/comp/ - Composition General

"A self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood." - Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

stealing the last guy's quote edition

An experiment in a pen-and-paper composing general, made for all the theory autists

Post clyps and accompanying notation so we can accurately critique your composing from a theory perspective

THEORY

>Fux's Counterpoint
opus28.co.uk/Fux_Gradus.pdf

>Orchestration (Rimsky-Korsakov)
northernsounds.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/77-Principles-of-Orchestration

>Teoria - Music Theory General Guides/Articles
teoria.com/index.php

>Arnold Schcoenberg's "Fundementals of Music Composition"
monoskop.org/images/d/da/Schoenberg_Arnold_Fundamentals_of_Musical_Composition_no_OCR.pdf

>Jazz harmony (from the course at Berklee)
davidvaldez.blogspot.com/2006/04/berklee-jazz-harmony-1-4.html


PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

>Basic composing
youtube.com/watch?v=hWbH1bhQZSw

>Free Notation Software
musescore.org/


IMPROVISATION

>Fake books for jazz and blues soloing
drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BzW9o5O35hQzMzA0ZmI0MWEtZGFmNi00OTQ0LWI2MjMtOWUyNzgyNmUzNzNm&usp=drive_web&ddrp=1&hl=en#

STUFF /COMP/ DOES

>the /comp/ YouTube channel
youtube.com/channel/UCqUEaKts92UIstFjrz9BfcA

>the /comp/ challenge
[email protected]

>/comp/ Georgian Modes Explanation by yodAnon
dropbox.com/s/v26nd8bepv74d8s/Gregorian Modes v1.5.pdf?dl=0

>/comp/ Google Drive folder
drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/0B8L6-YOBO_NIOXk1OXRsTDlWMHc

Other resources (full of lessons and books): pastebin.com/EjYVcErt

Other urls found in this thread:

dropbox.com/s/6yp762nfqm8fmnw/Figured Bass.pdf?dl=0
books.google.com/books?id=NcKzfcexYHEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
soundcloud.com/nub-scrub/blossom-early-mix
imslp.org/wiki/IMSLP:View_Genres
wigmore-hall.org.uk/podcasts/andras-schiff-beethoven-lecture-recitals
dropbox.com/s/c1ilpvykdjq4ivr/Sonatina.pdf?dl=0
clyp.it/1zgmanbq
clyp.it/5gkbrtjx
youtube.com/watch?v=x9lwJPWHpHM
clyp.it/o3i35hmf
youtube.com/watch?v=cK4REjqGc9w
twitter.com/NSFWRedditGif

I think we should start doing these weekly

>tfw if I fail as a composer I can always turn to serialism

Hey comp men, do you work with Sibelius? Anybody can help me?

yes what is the issue

So i'm learning how to play "for he's a jolly good fellow" right now from a "how to play piano" book.

I practice about 1-3 hours a day depending on what i have to do.

Can i expect to be able to play this in a year?

1: Need to change the clef of every measure of an instrument. Can only change one at a time
2: There's an instrument that only shows up when it starts, which is a few measures later. How do I make it appear in the beginning?

Never mind the 2nd, I just exported the MIDI with a note in the beginning, then deleted in Sibelius.

How do I fix that pause though?

It shouldn't take that long if you're practicing that much. (Which you should definitely keep up.)

1. can't do much about that. You could copy paste recurring bars with those clefs before you enter the music?
2. Layout, Show hidden, select all.

Material for stream on Figured bass almost complete, anyone wanna skip over the PDF and look for gross mistakes?

dropbox.com/s/6yp762nfqm8fmnw/Figured Bass.pdf?dl=0

copy over any other bar?

figured bass is so fucking gay

You just need to learn it.

you sound like someone who had to go through an exam of continuo playing? Seriously though, it works as well as chord symbols. Also, it still kinda lives in today's theory systems, somewhat.

so, since I can't quite afford the book, is it just harmonization exercises, or are there also advice on how to figurate the Continuo voice on different instruments (organ vs harpsichord vs lute etc.)

i dont see whats so bad about actually writing the chords out

nothing, chords are fine, (chord symbols or actual music though?)

