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Viktor
Account closed
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 78 |
How do you start composing?
Hello,
I have ever wondered, how somebody creates a music?
Can somebody tell some about that, how he is composing, and i loaded a few time music software into my machine, but i don't know how should I start.
Can somebody tell me how he/she starts composing music?
Viktor
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THE TEA DRINKER
Registered: Jul 2005
Posts: 39 |
Im not a wellknown composer at all, I just begin composing with create tunes I like from other machines (Amiga scene, create covers or remake them to c64) then I use a music program (old one) you proberly have your favorits then try create a song you like where you have the notes, then tap the notes into the music program tool try create adsr values so it sound like the tune you know.
When you become better try then from scratz and compose your own tune that is my trick, maybe get some demo tunes for your music program you use so you can get some ideas too, just some advice maybe better composer on this site has other good ideas. |
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SuperNoise
Account closed
Registered: Aug 2006
Posts: 30 |
Meybe it's not easy way to compose but I try to imagine in my mind the best tune I have ever heard and then I try translate it to C64 - it's the hardest part of composing :)
Best regards,
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abracadabra
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2006
Posts: 14 |
I'm not a composer but I guess that todays c64-msx-editors doesn't use the whole power of the SID. |
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Hein
Registered: Apr 2004
Posts: 954 |
I think that depends on who's using the editor. |
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abracadabra
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2006
Posts: 14 |
Quote: I think that depends on who's using the editor.
IMHO f.ex Cybertracker is quite powerful. Unfortunately it is unfinished. |
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Hein
Registered: Apr 2004
Posts: 954 |
Cybertracker has a nice interface. |
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abracadabra
Account closed
Registered: Jul 2006
Posts: 14 |
Quote: Cybertracker has a nice interface.
+ you can customize it. |
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Hein
Registered: Apr 2004
Posts: 954 |
yes, thats wonderfull. |
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Hate Bush
Registered: Jul 2002
Posts: 465 |
i do all the shit on keyboard and paper beforehand. i can't focus on thinking about the construction and the sound simultaneously. |
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Turtle
Account closed
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 70 |
well, I try to play the melody on my guitar and then hack it into the tracker. But often I start with a base-line or a rythm-line. IMHO the drums are quite like doing math... |
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Dane
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 423 |
It varies. Sometimes I fiddle around with chords and melodies on piano first and then build around that. Other times I have a basic rhythm or bassline. Some of the funniest tunes to make were the ones where I only started with an idea for an instrument or a certain sound. |
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dalezy
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 476 |
i just jam it in and let it rest for some days. if it's still good, i continue and eventually finish the tune - if not, i'll add it to the huge list of never-to-be-finished worktunes.
until some time ago i used to force myself into mindwhistling stuff under the shower and in the subway, until i found out that once i reached the editor, the idea of the best tune in the world is gone. |
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Stryyker
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 468 |
I just randomly do things and tweak until I like the sound. Normally I make the chords or bass line first and work around that. I guess it shows. |
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A Life in Hell
Account closed
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 204 |
I don't choose when to start writing music. The music chooses when it starts playing in my head, giving me the oppertunity to write it down. |
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Laxity
Registered: Aug 2005
Posts: 459 |
The "Stryyker" methods is the way to go. Trust your ears, they'll convince you when you're doing the right stuff, and don't mind the rest of us! But there's no right way to do it, just do it! |
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SuperNoise
Account closed
Registered: Aug 2006
Posts: 30 |
Quote: It varies. Sometimes I fiddle around with chords and melodies on piano first and then build around that. Other times I have a basic rhythm or bassline. Some of the funniest tunes to make were the ones where I only started with an idea for an instrument or a certain sound.
I had a feeling that you sometimes use a piano first.
I see it's possible to recognize if someone starts with piano or guitar first because the style of music sometimes depends from instrument you play on.
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Hate Bush
Registered: Jul 2002
Posts: 465 |
right. for example. judging by his sids, i'd been sure that the mighty shogoon plays guitar (ah those fast scale passages), which later turned out to be true.
on the other hand, i would never guess that vip's a saxophonist. |
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CreaMD
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 3057 |
I don't play any instrument and it shows too... ;-( I compose in DMC5.0+, or DMC5 double speed.. no jamming. Just in my head or voice. I try to sing along the bacgkround and then try to recreate it.. sometimes I lose the melody I inteded to make, during this process ;-). I also have a heap of unfinished tunes. Mostly those which lost drive for me during the composing process... If the tune doesn't amuse me while composing I usually give up. I have never had guts to make somethin extremely sad, it's just not in me. I need to jump around the place when doing stuff..
I always dreamd about doing "bass / chord dialogues" similar way as JT did. It's really fits to my taste.. but never actually did something like that. Maybe when I grow up. |
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Soren
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 547 |
hmm... How do I start composing a piece of music... Usually I get some ideas by jamming a bit on my synth... other times I just get the ideas in my head or so.. It's different what part of the music I start with... can be: drums, bassline, lead, chords or just some sounds that create a certain mood.
Often I start out with some basic sounds for what I am doing.. just quickly do some sounds and continue working on them after having done some music sequences.
I guess lead sounds are the ones I spent most time on changing.. especially if they contain pulse, as for me it's important create the right expression with it. also things as
where to put the vibrato and such is something I often spend quite some time changing after listening a lot to some lead parts.
About an earlier comment in this thread.. todays players probably don't use all the power of the sid... hmm... How can one get that thought? My own latest player+editor is quite flexible and can "emulate" A LOT of things done in both older and newer players.
And as usual, I find that my players can do some things that
I didn't expect it to be able to do... either because I didn't know how to do it or just because I had not thought about it when coding the player.
