Need help with compossing music?
Hi
I finished the Royal Conservatory of Music, Grade 8 in 1999, I have since stopped going but have taken private lessons till about 2002. I also had about 2 years of theory during my years of study at the RCM, you know, scales, transpositions, harmonic, melodic, major third, minor third, this, that. I have not taken piano classes since because I was in Europe studying medicine and finished this year.
I got idea on writing piano concertos, symphonies and a harp concerto. I want to write a large piano concerto, such as Tchaik one and rach 2. I can not play the piano as well as I used to play but you do not have to be the best instrument player in the world to write music. Tchaikovsky, for example, never really played the piano that well and yet he still managed to write concertos that are almost as difficult as that of Liszt’s.
So, if I have an idea for a symphony or a concerto, etc. how to get this down onto staff paper, how to integrate different instrument when writing a piano concerto for instance or a harp concerto.
Actually have three questions:
1. How to go about this?
2. How to write music?
3. If I heard a melody in the movie “My Girl” can I use the melody of this to construct a rondo for a piano sonata that I am writing?
Thanks!!
Best Answered by Judy
Having good musical idea or beautiful tunes or accompaniment is not enough, because you have to write down your musical ideas on to paper.
If you want to take "being a serious orchestral/concerto composer," you NEED to learn ORCHESTRATION. You don't need to be able to play all instruments in order to write music for them, but you HAVE TO know how to notate them for all the instruments.
Although same music principal applied to all instruments, each music for each instrument is interpreted differently. The way a pianist sees middle A (HZ 440) on the staff is different from, let's say, a french horn player. Etc...etc... etc...
Studying in ORCHESTRATION would make you understand and write the proper notation for each instrument that each instrumental player can understand. Orchestration involves a lot of transposition, which you already knew how to do it, and the ranges of the instruments. that's the foundation of writing the proper notation, knowing which instrument starts a note and where on the staff. You don't write something that an instrument cannot reach the range or sound terrible at a certain range. Then, you would learn how to put all instruments together. You don't just throw all the ideas for all instrument together on pages, but you have to know when to introduce one instrument or two, how to syn instruments and not sound not together, and under what circumstances you use a particular instrument rather than the others.....
First, I suggest you to pick up a book on orchestration and study whatever related that subject.
Yes, you can borrow idea and make it your own. You are not going to jail for that, but just be careful how much you borrow. Sometimes, it is a fine line between STEALING and BORROWING. Whatever involves copyright, you don't want to touch it......
You need to listen and listen to a lot of orchestra music and train your ears for it. If you can, try to analyze what you hear. You also have to study chord progressions and advanced harmonization in order to write something descent. Study, study, study....