Just, (static) chords don't work equally well for each piece and each continuo instrument and each combination of instruments (think equal temperament vs a soloist who wants more brillant thirds and such).

I'll cover that in one chapter.

well, the original reason (ink and paper were expensive) is a bit obsolete

Maybe I shouldn't be speaking about a book I don't yet own.
Here's the table of contents, though, and considering the exercises on fugues I really do need to pick it up

fugue and continuo styles sound interesting.

So even the preview of this is quite helpful
books.google.com/books?id=NcKzfcexYHEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

>exercise 3
>fuck, if the bass does this then I must either not play a sequence or be forced to play parallel octaves. what do I do?
>book's solution is to just drop the voice in right hand causing the problem

ex. 3 is not in the preview sample, can you post it?

It's not? That's where I'm reading it from.

oh, and here's the accompanying text:

>Quavers in the bass line give scope for further variety in its rhythmic relationship with the RH chords. Usually one RH chord will last for four quavers, the fundamental harmony notes of the bass being decorated with passing notes, auxiliary notes, or other factors of the same chord.

>bb. 1-3. The first of each group of four quavers is the basic harmony note, so the RH will play minim chords using the same principles of chord connection as in Nos. 1 and 2.
>bb. 3-44. The harmonic rhythm increases from minim to crotchet beats in the second half of b.3, giving the opportunity to use a very common method of harmonizing a rising scale. In its basic form, this alternates root-position (5) and first-inversion (6) chords as shown in Ex. 2. It should be played with two parts only in the RH (rather than three). The bass in bb.3-4 of No. 3 is a decoration of this formula, and should be realized in either of two ways shown in Ex. 3.

um.. didn't catch that maxim thing... I did it with quavers. Any bad parallels?

ew. paralell 8th everywhere... 2nd try

If I'm a complete beginner(just starting to read music theory books) but have a passion how long it would take me till I can be able to transfer all the ideas in my mind into music and in general learn to be a good composer?

>transfer all the ideas in my mind
This has more to do with developing your ear than theory necessarily, and with a lot of study you can develop your ear pretty quickly. Maybe around 2 years to get great relative pitch
>be a good composer
80 years

>didn't catch that maxim thing... I did it with quavers
(I'm guessing by quavers you mean crotchets? Maxims are halfs, crotchets are quarters, quavers are eighths, Brits are weird)
The idea isn't that you shouldn't do it with crotchets, the idea is that it's unnecessary. Note how in bb. 1-3 the bass always plays the same note on beats one and two, and beats three and four. In your attempts the RH in those spots is simply playing different arrangements of the same chord. As a result all the 'voices' in your right hand part jump around quite a lot. But with figured bass, ideally the right hand moves as smoothly and as little as possible (remember these are supposed to be improvised on the spot).

In bb. 1-2, for example, the harmony is
>I - vi - IV - ii
Between each of these chords is two common tones, so only one voice in the RH needs to move for each of them. But in your example, bar 1 the RH covers a range of a major 10th, bar 2 a perfect 11th.

I do like the usage of motivic contouring for each bar, and from a compositional view what you did is quite nice, I can imagine it sounding quite Romantic actually. But this is a set of exercises to learn how basso continuo works, it should be approached like the Fux book.

bump for Handel teaching me that parallel fourths are a-okay

Harmonizing infinite circle of fifths is fun.

i tried counterpoint for the first time

tell me how bad this is so i can improve

A couple dissonance that don't resolve properly and one hidden parallel 8 in the outer voices.

I couls mark those when I come home, but I'm sure you can spot them on your own.

> hidden parallel 8 in the outer voices.

Meant to say parallel 5. Still a nogo

How do you properly resolve a dissonance? Is it like 4-5, 4-3, 7-6 etc?

>improvising
>motif comes out of nowhere, the sort that one hand repeats and varies a little while the other hand does something else
>eventually dominates the improvisation, to the point that abandoning it sounds out-of-character
How do I abandon such motifs?

Just stepwise or via anticipation, not by jumping away.

hope it helps

Lol dammit. This thread makes me so sad. I took music theory in high school and got the point where we could compose songs. Not great ones, but dammit I tried. Haven't done anything music related since and it makes me sad.

