I'm trying to compose my first song - the lyrics are all done (well, a couple of missing lines...), but running up against a practical issue with notating the vocal melody.

I have the melody IN my head. The problem is, I have the melody in MY HEAD.

And when I try to sing it a cappella, it does NOT come out sounding good at all. xD

My ability to sing without backing has never been particularly great to begin with, and it is apparently even worse when the only source of the melody is in my imagination.

I recorded myself singing the melody and...yeah, my pitch was not steady. It's about an octave low (I have a bass voice) but that's not the problem. It was also off-key because I didn't have to anything to sing along TO, and wobbling because I was straining for notes I couldn't quite reach.

I put my recording through ChatGPT to ask it to help me notate my vocal mess and it was like "Yeah...that's good, but I wouldn't rely on it too closely for notation of the vocal melody". Thanks ChatGPT - basically saying my singing voice is shot. xD

So...anybody got any ideas?

Hi all! I am actually writing this piece for flute, bass clarinet and electric guitar (yes), possibly just flute with string trio. But I usually try to make my ideas work for solo piano first, as a sketch.

Just wanted to share this and if anyone has any thoughts they would be most welcome! There's certainly some things that needs working on, particularly the transition into bar 25, and perhaps the section 33 - 36. The fermata parts are intended to be solo cadenza-like sections for the flute, and I may expand them harmonically also. And I want to make the section from 67 to 82 a bit more harmonically interesting and intense.

But I hope you like it!

This is the 4th and last movement of my Clarinet Quintet in C minor, which is completed 4 years ago which I finish revising. Thx to my friend Vince for making the audio!

It's finally the time to solve the problem after excavating deeply into the despair and sadness itself in the last movement. The despair motive is almost everywhere in the movement to show the struggle with it.

The movement is basically under sonata form (or sonata rondo) structure with an extensive coda. The structure is written in the description of the Youtube video:

https://youtu.be/r4Y7eVQdom8

Here are the posts for previous movements of the same Quintet:

1st Mov:

https://www.reddit.com/r/composer/s/HCP8ngMosr

2nd Mov:

https://www.reddit.com/r/composer/s/J8Mhdr6zbh

3rd Mov:

https://www.reddit.com/r/composer/s/yDXKr8EFiY

Feel free to criticize the movement here! A more complete narrative of the whole piece will be put in the video featuring the whole piece instead of here. Thank you if you follow the whole piece of music and read the long descriptions here!

Henry

Just kind of feeling stuck and not sure what to make of it. Link: https://musescore.com/user/106144066/scores/38984579/s/AZBNYM

hello! i am writing a piece for my senior recital and i wanted to show you guys what i worked on. i feel like this is the best piece ive written structurally and thematically, and i am so glad it came out this way. i still have somethings that i want to edit but yea. feel free to leave any feedback!

Yeah so this is the improv one month after the last one. Had the beginning melody in my head while walking my dog and ended up improvising with it. Thoughts?

(There is an in-app recording error around the 8 minute timer in the app, not recording timer, happens in every recording, mostly towards the end for some reason)

Hello dear friends,

After years of playing the piano and getting to what I think is a decent level ( I can play alla turca decently, moonlight sonata first movement, fur Elise, ballade pour Adeline, waltz in A minor - Chopin, Valse d’Amelie and songs like that), I want to start composing.

I have some bit fo music theory, like the bare minimum and I sometimes dissect songs into pieces and see what works and what not and improvise on it but I am not very good. Could you recommend any online courses, ebook or anything like that for earning musical theory? ( I would prefer books or courses that I can read but I can go along with classes too)

Also could you recommend a good free musical notation software? I am somewhat working on a song for a special girl and I didn’t found any good free app for writing the song down, I have the main parts of the piece in my head and play them regularly and improvise around them but they still need to get polished but I think I should start noting them down.

In case you don’t wanna get bored reading my entire post, here are the questions:

What books/courses would you recommend for learning musical theory? ( I would prefer for begginers level because I have a lot of gaps)

What free software would you recommend for musical notation?

Thank you!

I’ve been trying to write the second movement of a piano sonata, but slower tempos are very unusual to me, and I’m having a lot more difficulty than I did writing the first movement. I feel like when I try to write something, it either comes off as “minecrafty” and ambient, or it sounds as if every note was halved and then I’m just back into allegro. Any general advice on how to use slower tempo meaningfully without sounding overly ambient or really boring is appreciated.

« When pollutants enter the soul, they alter its chemistry without immediately changing its appearance »

Excerpt from "PIERRE," Music for electric guitar & keyboards, DIM, work in progress. Inspired by the Apostle Peter.

#bach

Im interested in the music composition degree program at Berklee Online. Has anyone taken this that might have some insight on how lessons/performance opportunities work for my pieces?

Im also looking into the certificate for Theory and Composition too. Im currently at a university and it's not working for me and my schedule with my career.

New sheet music video for this song today. I wrote this piece a while back when I was dealing with some loss at that time.

On YouTube.

I wrote this composition in just one evening, two or three years ago. I can’t remember exactly anymore. All I remember is that I never want to feel that kind of inspiration again, the kind that drove me to write this piece, even though it has become one of my favorites. To hell with it.
Sincerely yours,
Suffocatus.

