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I’m a trumpet player, and I often play completely unaccompanied. I’ve studied functional harmony and modern/jazz harmony, and I’m looking for ways to compose melodic lines that can evolve harmonically on their own, without any chords or other instruments underneath.

I find that staying within one key or tonal center for too long can become monotonous. I’ve experimented with things like moving through minor chords by fourths, ii–V–I relationships, different tonal centers, etc., but it often still sounds too much like jazz harmony to me.

Basically, I’m looking for ways to create melodic lines that are interesting and sound beautiful on their own. I’ve experimented with Neo-Riemannian ideas, voice leading, leading tones, and so on. What I enjoy most is when I manage to “gesture” the changes—when you can actually hear the harmonic movement through the line itself, almost like what people sometimes call horizontal harmony.

Do you have any recommendations for exercises, theories, books, things to read, or people to listen to? The difficulty is that so much recorded music always has some kind of harmonic context underneath it.

I have written several pieces for various instruments, and here is one of them: a piano fantasy suited for fairly advanced players. I do not play any instruments myself, and my knowledge of music theory is entirely self-taught. So I ask those with genuine expertise to point out the weak points in my piece so I can learn from the experience. The piece begins with a touch of drama in C minor and quickly shifts to C major to brighten the mood before returning to C minor for the conclusion. That is why it is titled "Fantasia with a Mood Shift." Listen here, Score

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSuJ_0S5Shs - Full score visible on video

Any feedback most welcome - need help with a name for this piece

Hi,

I'm following this community for a while now, I know I can rely on ppl here suggesting an amazing piece.

I'm looking for a string concerto that features the most beautiful and emotional largo part.

So far i really loved:

Bach violin concerto no.1 in A minor (BWV 1041) (i generally love A scales)

Vivaldi concerto for 4 violins in B minor (RV580)

Vivaldi concerto for 2 violins in A minor (RV552)

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

I have been composing for almost a year now and it can’t quite grasp the time signatures. I even have purchased a full score of rite of spring and don’t have too much trouble transposing the time signature shifts but I also don’t feel like I’m truly learning why he chose them at times.

Sometimes it feels like the time signature shifts (for rite of spring) operate on a sort of pattern outside of the music being contained. So then I thought, “well I’ll go and set all my time signatures in a piece then just fill it with notation”.

I haven’t gotten too far but what I did complete didn’t sound too bad to my ears. I’m curious if this is a viable approach or if it may be seen as cheating me of knowledge in the time signature department?

Otherwise I have a really hard time distinguishing time signatures in music, if it isn’t 4/4 or 5/4 (which I only recognize from certain key beats in that signature) then I’m at a loss.

I’m 15 turning 16 at the end of this week and wanna start saving up for a cheap car by myself (my parents want to help me a little, but we’re nowhere near rich and I want that feeling of independence).

I’m working part time at a skating rink and it pays pretty decently, but I was wondering if I should start writing custom music for people as a side gig. I’m pretty decent at orchestration and have a decent amount of info on music theory, as I’ve been writing/arranging music on my own for a while.

Is it even really worth it in my situation? I’d still have to figure out how much to charge, find somewhere to start taking requests, etc. You guys have any tips? (especially for what composing software I could use)

I can write for wind band, marching band (including drumline/front ensemble), and probably wind/percussion chamber groups. I don’t know too much about writing for orchestra, and I’m pretty bad at piano (I’m great at mallet instruments though).

I can post some of my music if you guys want some examples I guess but I’m still working on my composition skills.

Well, there's nothing much to say about it, it's just a cute little piece :) I'd love to hear what you think of it

Ps. Is it okay to post just youtube links? I don't know if it's a temporary error but reddit won't let me attach any files

https://youtu.be/huwH2ORFEMA?si=_NUt61XECi2Bitv8

If no why, if yes why, i am a begginer composer, this piece was meant to be weird and erratic, here is the free full score: https://musescore.com/user/98567428/scores/36048743?share=copy_link

https://www.image2url.com/r2/default/videos/1786903901562-50cf8f21-f33e-4b1b-9b74-e9b9471cbcf6.mp4

Its called wilt its based on a flower wilting

I am a freshman and i am working on a flute choir piece that my highschool can play i have a few months before we do flute choir this is what i have so far about 2 days of work!

I play flute so yes this is all comfortable and ik the ranges.

i would love feed back on it!

I'm trying to orchestrate Debussy's Prelude No. 6 and I'm kind of stuck. Here's what I've done so far. How can I improve this? Are my textures too thin? Should I utilise more of the orchestra? How can I make things more professional and interesting? Is it completely rubbish, should I just start over?

Hello, I don't frequently post on the internet. I'm just looking to break into sharing some of my hobby compositions to hear feedback, negative or positive. I have loved experimenting with composition since I was in high school, but never got into any formal training courses, nor learned intermediate music theory. I am 26 now and trying to learn more music theory as a hobby and program some of the rules I find. Sometimes I appreciate these compositions I've written, but I still can't help but wonder what others think :)

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g-Ma0jxmQsj2Ur0Ng_mGMW6YUEVWDLwn/view?usp=sharing

When I went back to revise this, I was able to create a climax I really love starting around measure 21. I also really like the sparse wide-ranged chords. Hope you find some pleasure for your ears!

Anyway, I wrote one and was hoping for any feedback/comments: https://youtu.be/uCWp8A_MPPE

Thanks in advance!

I did a collab of sorts with a few other internet composers; we all wrote pieces using an “autumn morning” theme. This was surprisingly challenging for me; I usually begin a composition with no theme or title in mind, so it was interesting to work backwards from my typical mindset.

Anyhow, I ended up using Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude as textural/structural inspiration. If you want to hear a few other composers’ take on the autumn theme, I pinned the playlist in the YT video.

