>What is this? A group to study musical composition.
>How will we study composition? We will read and do the exercises from the book "Composing Music" by William Russo. We will keep it one chapter per week for now to make it accessible to everyone.
>What are we studying now? This week (19/02 - 25/02) willl be working through Chapter 1.
>Can I read the chapter of the week online? Yes you can. goo*dot*gl/Rt2H1P
>What are the pre-requisites to study composition? Being able to read Treble and Bass clef, basic knowledge of scales. If you're not familiar with this is ok. This is elementary music theory and it can be learnt along the way.
>What do I need to start composing? Pencil and paper or a music notation software.
I recommend MuseScore, or Noteflight if you want to do it online
An instrument to play what you write is useful but not necessary. Any music notation software should be able to play what you write.
>How can I share my compositions? You can export the audio with whatever software you're using. Then upload the file to vocaroo, soundcloud, youtube, etc. Posting it together with the music sheet is a good idea.
A welcome addition to Sup Forums, in all honesty. Doesn't take long either, and it isn't incredibly complex too, so most people can do it. vocaroo.com/i/s0SZMXEKCtVs I quite enjoyed the use of repetition and variation you used in that one. The usage of skips causes it to feel very open ended.
Grayson White
discord(dot)gg/TF6kYv >discord
Adam Evans
I'll do it OP. give me some time I'm reading chapter 1
Christopher Roberts
The last two measures still seem off to me. I feel the melody breaks somewhere there.
I like your melody. It's interesting that you repeated the first two measure at the end, but backwards and with the last note changed from B to G.
Cool. You don't need to read the full chapter in one sitting though. A few pages are enough. I think is better to do the exercises as you read.
Julian Anderson
>The last two measures still seem off to me. I feel the melody breaks somewhere there. Personally, I think it's to do with the fact it has the biggest variation just about anywhere, while it is a melody that has a lot of repetition employed, the way that part shifts feels jarring. >I like your melody. It's interesting that you repeated the first two measure at the end, but backwards and with the last note changed from B to G. Thnaks! There's actually quite a few variations - the first, third and eighth measures are all the same for the first part, then they change the last note, and that happens on the second, sixth and seventh measures as well. That said, I wasn't ever quite satisfied with the fourth and fifth ones, but they worked well enough.
Michael Williams
bump
Owen Butler
Love your idea op i will bump this right now and i will come back after i read the chapter and written something to show
Really good voice leading, you can even hear the resolving at the end, smart use of inversions and repetitions, i like how the last note in each measure gently descends towards E and jumps up before the last measure
I like the way you mirrored some of the motiffs and kept it consistent, but i think you should give a better look to the macro structure of the piece.
Take a look at the melody above from the other user exercise, notice how the first 4 measures complete a musical idea, like a question, and in the next 4 elaborated ontop of that, like answering it till conclusion.
Gabriel Fisher
this is one fantastic what instrument did you play?
I want to record with my violin violin, but unfortunately my vibrato isn't there yet
Ayden Fisher
Wow thanks man, i play piano, i recorded some random wind instrument preset i found in my keyboard. I wouldnt mind listening to it, i tried playing violin for a while and i know its goddamn hard, keep practicing it user, you can do it.
Nathan Walker
1st exercise, also join the discord vocaroo,com/i/s00dWFZsw8KL discord(dot)gg/TF6kYv
Camden Miller
>Really good voice leading, you can even hear the resolving at the end, smart use of inversions and repetitions, i like how the last note in each measure gently descends towards E and jumps up before the last measure Thanks, user! I was worried mine would sound pretty bad in the grand scheme of things, actually.
Connor Collins
In exercise 2, are we supposed to write a melody using rythms "a" and "b", or two melodies having one in each rythm?
interestingly yours is the only piece so far that has used A as the tonic instead of E, that's a nice idea and it sounds different even with so few tones
Levi Perry
...
Levi Carter
I used G, actually. If you think in terms of scales and tonics: >E as tonic has minor third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth >G as tonic has major second, major third, major sixth >A as tonic has major second, perfect fifth, minor seventh >B as tonic has perfect fourth, minor sixth, minor seventh G is the only one that actually implies a really major sound (A could be mixolydian, E and B imply minor pretty heavily), which is why I feel it sounds so different.