You might have seen me sharing my autism here a while ago with serialism, [sum of set values]=[# of set values]*[inversion subtraction number]/2, that shit. I thought of something neat to do with it.

If you have the rhythmic set [3,2,5,2] (initially I just wanted a rhythm that sounded ametric but with the pattern "long, short, longer, short"), the sum of the set values is 12, and the amount of set values is 4, so you invert it by subtracting each value from 6. So you get
>prime: 3,2,5,2 (dotted quarter, quarter, eighth tied with half, quarter)
>inversion: 3,4,1,4 (dotted quarter, half, eighth, half)
The nice thing with this is how both prime and inversion start with 3, so you can introduce the inversion fairly easily. So one thing you might do is set the first value equal to half the inversion number to ensure this. For sufficiently long sets you might set both ends equal to half the inversion number so the retrograde forms also start out the same. Or you might set the first number to something other than half the inversion number, for some effect I haven't yet thought about.

I know, it's just autistic of me, but I really enjoy thinking about this kind of thing.

bump

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Thank you!

dont abandon them, use them! transform them, or try to disassemble them and reconstruct them in new ways.

If all else fails do a major or minor version

If that also fails modulate up one cheesy whole tone

Would DAWs fit in this thread, since they're tools of turning composition into music?
Does anyone here know how to access notes that aren't on a piano in LMMS?

I guess I should specify, I mean sharps and flats that pianos omit.

I mean, I've already done all that by the time I want to abandon it, and at that point the motif has been milked beyond dry.

bump

>sharps and flats that pianos omit.
Could you specify further?

Are you talking about microtones or something?

What do you guys think of my new composition?
I wrote it on the bass and played it with my jazz combo but this version was done in FL Studio as a rough mix to show to people so I don't have to teach them.

soundcloud.com/nub-scrub/blossom-early-mix

It's features a modal harmony on top of an odd meter.
I love the vibe that the modality gives to it. None of the chords want to resolve. All the chords just float there.

Here's the chart:
||: Gm7 | F6 | C13 | Gm7 | A-7b9 sus4 | Dm7 :||

Later I'm going to flesh it out with the bassline that I wrote and record some soloing overtop of it.

What do you think?

Constructive criticism? Tips?

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bump for proselytizing music theory on /sci/

it's not a science though

It is mathematical however.
At least, I'm autistic enough to make it mathematical (see )

That doesn't make it scientific, though, and the mathematical rules are completely arbitrary.

Then again, that's how math works anyway.

Okay, whatever

Well, /sci/ is the Science and Math board.

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Not really much to say about this without any variation, melody, improvisation, etc.
I'd say your voicings for C13 and A-7sus do not sound good. Also 3 is not an odd meter, just so you know.

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>Fugue subject with latin rhythm

lets see where this goes...

le villa lobos face

I have found that reading a lot of scores - and following along to the music - has helped me a lot.

I know about IMSLP

imslp.org/wiki/IMSLP:View_Genres

but, alas, it doesn't contain scores by Britten, Xenakis or Ferneyhough or Birtwhistle.

Does anyone have any sources for scores by any modern composers?

2. I've also found listening to (and following along) to Andras Schiff's lectures on Beethoven's sonatas useful:

wigmore-hall.org.uk/podcasts/andras-schiff-beethoven-lecture-recitals

He introduced me to the Neapolitan Chord, and the Mannheim Rocket, both of which were enlightening. YMMV, of course.

Are there any more talks out there like this? A talk on Beethoven's quartets for example? Or Mahler's Symphonies?

Textual analysis is good - I find reading Tovey a bit of a chore - so I prefer listening,

I looking for something on writing for 4-part harmony. Something for idiots, hopefully.

I don't have any sources in english, sadly. I'll be touching the subjuct a little in the stream about figured bass.

last time I repost my entry for the Sonatina challenge, I made it a 3 movement thing.

PDF: dropbox.com/s/c1ilpvykdjq4ivr/Sonatina.pdf?dl=0
WAV: clyp.it/1zgmanbq

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I haven't really read this book too thoroughly because it really seemed like my high school Music Theory I class in a nutshell. (Ironically that's why I'm recommending it.)

