thread, or contributors to Sup Forums makes an album threads, anyone who wishes to know more about writing music, please send an email to [email protected]. When we decide on a time for streaming on YouTube,, I'll send the link and time to you and we can spedn 30 min - 1 hour learning about writing music
Also, if you are interested, please give some suggestions for a good time to start the stream. A day of the week, and an hour, preferabby after noon.
Sundays are fine for me, as are Saturdays, and every weekday evening except Thursday. (CST) We should probably give our timezones when suggesting times.
Adam Rodriguez
I hope this live YouTube lesson thing actually happens. I'd be so happy
Adrian Moore
It might be very, very boring at the beginning. I'm trying to make it fully accessible.
Ian Moore
ill finish a first harmony lesson tonight on paper, i gotta eat a burrito and work on a piece too though
Christopher Bell
Where would the starting point be at? I'm a fret monkey, but I know how to construct fairly complicated chords (extensions,inversions, etc). i can only read notation very slowly though. Will this be enough to get me started?
Zachary Perez
>Then like higher structural forms you straight-edge clowns will never make it this far
Jace Phillips
I'm starting from the very beginning. Notation won't be touched that much (I'll probably label everything I notate), but that's because explanations and examples don't require complicated notation. It'll be pretty simple.
Even when we start composing, it'll be pretty simple
Ryder Cruz
(The form of this was something like ABACBA, so I'll refer to the sections as such.)
Overemphasis of the tonic. The harmony could stand to be a little more complex, but that's mostly a question of musical style. Way too much repetition, I mean seriously. That's the biggest problem with this by far. Particularly in the A sections.
Each A section is made up of four exact repetitions of a fourteen-beat-long phrase, with only the last repetition slightly changed (when the percussion ushers in the next section). There's nothing wrong with exact repetition, it can be used to reinforce a motif in the listener's head, but too much or too slowly and you soon bore the listener. You could perhaps replace one of the exact repetitions with something different but similar to shake things up (with this sort of thing I'd recommend the third exact repetition, as aaba is a nice and stable form for a section). In addition, there's no reason for all three A sections to be the exact same length.
Let me put it this way. The total length of the piece is 147 seconds (not counting silence at beginning and end). The length of the A sections is about 30 seconds each, and in total 91 seconds. So 62% of the piece is spent listening to the A section. Each A section is composed of four exact repetitions, and each repetition is about 7.6 seconds long. 62% of your piece is a 7.6 second loop.
That's by far the biggest problem, and the rest of it I did enjoy. The B section is slightly repetitive, but it's melodically and harmonically more interesting. Honestly, though, the best part of the piece was the C section, it was quite well done. It really gave the second B section a new flavor, made it refreshing. It was nice and I liked it. The biggest problem with the B and C sections is that they're only 38% of the piece.
I'll be honest, it wasn't great, but there were a lot of things I liked.
Alexander Powell
A simple request for people to provide the score if they want critique, score is (for me at least) much more useful than a recording/rendering
Bentley Reyes
>2016 >still using some crusty 700 year old music theory diggity-shiggity
Lucas Reyes
>not using it why would anyone do this to themselves
Adam Mitchell
I want to be the next Mozart
Camden Jones
>implying literally every single musician who ever lived hasn't used it
that includes the tuvan throat singer who lives next door to me. he went to juliard
Jason Martinez
Would you guys consider this a successful modulation? Or is it auditory whiplash? I tried to go from emaj to c#harmonic min to make it more smooth. Or is it too close to the natural minor? Does it not really count as a modulation at all? Any feedback will be appreciated
Chase Peterson
I'd just like to say that I appreciate this thread. I haven't delved into much really obtuse theory, but I can provide some sort of help and feedback from 15 years of playing music and intermediate college-level theory.
If I compose on musescore for hours a day will I eventually be able to 'listen' to sheet music in my head and compose ideas from my head the same way I can play it out with an instrument? Or should I get myself fluent in playing sheetmusic on my instrument as the more important matter?
Aaron Miller
you dont /really/ modulate to natural or harmonic minor, you just modulate to "minor", they all make up the same thing: a minor key
I thought it was very good, and yes modulating to the relative minor is a modulation just like modulating to say, the dominant major
I've been running scales singing 1 2 3 4 5 6 1, should I try to make myself sing tunes with the numbers on the right notes next?
Ethan Phillips
make sure you dont just do 1,2,3,4...7,1 also do 2,3,4,5,6,7,1,2 3,4,5,6,7,1,2,3 etc etc then do jumps: 4->5, 4->6, 4->7...4,->4, etc etc then from the octave above down 4->3, 4->2,4->1,4->7 etc etc Always start on the same note! you are in effect singing all the 7 modes starting on the same note (middle C for example)
Then id recommend singing along with some Bach chorales, while playing a second or maybe even 2 or 3 other voices on the keyboard or instrument of your choice (hopefully you dont play a woodwind)
Eventually you should start hearing things as you read them, i didn't even notice i did until I was reading some simple Mozart melody and realized i knew how it sounded and had never heard it before, pretty cool. Definitely takes a long time to get to the level where you can hear 3+ voices at once though let alone whole orchestra taking into account timbres etc, I havent touched those heights yet
Ryan Johnson
just pick up a piece of music, look at it and try to sing what you see on any syllable, then test with a piano this obviously helps if you have music written for a choir, but at least stay with a single-voiced instrument if you can you can try singing numbers if you like, but unless you know a decent amount of theory it might be hard to keep up with substitutions and secondary dominants and stuff, or you can try solfege if you want but fuck solfege also listen to this guy
babbys first piece. All feedback appreciated, the ending is quite suspicious, I really don't know how to end in a minor key.