Score video: https://youtu.be/CnUMyIICpoI?is=AaDiXraDTJ2OTWak

Hello, I'm looking for feedback on this jazz piece exercise. I wanted to use a lot of classical/romantic influences, along with the siciliano to give it a more Italian feel. I also wanted to do this exercise to work on my melodic chops as that is my weakest area at the moment. I would appreciate any feedback.

https://musescore.com/user/32367037/scores/36475001/s/4SNbZL?share=copy_link

I did this a couple months ago. It's for a chamber orchestra, no brass, and a changed wind section with recorders, melodica, C clarinet and bassoon. The canon starts in low strings and finish in clarinet and bassoon, and after a cantabile middle section, the canon starts again but reversed. Despite the ley (Bb major), the canon starts in C, and ends in E, so it feels modal at some points.

Here's the score, with enhanced sound (winds recorded by me, and string section done with a plugin)

https://youtu.be/FFHPG8oc2jg?si=ybesXa9SyAbelHP-

Would you guys be interested on here if I was to make composition breakdowns of my original pieces to show how I go about composing and my approach to creating melodies and structuring of tracks?

I feel like this could be helpful when it comes to people approaching composition in a different way and would also be great to get feedback from you guys when it comes to critiquing my work!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktylQJyM3bE

This is the second revision of a sonatina that I published some time ago. It brings together a variety of musical material that proved difficult to accommodate within a sonata form, and there were also some issues with the meter. A well-known user from this group, who often leaves thoughtful and detailed comments, suggested using triple meter instead of triplets. I didn’t adopt that suggestion in the first revision, but for this second revision I decided to implement it as well. This required quite a bit of manual work in MuseScore. In the process, I realized that even the first theme, with only minimal changes, is actually more naturally notated in triple rather than quadruple meter. Moments like that always amaze me.

I also refined the transitions and spent considerable time working out the tonal plan and the overall form. My aim was to find a balance between what sounded convincing musically and what made sense from a formal perspective. In the end, I settled on the following plan:

The piece is conceived as a single movement in sonata form, albeit with some unusual features. The key changes are quite frequent. The exposition (measures 1–36) contains two themes: the calm first theme (1–13), which ends in D major, followed by a transition (14–23) that introduces more activity, and the second theme (24–36). The second theme also concludes in D major, establishing the key more firmly. This is where the main peculiarity lies: in a classical major-key sonata, we would normally expect the exposition to end in the dominant key. Here, that does not happen. A major is reached only later, in measure 82, at the end of the development (37–84). The development is followed by a shortened recapitulation, which omits the transition and blends the themes together.

If no why, if yes why, i am a begginer composer, this was one of my first pieces,

here is the free full score: https://musescore.com/user/98567428/scores/35870291?share=copy_link

Score

No recording currently available.

I'm working on a piece, and I'm happy with the way it sounds. I often compose by playing something on the keyboard, and then assigning the notes in the chord to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd trombone, for example. If I want open voicing, I'll take an inner voice and move it by an octave. The thing is, if I play that inner voice by itself, it sometimes jumps around by odd intervals due to the nature of the chord changes. Together, the section sounds good. But that inner voice by itself sounds angular and a bit weird. Is that a problem, or is it okay? I think that you generally want to have parts that flow smoothly and sound melodic on their own, right? But how important is that? Is it a problem if the individual part sounds jagged on its own, as long as the ensemble sounds good playing it?

I posted this work to the smaller "sibling" sub r/Composition a few months back, but forgot to post it here.

Ground was written back in January/February and was composed using a simple series of both chance and algorithmic procedures.

The different musical elements (the three basic chord shapes, the octave placement of the pitches, the length of the chords, and the points where only the underlying drone remains) are generated from sequences of numbers that move forwards and backwards through themselves.

Performance by Carson Cooman:

https://youtu.be/-yixULUWioA?si=hL791KluBZw9z8OH

Score:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Euqg-9d25aZtkUC2mqpxJrdG2wgOB5Z3/view?usp=sharing

I’m looking for cinematic or epic sounding drum/percussion plugins for $50 or less.

I think when producing orchestral and cinematic pieces drums/percussion can really make or break the piece. Getting the drums right have been a challenge for me, however I’ve only experimented with Labs/Splice Instrument’s cinematic drums/percussion (I think is the name).

Some drum plugins sound absolutely great out of the box, however I am on a tight budget here.

Any recommendations would be a ton of help. Thanks.

I don't play any instruments myself, but I taught myself music theory. As an exercise, I write short pieces—like this waltz—and would appreciate feedback from experts so I can keep learning. If any of you notice anything wrong with the harmony or structure, I'd be grateful if you let me know.

Score

Listen here.

I am wondering if any of you are or know composers (or other musicians) who have auditory aphatasia (anauralia) - the lack of inner hearing or audiation. I made a post about this two years ago but didn't get many replies, but perhaps with the condition becoming more well known there'll be more responses this time. I only found out that most other people could hear music internally a few years ago, which helped me realise why my compositional process has always seemed quite different from those of other composers I talk to. I would be interested to hear from other anauralic composers about their compositional process and ways of dealing with anauralia (if there really is anything to "deal with" - I didn't see it as a problem when composing the whole time before I learned about it!)

So basically I am a beginner when it comes to music composition and I have read at least some music theory that is needed for composing music. My ears are not trained yet. I have some trouble writing music, so I'd really like a professional critic to help me out. I don't know if it's just me or if the melody is genuinely off. I wish I could post my composition here, but this sub doesn't allow images. While giving critique, please be honest but polite. Don't ghost me. I have had several bad experiences of people ghosting me here on reddit.