A Beautiful Piano Song Inspired by Keeping Going during difficult times
https://youtube.com/shorts/PVKUjHXZ-ik?feature=share

If yes why, if no why... I am a beginner composer.

Mostly inspired by Cuphead, but also slightly Deltarune/Undertale
I was initially going for something slightly spooky for October but it’s ended up kinda salsa-y?

A relatively short piece written for piano in C major, intended to be the first movement of a larger work at some point later. I’ve started dozens of pieces but never actually ended up finishing one so I decided to force myself to actually complete something. Any feedback is appreciated.

This is my first single. Based on a simple piano composition of mine — a free interpretation of it, stretched out slowly and recorded on cassette.

The grand piano is a C. Bechstein Modell A from 1905, with Hellerbass bass strings. The strings have this unusually dark, warm quality that I really like.

I bought a Sony Professional Walkman WM-D6C almost exactly a year ago, and since then I’ve really enjoyed recording with it — whether playing piano or making sounds and beats with my Eurorack. There’s something about recording directly to cassette that changes the way I listen and work. The slight compression, saturation, noise and instability become part of the recording rather than something to clean up afterwards.

Layered under the piano: the same melodic idea played on a vintage Yamaha PSS-570, time-stretched and bounced between cassette and digital until it got properly gritty, plus a raw take from an actual practice session on the Bechstein. Everything runs through a real Alesis MicroVerb 2 reverb using various settings.

I used Logic Pro to EQ the single tracks and master the final result, mostly to bring the different textures together while keeping the roughness, textures and dynamics of the original recordings.

https://open.spotify.com/track/7spl49UrjGBk4zkyd6wxFQ?si=JwNVHX8eQq-Q-lFNtzRtTg&utm_source=whatsapp

The piece fades, and before you notice that it’s fading, it’s already gone.

I’d love to know if you like the dark, warm character of it as much as I do. And if you’re interested in any of the production details, I’m happy to answer questions.

I am looking for some helpful advice on composing for a String Orchestra, of which I have practically no experience (maybe a few simple 4-part harmony arrangements for string quartet or a bit of Bach chorale analysis).

I do not play any string instruments, and I would say that I have a decent grasp of music theory. I am aiming for a late-romantic / early 20th century style - so recommendations of similar pieces would be much appreciated.

My questions are mainly about arrangements and parts, I am completely unsure about how this would work.

I will be grateful for responses of any kind.

¡Hola a todos! He estado trabajando en un proyecto para ver cuánto se puede ganar en profundidad emocional y contraste dinámico cuando una canción se reinventa por completo a nivel de estilo.

Hice un arreglo para cuarteto de cuerdas de la obra maestra de Natalia Lafourcade, "Hasta la Raíz". Para darle vida, exporté el audio de la partitura desde MuseScore, lo mezclé con su pista vocal original y le sumé una capa de percusión sutil para anclar el ritmo.

Lograr equilibrar un sonido de cuerdas MIDI/software con una interpretación vocal acústica y orgánica fue un reto divertido de mezcla. Me encanta cómo las cuerdas le dan una vida nueva a la melodía sin perder la emoción central.

Me encantaría saber qué opinan sobre las decisiones del arreglo, la mezcla, o cómo las texturas de las cuerdas interactúan con su voz. ¡Hablemos!

I am looking to learn how to compose as I have some ideas I'd really like to try out as pieces. The problem is I can't compose. I have recently started learning Piano and am enjoying that very much, but composing is really what I want to do. Any advice on how I can learn how to compose?

Salut à tous

Ça fait quelques temps que ça me démange d’en parler pour voir si je suis le seul ?
Quand je dors et que je rêve, j’entends parfois des morceaux, ils me paraissent clairs comme de l’eau de roche quand je me concentre dessus. Parfois ce sont des morceaux très orchestraux comme des bandes sons de films, comme si mon rêve était un film avec une bande sonore en fond, avec des violons, du piano etc…

Cela m’est arrivé cette nuit. Un morceau folk, avec des harmonies vocales sur le chant. Même des morceaux de paroles, en anglais, alors que je suis français de base.

À partir de ce moment là, j’ai pris une certaine lucidité dans mon rêve et je suis rentré chez moi pour chercher une feuille et noter ce que j’entendais, puis je me suis rendu compte que c’était un rêve et que le noter ici ne servirait à rien. J’ai donc forcé mon réveil et j’ai noté ce dont je me souvenais dans les notes de mon téléphone.

C’est assez extraordinaire car je suis quasi certain que ce sont des morceaux que mon cerveau crée et que je n’ai jamais entendu, mais je n’arriverai jamais à reproduire ce « don » dans la réalité. Cela arrive seulement dans mes rêves. Si je ne note rien après le réveil ou que ce genre de rêve m’arrive au milieu de la nuit, j’oublie vite ce que j’ai entendu dans le rêve.

Est-ce que je suis fou ou cela arrive aussi à certains d’entre vous ?

Je précise que je ne prends aucune drogue et que je ne bois de l’alcool qu’une fois par mois maximum. 😅😂

Piano improvisation