If you haven't you should first study Fux's Counterpoint in the pasta. The concepts you learn there make 4-part harmony much more intuitive than if you start out with 4-part harmony.

COMP CHALLENGE #5: RIDING SOLO (latent harmony) Aug 20th to 27th roughly

Compose a short piece for a single monophonic instrument. Instruments with limited polyphonic capabilities such as the strings can be used if those techniques (double stops, etc) are avoided. The piece should make use of latent harmony, the harmony implied by a single line ala Bach's Cello Suite prelude. This should be the primary driving force of the piece, it should not sound entirely like an unaccompanied melody.

oh yeah

I'll update the Drive with all submissions for last challenge then. I think like one dude is still working on his

>I think like one dude is still working on his
fuck, now someone's counting on me to finish it

(it's actually done, I've just been procrastinating on the finishing touches for no good reason)

bump
>wanna skip over the PDF and look for gross mistakes?
will do once this sonatina's done

That was my quote friendo thank you for putting it to good use

I'd like /comp/ criticism on a wind band piece I'm writing. I have almost no experience with this. I tried to make two contrasting themes but I don't know how to transition between them effectively or really develop them

clyp.it/5gkbrtjx

First theme starts at 24 and second at 1:38

>tfw wrote out a big response and then I accidentally hit back

Ok basically I was saying you should try feather in and out different elements of both themes. Repeat the chords from 1:28 to 1:30 again a couple of times, but lower the dynamics and thin out the instrumentation. Start to layer on top fragments of important ideas from Theme B, such as the first two notes of the Theme, and the accompaniment figure that comes in around 1:44.

Also post sheet music, some of the harmonic agreement is bad, and some of the voicings are bad. Overall I like it.
Also what is the first instrument meant to be? For a second I thought you left in a click track

not him but
>>tfw wrote out a big response and then I accidentally hit back
the absolute worst.

Thanks for responding, I appreciate the help
The first instrument is a xylophone meant to emulate a raindrop. I'm not sure what other instrument I can use to create that sound. The whole piece is inspired by the Johnstown flood of 1889. The first theme is based on Elias Unger, the warden who tried to prevent the flood and save lives. The trumpet tries to embody the horn of Gabriel and should be more passionate and rubato. The second theme is about the regular working people in the river valley destroyed by the flood and I want to modulate and combine it with the first theme as everything progresses.

pic related starts at :59

Also, I just did the big response delete thing

Sorry, instrumentation is (all concert, key of F/Dm)
Flute
Bb Clarinet
Bass Clarinet
Alto Sax
Tenor Sax
Bari Sax (in bass clef)
Trumpet 1
Trumpet 2
Xylophone
Timpani

sometimes when I hit forward, the text is still there...

How well am I doing so far?

Nah don't change it, it's just the midi is shit. It would sound fine live / better samples.

The main clash I was hearing was the tenor sax against the melody right there. I think it's definitely something that needs to change. Is that really concert? Why are the tenor saxes playing higher than the altos? If it is concert, then you have a minor 2nd clash with the melody, which I really don't like even if it's meant to be dissonant.
You've got so much going on in the same register, it's really muddy.

Score is way too imprecise. "Crash on ride"? Are you going to crash on the ride, or is this an instruction to take your crash cymbal and put it on top of your ride cymbal? Very important distinction your performer will need to know.

Cheers, I already have Fux's counterpoint. I will read it.

yeah, on the rare occasion I'm typing the reply in the textbox on the top of the page.

Tenor is an octave below written

>ala Bach's Cello Suite prelude
I'd just like to note that there are multiple Bach Cello Suites, you're probably thinking of no. 1. Not that no. 1's prelude isn't a brilliant example, but the entirety of no. 1 is great, and the preludes to the others are great (no. 2 for instance).

