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Lately whenever I've tried I didn't come up with anything good. I have come to think that composition can be practiced like any other art, but the only pieces I have experience writing are part writing (polyphony) and ragtime. I wouldn't know how to begin to write any other piano music like an etude, sonata, suite, etc. So I'm wondering if the key to writing these forms is just to try whatever ideas come to mind and if it's good, use it and if it's bad, change it. I used to write in pencil and put scotch tape on the score so I could just erase whatever I didn't like and put in what notes sounded good to me (I wrote a whole fugue this way, which I think I still have, when I was in high school). I guess that could be an approach. It combines the flexibility of working on a scorewriter with the immediacy of working on the keyboard. I think what most has to be stimulated is my musical imagination; I have too limited an idea of what music can be.

I think I'll do the scotch tape thing and if anyone else has any comments or suggestions I'll consider trying them also.

Hi Hrodulf,

The themes are of a different layout depending on the nature of a composition. For instance, the opening of any of the Chopin sonatas declares that it is not going to be a prelude. I think one composes all of the material with a notion of the form and duration in mind.

There are the classical forms and there is thematic transformation.

One might tend to view nearly all music in contrapuntal terms as a set of simultaneous melodic lines.

I'll post a little more in a few minutes . . .

For imagination one can try to capture a particular emotion, or the presence of a particular place and experience [descriptive music] . . . one can impose a novel schemata on the material . . . one can try to listen for music that doesn't begin in the fingers or the intellect and which enters in through one's soul as did the great composers.

I am just an amateur composer. There are many other composers here including some professionals. I am interested to see what everyone else has to say on it!

Thanks for the response. I haven't tried to compose yet I guess getting started is the best thing to do at the moment.

Just an update I did write a piece (mostly away from the keyboard) and I can't really explained how I did it. It sort of just happened. Anyone else have an experience like that?

Well... Was it any good?

And what do you mean away from the keyboard: Without hearing it? Or on the computer?

I just wanted to mention, Hrodulf, that I'm very much enjoying listening to your rags (the MIDI files at DeviantArt). If you happen to compose anything that you would consider different in structure, style or concept from your rags and happen to have a MIDI or audio file of that to share and link to, that would be great as well.

Thanks for sharing some of your creative output at DeviantArt and for your comments at this forum.

Steve

I used to write baroque music in high school but it's mostly lost now. I'm not writing anything right now. Maybe someday.

And I forgot to answer the previous question, I wrote it like a letter, without using a computer or at a keyboard. I'm not really fit to judge if its good or not. It almost became lost work but I found a copy I emailed to myself. It's a rag but its unlike most of the rags I wrote before. I wrote it almost a year ago. I consider myself out of ragtime and out of musical composition now.