Hello! I've recently noticed that this forum has no thread or sub-forum for questions about composing... so I've made one myself! :) Post any questions you have about composition here. I may not have all the answers, but surely the other members will likely be able to help where I may not. (This will happen quite often, I'm sure... :P) Any time you have the answer to someone's question, or you would like to elaborate upon the question and/or the answer to the question, please use the QUOTE feature to include the question itself within your post. Well, I'll start off with a question of my own.

Is it possible for a passage to be a cadence even though the bass part does not descend a fifth or ascend a fourth? (Assuming the chord progression is still V-I.)

Another question:

Is it bad to have an active harmony in a piece? I try to make most of the lines melodically and rhythmically independent in many of my smaller ensemble pieces, therefore making many of the harmonies quite ephemeral, but still there... Sometimes I just get bored with pedal points... :P Is it terrible to do this? Many of Bach's contrapuntal pieces (ok, that means all of them... :P) have very independent voices, all of them jumping around, rarely sitting back to be just back-up, dependent harmony. If Bach does it, it can't be THAT bad, can it? :)

It really depends on the context of the rest of the piece. Is the melody still strong enough to be called a melody, or is the harmony becoming an active sub-melody? Is it becoming like a duet with more than one melody? There's is nothing wrong with it, it just depends on the other lines. It's hard to listen to a piece with too many active lines.

Ok... Thanks! :D *hopes other people have questions, also*
Feel free to post any questions! Spoon said that if this thread becomes popular, she may consider stickying it. It sure beats making a new thread every time you have a new question.

Originally posted by Gnomish@Aug 1 2004, 09:59 PM
Is it possible for a passage to be a cadence even though the bass part does not descend a fifth or ascend a fourth? (Assuming the chord progression is still V-I.)


Yes. Less significant phrases can end with an IAC, which is any authentic cadence other than PAC. In other words, the chords can be inverted. Both V and I, but if possible avoid inverting the I chord.

Also important to note that a viiº-I is also an authentic cadence.



Another question:

Is it bad to have an active harmony in a piece? I try to make most of the lines melodically and rhythmically independent in many of my smaller ensemble pieces, therefore making many of the harmonies quite ephemeral, but still there... Sometimes I just get bored with pedal points... :P Is it terrible to do this? Many of Bach's contrapuntal pieces (ok, that means all of them... :P) have very independent voices, all of them jumping around, rarely sitting back to be just back-up, dependent harmony. If Bach does it, it can't be THAT bad, can it? :)
It depends on context, really, and what kind of piece you are writing. In a 4-voice SATB chorale piece, for example, the soprano and bass parts are generally free to move and jump around, but the alto and tenor parts should have limited motion.

In an ensemble, yes, use independent melodic lines. But be careful of dissonant intervals, parallel 5ths and 8ves, and what not.

Indeed. Thanks for your kind reply! :D

This is my first post, and I am very curious about composing my own pieces on the computer. Anything I make is usually on my Casio keyboard, but I've seen the MIDI files many of you have made and I wish to know what programs you use in order to make them. I hope this question hasn't already been asked on the board.

I think the majority of people here use either Finale or Sibelius to make their compositions. These are actually notation programs so the audio quality is usually lower than what you would come up with using a midi editor. I know there are a few people that use much more involved techniques than just saving the playback file but this is the easiest way to do it if you understand written music. I could be wrong about this but that's what my impression has been. If you want to try Finale I believe there is a free version called Finale Notepad but it lacks features that are in the professional version.

where can I find sibelius? I heard some good things about it. Is it free, or do you have to pay?

For the full versions of either Finale or Sibelius you need to pay. You may want to try out the demo to both of tehm before you make a decision. Finale also has a free less powerful version that you can get. After trying both Sibelius and Finale I'd recommend Finale but either one should work fine.

I use cakewalk and Mastertrack pro 6 (which i highly recommend, it is a very old software, that my grandpa uses when he was composing)

reason i recommend mastertrack is that it's straight forward and simple to control. Cakewalk is great, lots of options and makes wonderful sounds, but the problem is, i don't really like complicated and sophisticated softwares, so i use mastertrack. But it's just me.

You can download the demo somewhere, but it's very old, so maybe it'll take awhile to find.

Thank you, I am now making my first few compositions and will post them some time this month. However, this leads to my next question. I can only save these files as .mus. How do I convert them into .mid files?

Do you know your playback settings button? It looks like a speaker. If you go to that, in the bottom right corner it gives you the option to save a playback file. It should give you two options when you want to save, either .ply or .mid. Choose .mid and then it will give you the option of saving it as one track, sperate tracks or a tempo map. choose seperate tracks and you should have the same playback you hear as a midi. This is for Finale 2003 so I'm not sure if something may be different for Finale notepad.

I have a question... What would be the closest-sounding instrument to a Viola da Gamba? Cello?

I've heard that word before . . . what does "da Gamba" mean? Anyways, a viola would have been my first guess, but since you didn't say it, there must be more to it than meets the eye.

Dunno how it got it's name, but it's a really early string instrument... I haven't heard a real one before but I'm guessing cello could imitate it well... Anyway, now I have a good question:

Sometimes when I'm bringing a composition to a close, I notice that it helps if I pin on an extra measure at the end (one which doesn't really belong to the previous phrase). Is this acceptable in most cases? I've noticed that it seems to give me a bit more space to work in an ending while doing this. :)

finale? you have to pay for that! heheh. if you were a hacker you can crack the demo! but too bad, i'm not a hacker HAHAH! try noteworthy, its pretty easy to use!

yes i have a question,

what do you need to know bout the basics of composing?

