Want to learn to compose my own music!

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If you need to study theory to know where to start, you have a problem.

Depends on whether or not the piece changes time signature. Then again, the meaning of the phrase "structure music across time scales" wasn't entirely clear.

What I meant by structure was more the large-scale form of the piece: what ideas will go where, how you'll progress from one thing to another, how long each section will be, how many movements, and so forth.

The time signature is what I'd consider very, very small-scale structural planning at the most. If all you plan is what time signatures go where, your music is likely to be incoherent, particularly for large-scale classical works. You might be able to get away with it for 2-minute songs that use 3 chords and the same drum beat throughout.

I understand now, although I still don't see the sense in which those things can be learned. There aren't any rules for how long a piece ought to be (beyond commonsense notions of audience attention span and musician endurance). There are traditional forms with specific numbers of movements, but there is little compulsion to follow them. All these things you mention are part of the composer's creative license.

The first step to composing music is to bang around on the keys until they start sounding like how you want them to sound. Once that starts happening, think about what you want, and bang around on the keys until you start hearing that. With practice it becomes easier. You can also look at other compositions that sound similar to what you want and see how they do it. You can also study classical music theory, that will teach you some stuff.

any link for classical music theory?

The only way you can learn is through practice: compose and compose until you see what works. My teachers would just give advice based on their own experience: things like "this doesn't quite fit" "this passage transitions awkwardly to the next" "listen to so-and-so, he did something similar that you might benefit from hearing" and so forth.

Yes, creative license comes into it, but you still need your music to hold together properly, otherwise it will sound amateurish at best.

You haved nice teachers aren't you

I had awesome teachers.

pose until you see what works. My teachers would just give advice based on their own experience: things like "this doesn't quite fit" "this passage transitions awkwardly to the next" "listen to so-and-so, he did something similar that you might benefit from hearing" and so forth.

Yes, creative license comes into it, but you still need your music to hold together properly, otherwise it will sound amateurish at best.[/quote]

You haved nice teachers aren't you[/quote]

I had awesome teachers.[/quote]

Same in my musical school where i learn how to play pianos. Thoses i haved as teachers was good. RToo bad i forget pieces i learn

I haven't actually checked it out, but I'm just going to dump this here.

http://library.thinkquest.org/15413/theory/theory.htm

k

Remember, I have some free music notation software if you want. Specifically, Capella 7 and MagicScore Note 7.

k, i use FInale Notepad 2012 for now but ill maybe try ours if you can tell me which is the better for free software




My first compo i ever try. Can be better troughs specially the ending:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26HF9wAU ... e=youtu.be

Hmmm...for a first shot, I'd say there's definitely a melody in it! The ending does feel a bit different from the first material, but maybe that should be extended into a different set of material overall. Might be a good idea to try having more than one note sounding at the same time (not octaves, like you have). Still, for a first try, there's potential!!

The reason I offered you Capella and MagicScore is because they're relatively small (23 mb and 12 mb) and can be emailed. I'm more familiar with Sibelius and Finale with my preference being for Finale. With Sibelius you have to jump through hoops to hear your music. With Finale it's a walk in the park. I use ARIA player in Finale. I didn't know you had Finale Notepad, BTW. That's a good program. Stick with it for a while.