Connor Gutierrez
you can end on a picardy third
sorry i really don't have time to actually critique that
Samuel Murphy
Thanks for the advice guys
Is it relatively easy to get your sheet music played by the student orchestra in a college setting?
I really liked the melody, the notes go together well imo esp at the major section but the end is weak; the start was way more inspired at the end, I would try changing the rhythm or the theme or something
Jordan Rodriguez
more inspired than the end*
Grayson Torres
Alright, good work, its got a couple parts, you provided the score and the sound, theres at least some semblance of melody and harmony, were living the dream here. I'm trying to fix some computer thing and its shit so I'll do this instead.
First a stupid nitpicky thing, in the third last measure that should written as a C# not a Db, because the next note is going up and the C# isn't really performing any function other than just being part of the melody, don't worry about that so much though. In general, notwithstanding other reasons, sharpen notes that are going to go up and flatten notes that are going to go down.
Anyway onto the main problem, your final cadence from G to Cminor, well in your case g minor to c minor, before i explain, do you know what the harmonic and natural minor scales are? And do you know the difference between major and minor chords?
Grayson Diaz
Well of course it'll sound weird to suddenly modulate from V of Eb to c, and end it right there. Will critique more thoroughly in a minute
Samuel Cook
>all that selection bias here user, why don't you learn an actually substantiable theory instead
Leo Ross
mathfags get out
Elijah Morris
>mathfags get out of a worship thread for elementary fractions
Jordan Murphy
Yeah I understand major/minor chords and all 3 forms of minor scales. However I don't understand how I was in g minor in the last few measures. My goal in the slower part was to do a i-VI-III-VII chord progression and end on a c minor chord.
Michael Thomas
Pretty good for babby's first.
Get a copy of Johann Joseph Fux's Gradus ad Parnassus (or actually, just go to the link in the OP) and study it some. It's very constricting, and it's meant for learning to do polyphony and not a melody+accompaniment homophony like this, but some fundamentals are essential.
I mention it because the third measure starts with an Eb in the left hand and a D in the right. These two are a major seventh apart, a strange thing to start the Alberti bass with. Then the left hand goes to a Bb and the right to a C. These two notes are a major second (well, ninth) apart. It's really not helping the Alberti bass settle in. If the tonic chord being played there is essential, I'd rewrite the melody. But if you're more attached to the melody than the current harmony, you might instead have the Alberti bass be arpeggiating a V chord instead of a I chord, because that looks like the chord implied by the melody there.
James Green
Ok, so lets go over a few things I noticed. Good job overall! Keep it up.
1. Chord inversions. Inversions refer to which note of a chord is in the bass (lowest) voice. For example, in your first chord in the first measure you have a 2nd inversion Eb Major chord, meaning the 5th of the chord is in the bass. Using 2'nd inversion chords isnt really normal unless its for a melodic/harmonic purpose. Until you learn what those purposes commonly are, try to stick to root and 1st inversion position chords (root or 3rd in the bass, in this case the Eb or G). The same "offense" (as in, thing composers in the later 1700s (cough haynd & mozart cough) wouldnt have done really, which is what you start with when you learn) is commited in measure 5.
2. Voice leading, particulary of leading tones (7th of the scale). When you have a V or vii chord that is leading back to the tonic, you almost always want the leading tone, that is the 7th of the scale (D), to ascend to the tonic (1'st of the scale, Eb). This is one example of whats called a "tendency tone". It "wants" (as in the listener desires to hear, at least in the 1700s which is where we start learning from and immitating approximately) to raise to the tonic. (Another example of a tendency tone is the fourth of the scale in a V7 chord, it "wants" to fall down to the third of the scale)
cont.
Luke Hughes
(cont) which was of course meant for you, i replied to wrong post
3. Voice leading, concerning leaps. Some of your melodic leaps are a little odd. Once again, when I say odd I mean "wouldnt have really been done" in the classical era, which is again what were trying to emulate before we progress onwards in time towards more complex music. Walk before you run! Measure 9-10, a leap from Eb down a Major 7th to E natural (well it would technically be called a diminished 8ve but i digress...) is a little too..."harsh". Try to limit your leaps to a maximum of a 6th, unless they are a perfect octave. Also, dont have two large leaps in a row, especially if they are in the same direction.
