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Hello everybody, i've purchased a piano keyboard a few months ago after i composed a song on a virtual piano site and won second place in a competition, i discovered i can express myself through music and it relaxes me and makes me happy, so ...a few months passed and i made a few songs, these are two of them, please tell me what you think, i have to mention they are recorded live so the quality isn't exceptional, they have some mistakes where my fingers slipped, and please be gentle and keep in mind i didn't take any piano lessons and i don't have any musical training. Thank you very much! Listen with headphones if you can ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OppxnCU87EA -"Despair"-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMKLHJ6UGqs -"Feelings"-

Tell me - are these planned compositions that you could play again, or one-off improvisations? Both are good things to do, and improvisation can lead to more structured composition.

Oh - and never apologise! If you've made something you're happy with, show it to us with pride! If you think you could have done better - well, DO better!

We've had "Despair" and "Feelings". How about something rather more outgoing for the next one? "Progress", "Pride", "Exaltation" perhaps? Then take some best bits from each of them and construct a piece that travels from one mood to another.

Well.. i felt them at first then i memorized them so i guess they're planned, i can play them again maybe even better if i have the right mood. It is a good idea to make a piece that travels from one mood to another,thanks for the advice, i'll try that. Hmm... i don't know about the outgoing part because every sound i make at the piano and guitar sounds sad, even if i start off with a major chord, don't know why and i'm just learning, i guess i'm not a happy person :P Thanks for taking the time to listen. And have a nice day !

I am also frequently not a happy person. But there's a technique that actually works! Force yourself to ACT like a happy person - pull that face into a smile, force out a laugh - and your brain is fooled into thinking you ARE happy! Same thing works with music. No matter it doesn't fit your mood - compose/play a bright, optimistic, cheerful piece of music. Your mood will follow. And your underlying gloom may even add interesting depth to the music!

Whatever excuse or motivation you use, you MUST continue composing and playing. Lots of different, short pieces. Don't agonise over perfecting them - spend a few hours, wrap it up then move on. Very soon you'll find you have material for something worth taking rather more trouble over.

Last year, I worked with a song-writer. We made a regular weekly date. Her job was to turn up with an idea for a song. I contributed my musical, keyboard and recording skills - 3 or 4 hours later we had a result. The only rules were "don't go back!" and "don't cancel a session just because one of us didn't really feel like it that week", and we pretty much kept to them (rules are there to serve us, not the other way around:-)

We made about 30 songs. I'm pretty pleased with half-a-dozen of them. We both developed our skills a great deal.