composing

Well, really, I find the method that works best for me is to just play something on my guitar. Not htinking of theory or anything of that sort, and just find something that I feel sounds nice.

I then study what I've written, and I get an understanding of what's happening there through theory. Using that, I might add more parts according to theory, and then add other instruments.

I'm not actually very experienced in composing, but doing this seems to work out pretty well. The only block is that I can never actually finish the song, or work out good arrangments.

I'm wanting to get a better understanding of music as I'd like to be able to improv and eventually, write some original songs. I've been floundering around with tidbits here and there but not making any real progress.

I found and recommend the following book:

The Guitarist's Guide to Composing and Improvising by Jon Damian. It's from Berklee Press and distributed by Hal Leonard.

The theory books tell you all about scales and modes etc. This book gets into actually putting it into practice.

Good luck.

Ive heard great things about those berklee books...im gonna buy them sooner, if not later...

i dont know if to read Noteboats book first though....

Yes - read Noteboat's book.

What seems to happen is that people make composition harder than it really is. If you sit down and come up with a chord sequence, then put a melody over the top of it, and can pick out that melody, then you're instantly part of the musical establishment. It doesn't have to be complicated.

Remember, none of us here are scoring choral works for choir plus full orchestra. Unless there's something you haven't told us.

Best,

A :-)

The biggest help I've had with this is a recorder. It gets turned on when I go into the music room and doesn't get turned off till I'm done. Then, when I'm just noodlin around and I hit on a hook I like, or a chord progression a riff or a melody it's there in the form of a tape notebook. About once a week or so, I sort thru the tape for the week and transfer anything I still like or think I may use to my pc. It gives me a kind of library of musical ideas to sort thru

The main point of learning theory is to know where the boundries are so you can step over them in the right place and at the right time, which is what makes music interesting. That being said, one way you could get started with learning basic theory is with steven porter's book "The Harmonization of the Chorale". It's great, simple, and covers everything from basic triad construction up to secondary dominants. After that, it will give you some basic rules to follow. I never really write a riff with theory in mind. With a million riffs out there, you want yours to be fresh and unconventional, but in my opinion, a solo should be singable and well thought out, and a good way to make sure they are is by following some rules which you know will make it work. This is where the theory comes in. I know that as a general rule, all leaps(that is any note transition greater than a whole step) should be returned by step (closeist notes to it within a half step on each side), preferably in the oposite direction. With this in mind, it's not a good idea to have a solo, or any piece of music for that matter, that is all over the place. Next thing, I always write my solos out in standard musical notation before I even touch my guitar. This way I can more easily identify problems with it and fix it on paper so that when I go to learn it on the fret board, it's a finished, polished product. These are just two examples.

But with theory, I'm reminded of the movie Pirates of the Carribean

" The code is more like a set of guidlines than actual rules."

same deal with theory. Breaking the rules is a way to construct music, but to know how to break them, you must learn the rules first.

There are some things I use theory for .. more of a sanity check than anything else.

For example, compositional theory says that either the highest pitched or lowest pitched note in the melody tends to work best in the last third of the song . . . as a climax point. If my melody doesn't work out that way, I will play around with it looking at that and how I might re-order the phrases to change it.

But, my ear is the final judge. If the song works best with the highest note of the melody as the first note in and the lowest note as the second, then that's what I'll stick with.

Where I tend to rely heavily on theory is in filling out the score. I'll use the notes of the chord as base notes for arpeggios, for example (a great example of how this works is in Guitar Player this month, btw). Or for filling in piano parts maybe I'll want the chords to carry important parts of the melody, so I'll have notes I need to find chords to fit, and so I'll turn to theory to suggest a list of chords I can choose from. I'll run through playing that phrase tosing in different chrods till I find that one and the voicing that "fits" the idea in my head. Then I can take that chord and figure out other things I might want to do based on what theory can tell me about how that chord fits into the scale/key I'm using.

Mostly though, composing starts with playing with an instrument. Theory comes into play primarily for filling out and shoring up what I've already decided to do.

There are exceptions though. I've played with some compositions where I had a theory-based idea I wanted to see how it would sound, and all the composition looked to theory for direction based on some simple theory based idea. For example, I had a composition that is entirely based on a IIm-IVb5-I#9 progression, and I wanted the melody to simply bounce between 3 dissonant notes. I did the whole thing without touching an instrument. The result was listenable and intriguing, but ultimately a bit sterile. Still, the process taught me alot about how to use b5 chords effectively.

About once a week or so, I sort thru the tape for the week and transfer anything I still like or think I may use to my pc.

I've never thought about hooking up a cassette deck to my pc. Are you just using a RC to 1/8" connector? Like this:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/knowledgecenter/howto/FromCassettetoComputer_StepByStep.aspx

I found this when I was searching the web: http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/drives/6908/
For some odd reason, I like it. Retro + PC = Cool. I'm waiting for the
LP model. LOL.

Yeah the only difference is I use an old reel to reel I picked up at a garage sale instead of a cassette but the hook up is the same

The real trick is to be able to hear a melody in your head and then play it.
I'm sure some people can do this naturally, and I am certainly not one of those, but as I learn to hear the intervals everything gets a whole lot easier,

Theory can be useful but sometime when composing you just have to forget about it, otherwise it can restrict you soooooooooo much.

just something to add, I dont know much about theory but I do know that do make a melodic solo, you take the chords or chord progressions your using, and you use those notes together, adding a hammer-on, slide, etc here and there