And I know that other of the newer players are able to do similar things. |
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Hein
Registered: Apr 2004
Posts: 954 |
I think I use a few starting points:
- Improvise on an idea (a piece of music I've heard, hardly SID music, but every day stuff)
- Make a little chord plan on synth (soft electric piano preset mainly, so the harmonies are clear and not distorted) and use that as a base for further development
- Work around a concept which has nothing to do with music
when a worktune is going slow, I think it won't work well, so I often cancel it, because tweaking till kingdom come is just too irritating.
The improvising way is my favourite, allthough the chord plan most often gives the best result technically. |
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Dane
Registered: May 2002
Posts: 423 |
Which sparks a terrible idea...what if we all made a tune each from the same chord progression? |
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CreaMD
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 3057 |
I would rather hear tunes attempting to sing the same "lyrics" using vocoder-like sounds. ;-) |
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Soren
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 547 |
@Creamd: well, they don't sound too much like speech/vocoder anyways... not enough resonance in the SID, is one of the reasons. ;) |
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Jammer
Registered: Nov 2002
Posts: 1336 |
well, i start from the percussion and bassline, then add chords and lead in the end. strange, isn't it? melody is created on the fly, i NEVER make any notes before composing, 100% improvisation :D:D:D |
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Turtle
Account closed
Registered: Jan 2002
Posts: 70 |
I guess that's where your name comes from, eh? |
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Jammer
Registered: Nov 2002
Posts: 1336 |
nah, read handle story ;) |
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markus sinalco
Account closed
Registered: Sep 2005
Posts: 112 |
I only did one "tune" until now, but the way was as following:
I recieved a Soundexample from Thomas in minor with one predefined instrument,
I changed the 4/4 rythm from minor to major, deleted the Rest,
Added a melody (typed on c64keyb.) and 3 more Sounds I could invent
(Bus, Arp and faceclap) and ready was the mini tune!
Not that impressing, but another way round... |
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Soren
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 547 |
oh, I forgot to mention.... I usually switch my c64 on, before I start composing a tune!
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-
Account closed
Registered: Jan 2006
Posts: 9 |
Hmm.. I get inspiration to make music in various ways. Sometimes I am playing around with some VSTi-plugin just to toy with the sounds and then I manage to create interesting arpeggio or other effect and I start thinking - maybe I could reproduce something similar in SID!
The other way is that I am somewhere else, like smoking .. then I get an idea like "Hmm, I wonder how it would sound if I used ringmod and sync with the waveform $5 at the same time while using a thin pulse arpeggio with it" or stuff like that (ok, it's a bad example but I hope the point is understood).. So I might just get suddenly some kind of idea that I haven't tried before, and I start toying around and usually it sounds very different than I imagined but then it might inspire me to do something else, then I might try on a bassline or something and suddenly I am in the middle of composing a tune!
Another way is when I just start toying around with some effects just for fun and add stuff and modify and tweak and then I figure 'well, this would be a nice place to put some melody in' or I may feel a certain kind of melody would fit in and then I might try it and it expands into a song.
In the very beginning I usually started with some kind of very simple bassline and then added the chords and then just invented melody .. this is the simplest way to compose imho. Then I realize it's kinda boring to repeat it too much so I make something entirely different (and nowadays with different tempo too) in the middle, and then I might continue very differently after the middle part .. or I might return again with the original theme (this is rare for me but I have heard it's interesting to the listener so I might try to make such stuff in the future) .....
I have always wanted to create an 'adventure' as a song. I mean, so that it changes all the time, taking you to new places, moods and emotions many times before ending or starting to loop .. I'd like to surprise the listener by perhaps repeating some thing a couple of times and then changing totally and never repeating again .. I am a very impatient person by nature so I guess it's natural to want the song to progress quickly too. Though if changing too much too soon and too often, might sound pretty bad too. I made one such worktune and agh, it became terrible. The individual parts might be promising in it but as a whole it is just too 'restless', it just doesn't work.
There are so many aspects in musicmaking that I don't think I will ever learn them all properly to actually make a nice tune.
Also, I sometimes change moods in the midst of composing and the song suffers because it can change from 'cosmic' to 'fusion jazz' all of the sudden ;)
There is one more way that I start composing - if I hear something that inspires me. And usually it's a neat or nice tune, that is not TOO great - I mean it can be great but not too great to discourage me, if you know what I mean. Because if it's "bad enough", but yet somehow neat, I get the feeling "Hey, I can do that! And I might even improve on it !" .. (Hard to explain..)
Though sometimes even the great ones inspire me, but in those cases I might try to do something similar .. For example I might pick up a bass-structure, a neat chord-usage , cute 'arpeggio-type-things' or stuff like that .. Some SNes games have inspired me to create a couple of tunes as they have had something I have picked up. (I even made a very accurate (imho) SID-conversion of one SNes tune (Super Bomberman 4 Game Ending tune), though I used 4 SID voices (all filtered) separately and recorded them and put some echo in them and put them all together in Renoise.. so this is not actually a SID-tune per se, but it uses SID instruments only. It can be found at my homepage at http://www.monk.jossain.com/UltraSpace.mp3
But I must say that I added a bit of filtered pulse melody in it because the original song is very short and repeats and I wanted to create some melody within it too .. I only wanted to tell this story to explain how some SNes games and such other stuff can be quite an inspiration to me sometimes)
Very rarely I just sit in front of an editor and start doing something.. There is usually an idea I want to try or inspiration from somewhere. Lately I have been focusing on trying 'odd' or 'very long' arpeggios just to hear how they would sound. There are still tons of ideas for me to explore with the SID .. It seems it will continue always..
- Monk
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