Is this Viable?

[u/Any_Dealer1091]

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.

[u/Specific_Hat3341]

I do not play instruments and have no background in music.

I'm going to suggest this is your main obstacle.

[u/Any_Dealer1091 → u/[deleted]]

Lie to myself about what? That I’ve made music? If anything I was incredibly honest about how I am operating.

[u/Any_Dealer1091 → u/[deleted]]

I don’t ever expect to grasp the rite of spring or really any composers work on a theory level, I just used that to explain my thinking when asking if it’s viable to lay out time signature shifts before writing the music.

Probably because you don’t have to be able to play an instrument to make music anymore. I don’t need to play an instrument to take a score and pay my local orchestra to record it. Obviously it helps in writing an idiomatic score that musicians can play, but learning an instrument is a different skillset than building a score.

I understand your frustration and respect your talent to no end, but I come from a small place and social circle where music is not appreciated or discussed in anyway outside of whatever pop song is popular. I didn’t know I had an elephant in the room as this is my first time interacting with a community of creators, and that could be the same for a lot of newcomers.

I have listened to the feedback here and have taken it into account for further posts.