One other thing about them is that they're really brilliant examples of functional harmony. The prelude of no. 1 can be simplified into two halves: tonic/tonic-extension, in which he sits more or less in G Major, roaming around the related keys at leisure but not truly leaving; and dominant, in which he elaborates on the dominant and sticks with it the entire time, utilizing various techniques to drive it home, culminating in a pedal tone and chromatic scale upwards which finally leads us back to the tonic (which has its own coda section of course, so it's not exactly two halves, but you get the idea).

youtube.com/watch?v=x9lwJPWHpHM
Tonic/tonic-extension: 0:21 to 1:34
Dominant: 1:34 to 2:29
Coda: 2:29 to 2:46

It's brilliant

bemp

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something like this?
clyp.it/o3i35hmf

Blimp

like some notes don't have a sharp or flat between them, and I'm pretty sure not every instrument is like that

>record 5 minute sonatina over and over and over
>hours later, a performance I'm finally satisfied with
>a minute into listening to the recording, phone's battery dies
Well, that was close. One mistake in that last playthrough and the battery would have run out in the middle of a no doubt perfect run.

??? you mean like between E and F? It's the same distance between C and C#. If you want to access microtones then you need to use pitch bend information pencilled in accurately or your DAW might have a specific repitching process

Are you talking about B#, Cb, E# and Fb? That's not true.

Okay, so there are twelve notes in the chromatic scale:
>0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
or (starting on C)
>C C# D D# E F F# G Ab A Bb B
Twelve pitches, each a half-step apart from the next.

From this scale the vast majority of western scales are derived. For example, every major scale is shaped as follows:
>0 2 4 5 7 9 11
For example, the C Major scale.
>C D E F G A B
Seven pitches, specific places where the distance to the next note is one half step, specific places where it's two half steps. The C major scale is what the letter-based notation is based on. That's why we have twelve pitches total but only seven letters to represent them. This is the reason that sharps and flats exist, so that there is only one letter for every scale degree, no matter where on the chromatic scale your major scale starts.

D Major:
>D E [F#] G A B [C#]
>2 4 [5+1] 7 9 11 [0+1]
Bb Major:
>Bb C D Eb F G A
>[11-1] 0 2 [4-1] 5 7 9

If you add enough sharps or enough flats, you eventually come to a point where one of these [#-1]s or [#+1]s is equal to another note on the C Major scale.

F# Major:
>F# G# A# B C# D# (E#)
>[5+1] [7+1] [9+1] 11 [0+1] [2+1] ([4+1])

E#, [4+1] in the notation I've made up, is equal to 5, F. They are exactly the same note on a piano. But when a pianist plays an F# Major scale, what's being played is still
>F# G# A# B C# D# E#
, not
>F# G# A# B C# D# F

So in 12-tone equal temperament, the fact that we have 7 white keys and only 5 black keys is an artifact of the diatonic scale. If you were to make a piano with 12 white keys or 12 black keys, it would sound exactly the same (though, good luck finding someone who can play it).

note that this all assumes 12-tone equal temperament, in older systems of tuning E# and F are indeed slightly different notes. But that's neither here nor there

>If you were to make a piano with 12 white keys or 12 black keys, it would sound exactly the same (though, good luck finding someone who can play it).
Just wanted to show you this because I love it youtube.com/watch?v=cK4REjqGc9w

Not him, but the meter sounds to me like it's split 2+4, which is a kind of weird division of a normally mundane meter.

Haven't listened to it yet, but
>2+4
So kind of like a Sarabande?

Not sure the technical definition of a Sarabande, but my point was that in the short-term it was patterns of duple meter, that over the course of the measure happened to fit into a triple meter

That may just be my perception tho. No sheet music for me to confirm on

There's nothing really in there that stresses the 3rd beat enough to make it 2+4 what are you hearing? Bass drum clearly lays out two 3's

Best books ive used so far are Harmonic practice in tonal music of Gauldin , For counterpoint the book of Shachter and Salzer counterpoint in composition and Samuel adler orchestration.

how do you guys get inspired to write
lately ive been too depressed to write anything except for very brief moments of inspiration

Take something that you already made and work on expanding it. Takes a lot less inspiration, can be approached more as problem-solving instead of creative activity, and is an absolutely vital skill that is a huge part of composition

The key with most things I find is even if you're depressed and not feeling it you have to beat your head against it until you can break through. It sucks, but there's no other way to do it