A way to make melodies smoother is to "enter and quit leaps through contrary motion". What this means is: have stepwise motion UPWARD, leap DOWNWARD, then have further stepwise motion UPWARD again, or vice versa of course. This will "soften" the leap. This was done by you, for example, from measure 15-16, leapt down from D to Bb, then ascended gently up to C,Db (should have been spelled C#), D. Try to always watch this kind of thing!
Of course these arent hard and fast rules, you can do or write whatever you want. But especially when you're just starting to write, try to have mentality of "If im gonna go against this time tested strategy, i need to be able to tell myself a good reason why".
As for the end of the piece, if you wish to end in a minor key, you must raise the 7th of the minor scale your in to make the dominant chord major instead of minor. In this case, that would mean raising the Bb to a B. In this case you would also need to raise the Ab to an A but i dont want to confuse you with why as ive given you alot of info already (avoiding melodic augmented seconds).
Good job!
Brayden Ross
like if you want to be actually creative and not inadvertanly copy either smells like teen spirit or stairway to heaven
Bentley Robinson
how the fuck would that happen? besides - just because you know music theory doesn't mean you can't be creative. You can break the "rules" all you want. You're just fucking spooked man
Adam Powell
And this guy gave great advice too. Try to make sure the first notes of every measure are "consonant", like he said yours make a 7th, try to have them be a 6th or 3rd, or if not that a 5th, or if not that an octave.
If you look at mozart piano sonatas and write down the first notes of the left and right hand of every measure you get very elegant lines for the most part.
i dont see this meme ending any time soon
Zachary Martinez
in fact you can't break the rules because you've already been indoctrinated
better luck next time pal
Gavin Davis
Yeah, that's a great reason to use music theory right there, but I was asking why would you not use it.
Wyatt Richardson
you would not use it because you would want to avoid the likely outcome of using music theory which would be ripping off led zeppelin or nirvane and then get sued by them
Carson Kelly
So when I do counterpoint am I trying to form chords? Am I trying to match up the melodies with inversions at points? What chord comes next?
like I said, you've been spooked because you're the one that thinks thats impossible.
again, how the fuck would that happen
music theory is literally inescapable. every single piece of music that has ever been written or will be written contains some element that music theory encompasses, wether it be rhythm, pitch, sound or silence. John Cage's 4:33 broke all the rules of music, and so did I am Sitting in A Room. Both the composers that wrote those were incredibly well-versed in music theory.
I looked this up... What in the fuck. I don't get it.
Parker Diaz
I guy who thought music theory amounted only to Zeppilen and Nirvana probably wouldn't.
Also, nice dubs. Good get, man.
Anyway, Alvin Lucier, the composer, took a recording of himself, then played the recording back into the room he origaanilly recoded in, and recorded that, then kept recording the recording until, as he said, the "resonant frequencies of the room reinforce themselves so that any semblance of my speech, with perhaps the exception of rhythm, is destroyed"
That's it, really. Doesn't make any sense at all when held to conventional music theory, yet this guy was incredibly well-versed in it.
Still think that learning theory means you HAVE to follow it?
Alexander Cook
I'm not the anti theory guy. I thump the book of theory like the pope thumps the book of god. The only people who say music theory limits you are the people who only know the very basics
Angel Moore
oh
sorry nice dubs and trips
Dylan Torres
>limiting yourself to "this sounds good" Dont you want more options? There are contemporary techniques as well as historical ones.
Also good luck ever having a professional musician play your music. They all read sheet music, which you wont be able to create if you dont know theory.
Theory also covers the limitations and possibilities of each instrument (orchestration) Its more than just species counterpoint
Carson Anderson
>The only people who say music theory limits you are the people who only know the very basics Most often they dont even know that. They just assume that "music theory" is bad. Its 100% ignorance.
John Gray
boomp
Brandon Campbell
>biology theory is literally inescapable. every single piece of music that has ever been written or will be written will be used by the ears that biology theory encompasses. why aren't you learning about how ears work instead?
just because music theory is able to describe those two songs in some ham-fisted (at best) capacity does not mean it was either used or bypassed in order to create them, you stupid theory-imperialist pig.
>The only people who say music theory limits you are the people who only know the very basics frickin lol, this is coming from the poster who cant comprehend anything past even a tenth of the way into the musical hierarchy lmao'ing @ ur life, babby-tier theoryposter
>implying anything outside of 'muh chords' will actually ever get researched just oh my word
>good luck ever having a professional musician play your music fucking lol, why would you ever limit yourself with human performers? at that point you might as well kidnap orangutangs from africa to throw their feces at trash cans. hell, at least orangutangs are probably even creative enough to write their own "shiit music" and not just read it like some trustafarian who paid a quarter million dollars more than he should have for something i can print for zilch after i type "license to play euphonium pdf" into yahoo search
William Scott
>describe two songs in some ham-fisted (at best) capacity Actually, music theory explains literally every piece of music ever written, whereas the best you can do is
>uhh, it made a sound.....then a different sound.....and it sounded kinda good......to my own ears
>limit yourself with human performers Good luck becoming a competent composer/producer without learning theory