Originally posted by Gnomish@Aug 17 2004, 08:39 PM
Sometimes when I'm bringing a composition to a close, I notice that it helps if I pin on an extra measure at the end (one which doesn't really belong to the previous phrase). Is this acceptable in most cases? I've noticed that it seems to give me a bit more space to work in an ending while doing this.
If you think it sounds good to you, that's all that matters =P I mean, you've reasoned it out, and you're capable of making sound decisions, right? Besides, some rules are meant to be broken ;-)

@ Selinity: Basics of composing? Um, didn't you create a thread about that? Anyways, my first advice would be for you to get a feel for composing (this doesn't exactly mean you rush out and compose) by analyzing a bunch of songs and trying to understand why each note is there.

I lurrrve Noteworthy - I had Sibelius for a little while but all those damn floating palettes drove me insane and I prefer manipulating with the keyboard rather than the mouse, so Noteworthy was ideal for that as you can very quickly enter a score on the keyboard alone. As well as this, Sibelius costs approximately 100 pounds (I think) for a full license whereas Noteworthy is free and you have full usage of the vast majority of its features. Another one is Finale Printmusic which I've had recommended to me by people. It depends what you want to do really - Noteworthy is fine for basic things like editing MIDI files, MIDI controlling and creating scores, but if you want something really professional it's better to go for something like Sibelius or Finale :)

And here's my question: Has anyone tried creating a soundscape using music before? E.g. Coral reef, busy city, hedgerow etc? If so what sort of techniques did you use to create the imagery? I'm thinking of doing one based on a mountainscape so I'm after inspiration :) Any pieces people would recommend listening to for ideas?

Thanks!

Edit: It is possible to crack certain program demos that require a registration key to unlock all the features if you're poor, but I wouldn't recommend it as it involves wading through hundreds of porn adverts and there's the possibility that you may end up having nasty adware/trojans implanted into your computer. Much better to save the pennies and buy a legit version!

Soundscape? The closest I've come to is simulating "rain". You can check it out in my thread somewhere in this board. It's bad though and very modern.

But hmm, mountain? I imagine something vast and conquering. I don't know how exactly that would be conveyed in music, but don't overdo it with the big chords, that's for sure. Maybe just make it sound loud without exactly forcing it out. Actually, best thing you can do is look up other pieces that use mountain for inspiration. ^^

i don't really get that soundscape thingy...
is it like those "Nature" music, like there's no melody. For example if it's rain forest...then you'll hear bird chirping, rain storm....etc?????

Hmm, I know where you're coming from, but I don't know if there's a word for it :think:

Anyways, I think soundscape here means to use music to portray the landscape . . . :think:

you mean you compose a music which VERY LIKELY give a listener to think of a picture of a mountain? IF your composing a soundscape of a mountain that is...

Another quick question... Does a sonata have to have a set # of movements? Baroque Sonatas are usually 4 movements, while later some composers use only 2 or 3 movements... Also, Domenico Scarlatti (1785-1758 I believe...) composed over 500 harpsichord works entitled "Sonata" that were only 1 movement long. Would it be wrong to name a work "Sonata" if it is only one movement?

The concept of the sonata was developed through time. I like to think that the sonata matured during the classical era under Mozart and the others (where it usually had 3 - 4 movements). So it's okay for sonatas to have different number of movements (I am reminded of Schubert's 8th symphony, only 2 movements). But I personally wouldn't use the term sonata unless it had at least 2 movements. Otherwise, you could just as easily call it something else.

Hrm... then what would you recommend I call a harpsichord solo in a baroque style? :P It's not a fugue, not a canon, not a fantasia, not a prelude...

Makes me wonder why all of Scarlatti's 500+ works for harpsichord solo are entitled "Sonata"...

A Sonata can have any number of movements.

Liszt's B minor sonata is an example of a one-movement sonata.

This site might help:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonata

Heh, good old wikipedia, it even explains Scarletti's one movement sonatas!

But your question remains, what to call a harpsicord solo? Hmm . . . an invention, sinfonia (almost fugue-like)? And is it a dance of some sort? Gigue, sarabande?

Hrm... nah. I'll just name it sonata and keep it that way. :P

Aha! Another question:

Many songs use a theme as an introduction (like the subject of a fugue). I was wondering what the effects of repeating it at the second, third, fourth, etc. without accidentals would do to the theme... I mean would it sound happy at V or sad at iv or something? I've not had time to experiment with this, but if the C major scale goes:

I
ii
iii
IV
V
vi
vii

Would this carry over to modulating the theme at an interval? IE if the theme was in C major and I repeated the theme later on in the piece at the second, would that necessarily carry over from the scale and make the piece sad (due to the second being, by nature, the root of a minor chord)?

Just wondering if anyone has wondered about this before, either. I'll test it out later and see if I get the results I'm hypothesizing. :)

You mean repeating the theme in different modes? If that's what you're talking about, then I don't know if it would work, because the modes sound strange, and don't really sound happy or sad. So I think you would need some accidentals to get the right effects . . .

Yeah, that's what I meant... :)

Originally posted by Gnomish@Aug 17 2004, 07:39 PM
Dunno how it got it's name, but it's a really early string instrument... I haven't heard a real one before but I'm guessing cello could imitate it well... Anyway, now I have a good question:

Sometimes when I'm bringing a composition to a close, I notice that it helps if I pin on an extra measure at the end (one which doesn't really belong to the previous phrase). Is this acceptable in most cases? I've noticed that it seems to give me a bit more space to work in an ending while doing this. :)
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