"To compose a long adagio is the most difficult of all.

>>68613417
This is really cool! Thanks. I don't know much outside theory, but these links look exciting. I'm excited to read through them.

I used to be in conservatory for a performance degree, aimed to begin studying composition as I had begun composing at 16. I have not written or played music in now 4 years and I can't get started again.

I went from writing contrapuntal music to spectral music to a focus on electroacoustic and computer-assisted music.

I feel like my skills have deteriorated but I can't stay focused and hone them anymore. How do I get started again?

>>68613451
I'm about to delete the thread since I forgot the title, didn't expect someone to post so quickly. So yeah, just thought I should give an explanation before I do so.

Please join us in that thread, though. We really need the activity

>>68613502
see ya there

>>68613502
>>68613496
>>68613527
Ah, fuck it, I'll just leave it. ctrl+f "composition" should bring anyone here anyways.

>>68613496
No doubt you've done Fux, or at least some variety of counterpoint exercises, but you might try them again. At least for the music theory side of things.

For composition, pick any short poem and set it to music as an art song. I don't know anything about starting after such a long absence, so I dunno if that'll help, but that's one way I get out of a rut. Something weird is good for this, I have a specific poet in mind but can't remember the name.

>>68613581
I have tried doing Fux and I have some other textbooks, it is hard for me to do though as I quickly lose interest as it is both too rudimentary for me, but simultaneously hard to create anything proper.

Might try writing a song over the next week though, never did write much music with lyrics so at least it will be something different.

>>68613631
Do you have access to a piano or something? That'll probably make it a lot easier.

Also, art songs tend to be better if you write them for a specific singer rather than a hypothetical one, so (I assume you don't have access to one) you might try to figure out your own range, your own tessitura, what intervals are best for you to sing. (I'm not suggesting you actually write it for you to sing, just write it for an idealized version of you with the training to sing it.)

The entire second portion of this is about songwriting, so it'll be useful. These tips are useful in general, also.
http://solomonsmusic.net/brahmrls.htm

Here are some of my favorites
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMKyTAe6yeM Just beautiful, and really solidly built.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juNxRYBWB9g No discussion of art songs is complete without this, it's just a classic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_bgIOfobCo Several short ones. Also in English, so you can hear the word painting.

Sorry to heap so much onto you all of a sudden but

>>68614097
I only have access to a bass guitar right now.

I do have training as a singer, so I should probably just do that. Might just try to ape Schubert, he is the best after all.

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still stuck at this state more or less.

I can't seem to recycle any of my motive for the CF that's going on in the bass voice, or for transitions towards it.

Also I suck at turning a chord progression into counterpoint, and I finally decided to change the CF, using the Roman graduale version of the Hail Mary instead of the full gregorian chant.

At least I got Kontakt 5 into FL, so I'll be able to use actual organ sounds for playback after a quick export to Midi.

https://clyp.it/05f1phfj

>>68614097
>>68613631
>accidentally close the tab
well, fuck it, I'll just summarize what I had before

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15396/15396-h/15396-h.htm
You can pick any one of these nonsensical poems and write a really short art song as practice.

For something less gibberish and more normal, I'd go with Alfred Lord Tennyson, his stuff is metric and formalist, and based on the sound of words (though not to the same extent as Gertrude Stein's stuff above, which is exclusively based on that), so it's excellent for word painting. The only downside is that most of his stuff is too long for just picking one up and starting.

Here's one I actually did, you can see why I chose it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFBCvf7RG6M
Here's another excellent, short one.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLn8d3sVc8A
Here's one that's just delightful. Couldn't find a good recording of it
https://americanliterature.com/author/alfred-lord-tennyson/poem/to-alfred-tennyson-my-grandson
Here's one that's fairly unique among Tennyson's stuff
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tears,_Idle_Tears

>>68614463
An art song for singer and bass guitar actually sounds really interesting, depending on your skill level. For example I imagine since it's a bass instrument, low closed chords are discouraged by, uh, bass guitar teachers (I dunno how this actually works), but you could easily use that for coloristic effect since it's only going to be you and the hypothetical singer.

Here's a kind of interesting recording of the Erlkonig arranged for cello and singer, sung by the cellist. (Starts in the middle of the video.) The cello is more of a tenor instrument but whatever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-KbI7M1JU8

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I think I'm intelligent enough to understand this stuff

>>68614634
The harmonic rhythm is very erratic and difficult to detect, I would use fewer syncopations.

>>68614666
I need to stop it with these really long responses

Holy shit, I don't know why I disliked the cello/singer Erlkonig before, this is fucking sweet. Maybe it's because last time I was really bored by the Wanderer which he plays first.

>>68614666
I think I will pick something in my own language, I have a few in mind that I might go with.

I don't really know what my current skill level is, I used to write fairly advanced computer-assisted very detailed music, but I'm sure it is deteriorated.

Might be fun to include the bass guitar yes, but I think I will stick to song only as for the moment being.

>>68614698
mind to notate the most glaring examples in the score using paint or whatever's handy? Thanks.

I was assuming that all passages where the pedal plays, the harmonic rhythm should be fairly clear, but I've grown accustomed to the wonky parts being wonky, so some pointers help greatly.

>>68614804
the whole beginning section with the skipping on the off-beat makes it very hard for me to follow, kind of jazz-like in fact.

Might just be me who is out of practice in listening though, I'm sure you had a good reason.

May just be me who is out of training

>>68614910
it's also partly because of the midi playback that obscures the rhythm. When actually played, like in my last (sloppy) recording (https://clyp.it/4w45jlfi), the rhythm might be clearer through inner articulation and agogics.

I kinda wanted to start with a slightly syncopated theme that becomes clearer in rhythm as the other voices come in. Can you point out anything that strikes you as wonky in the section of bar 4 through the second line concerning the harmonic rhythm?