Angel Jackson
oh yeah sure it's G, I'm so tired and should go to bed. G definitely makes sense given the tones if you were going for a major sounding piece
Jayden Edwards
I think you can do them however you want, i think it would actually be helpful to write an exercise multiple times with different approaches, within the guidelines of course
Now that you mentioned it, it really does sound major, this made me curious and i will try writing melodies with the other tonics
Landon Johnson
Really like the descending pattern of the halves in each measure
These notes are in a really high octave btw so beware headphone users
Brody Murphy
I think only E and possibly G seem to work as a final note. I feel other notes don't give enough closure. Is it possible to start and end with B, avoiding the feeling of openess at the end?
My headphone are crap. I didn't hear the two quarter notes at the beginning but a half note.
Ryan Cooper
Yeah I shoulda wrote the notes lower my bad
Oliver Gomez
Personally, A's the most interesting and toughest one to deal with because save for the minor seventh you don't really have any tones that scream that it's major or minor, and even then the minor seventh on a major scale is pretty common. The B is an interesting version because it has the fourth, the sixth and the seventh from minor and nothing else, so to give it some sort of closure you actually have to emphasize how the sixth and seventh relate to the tonic. I'd open with something like B G A B if I were to write with B as the tonic.
Benjamin Morris
Shouldn't you have ended on E? That said, I do like how you're emplying repeition here, it's probably the most simplistic and subtly varied of the bunch. I reckon it'd have more closure by ending on B rather than E. I do like the descending arpeggios quite a lot, actually.
Asher Williams
It´s fine. I like it better that way. And it's good example of what Russo calls "The Cell" prior exercise 2.
Thomas Barnes
I don't know what it was but something in me led me towards ending on the last note of the first measure. I gu
Isaiah Reed
>whoops I guess ending on the E seemed too expected
Ryder Anderson
Speaking of exercise 2, I thought I'd give it a shot, to at the very least inaugurate it (I'm ). And get a trip for this thread (and pretty much all others in other boards that require some sort of trip like the /ck/ cooking challenges).
Anyhow, thoughts on exercise 2: the tonic choice there is pretty difficult. F, A and C all behave nicely, but B is just a spanner in the works. If you're using F as a tonic, it throws everything off by being a tritone where elsewhere you have a major triad which is absurdly stable. Using B as a tonic puts you in a really uncomfortable position (minor second, tritone, minor seveneth) where whatever you write will sound very dark and ominous and dissonant. Using C will have B be the leading tone to it, which is ok, but it restricts you to A and F without immediately wanting to resolve to B unless you have motion that causes you to go towards A. Using A was my choice, just due to the freedom it gave me, but with a minor third, minor sixth and major second amongst my notes, it was very much a minor-esque sound. Tones aside, the rhythm was very odd personally, but it was interesting to see how I could experiment with it.
Fair point, I was fairly sure one of the restrictions was that you had to end on the note you began on. For the second guy I suppose he should've ended on B if he really wanted to get that B minor sound.
Ryder Jackson
those look like some awkward jumps but I like how it sounds
Adrian Kelly
finally got around to doing exercise 1, never composed something with this many limitations before, i do see why its much better when you are a beginner
I think you're the only one that made use of staccato here, pretty unique variation. It's nice to see how everyone's sort of coming up with their own unique variations even in such a constrained set where rhythm, instrumentation and tones are all very restricted.
Hunter Hernandez
Weee, the fuckups of tripfagging for the first time.
I really like the beginning and end parts, sounds kinda jazzy
Isaac Morales
oh shit could we not go up an octave? If not my bad
Asher Sanders
these two sound very good it's great they also incorporate different articulations and dynamics
It has a sort of majestic sound to it. It feels like it could be the theme to a chivalric romance. I liked the dotted note in the fourth measure before reaching the highest note in the melody, it's a small detail that adds a lot.
I liked it. It's interesting to see how you used the inversions and wrote variations on former measures. It's great you attempted to write something using both rythms. I'm not sure but I feel the ending is too open, probably because of repeating the last measure but going up from F to A; I would try to reach the lower A to avoid moving to a higher note at the end.
I reach the high F on measure 3, I was unsure if I could reach the low A there. It'd be a nice touch, though. Nice use of the repeating notes towards the end, really grounds the melody and creates a nice contrasts against those quick-moving arpeggios.