>>68615044
I'm not gonna bother making marks, but as soon as the second voice comes in you seem to have a lot of skipping, which isn't always properly resolved, for example in bar 6 and 7 you have 5 skips right after one another which to me causes it so sound disjointed.

>>68615209
Alright thanks, I get what you mean.

Maybe I'm copying the piece too hard that inspired this fugue
https://youtu.be/JDvjE1ge-iA?t=1m36s

Uh bump

>>68616278

>>68614634
sounds great organ anon, glad you got Kontakt running in FL, should be fun

>>68614698
fugues are all about syncopation though, each voice should have its own rhythm, helps with independent voices.
You said "harmonic Rhythm" but his harmonic rhythm is fine, the rhythm at which he changes harmony. He's not really changing harmony on the up beats, so syncopation isn't really a factor there.

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I'm sorry, I would've bumped with a fugue exposition, but then Finale fucking crashed with the fourth voice and I remembered I hadn't saved

(well, thankfully I wrote it on the piano and know it more or less from memory, but still)

Finale's speedy entry is seriously buggy when it comes to multiple voices in one staff.

>>68616687

>>68617776

>>68616867
yeah, thanks for talking me into fl studio, I was just unable to get kontakt into my old cubase 5 installation.

Do you know if there's a way to humanize the playback? Organ specifics like shorter articulation on upbeats and before syncopations, slightly slowing down before bigger leaps and so on?
Or are there filters like "select all upbeats" etc. for a semi-manual approach?

>>68618523

https://clyp.it/4r2bumlc
I feel like I might have wasted a day on this fugue exposition. It was fun though. I haven't given Finale human playback the proper articulations, so it's slightly meh but

I tried to do my best to not completely shirk Fux rules, but yeah, it's definitely not strict counterpoint.

>>68620455
post sheets if possible. Feels very atonal once it's more than 1 voice, so in that case counterpoint is pretty moot.

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>>68620497
I was going for a vaguely neotonal sort of thing. Not exactly neotonal, there's functional tonality to an extent, but I mean, the tonic is reiterated on the downbeat of all three measures of the subject, and I'm pretty laissez-faire with the harmonies, if that term is even applicable in this situation

>>68620700
Come to think of it, the countersubject would be a lot better if I moved that F down to D. No reason to go out of my way for that melodic diminished third. Some other lines would have to change to make that fit, but I think I might do that, yeah.

>>68620700
Now I can see the sequences and stuff, was kinda hard to make out through the dissonances.

>>68620807
Ah, I think I've built a numbness to dissonance from all my years banging on the piano for fun. Also yeah, that's one of the things the human playback isn't quite doing, articulating the voices properly

>>68619767

Does anyone have any advice on sticking to one idea/genre when working on large-scale projects? I constantly flip flop between jazz, classical and more simple rock stuff in my writing because they're all sounds I enjoy and can get out of my instrument, but I've definitely noticed I only see to write in the genre of whatever I was last listening to. Anyone have any experience/advice with this?

>>68622572
I know that feel. Baroque/classical and modal are styles I'm not terrible at, and whenever I have to play with pop oriented combos, I tend to fall back into those archaic languages.

Whenever you notice yourself deviating too far, try to make that passage as cliche as possible in terms of the original style and you might end up with an interesting crossover. From there, transition back.

I don't know enough styles to be of any real help, I'm afraid.

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>>68618761
I tend to turn off the snap when drawing notes (in the piano roll) You can press backspace and it toggles between snap to grid and non-snap.
Once you have snap set to none you can drag notes around very finely (zoom in for more control) and this will allow you to space out notes - see pic thats the snap control changer - up top

As for slightly slowing down tempo, you will need to automate the tempo (right click on the tempo box and select "edit events") This will bring up a tempo events window. Look under the FILE EDIT CHANNELS VIEW etc section and FL will display what tempo you're about to click when you hover over the edit events window. - this space often displays important info when you hover over things.

Scroll up or down until you're about to select the tempo you want to start at, then do a slow down just before your new bar (or wherever you want to slow down) and return to your original tempo.

>>68620455
Pretty good if this is your first attempt at fugue. Its a form that takes a lot of practice, just keep at it. Start a new exposition with a new subject, and keep doing that until you get a really good exposition, then you can flesh out the thing into a complete fugue.

Once you get the exposition down you can start fooling around with sequences, invertible counterpoint, stretto, and all the other fun things.

>>68623224
Cool thanks. I'll stick to sibelius for the construction work, as sheet music just give me a better overview of voices (stem directions and phrasing slurs mainly) and tonality (key signature and accidentals), but I plan on exporting the midi and adjust the human playback by hand.
I just feel that the info I get from that piano roll notation doesn't help me as much with composing.

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>>68623416
>the info I get from that piano roll notation doesn't help me as much with composing.
Yeah definitely agree there. I write mostly by ear so I dont really notice, but if I ever have to check intervals its a bit of a pain, I pretty much have to count semitones and either test my memory or check pic related

>>68623459
>Counting semi tones
Eww, I hate that, but do have to resort to it when sight-transposing

>>68623560
eh for fugues all I need to know is that a fifth is 7 semitones. That seems to be the only interval I ever have to reference

>Write a subject
>Copy subject
>Paste Subject
>Drag subject up 7 semitones
>Real answer complete!

>>68623589
Yeah, the math is there, but the numbers feel so unintuitive. copy paste works with notation software, too.

Counter point or just voice leading must be tough in a DAW though, those "raw" pitches/duration graph just lack lots of meta information.

By the way, can FL display its midi tracks as sheet music?

>>68623657
>can FL display its midi tracks as sheet music?
no sir. Thats where it lags behind DAWs such as logic pro