Tricks in composing music.

Share and discuss your LMMS music projects here, and see what people think!
One of my tricks to composing music is to take a statement, life event, or fantasy..Then put it to music.
Like the music I did this past two weeks, Grand Morning Sunrise.
I was watching the sunrise one morning, and said to myself. "Oh Grand Sunrise how sweet it is, to walk in a world with sunshine." and I put that statement, and emotion into music.
You can hear the statement throughout the music, and I ended it with the flute on "how sweet it is".
https://soundcloud.com/eino1953/grand-moring-sunrise
There is this thing called chromesthesia, a form of synesthesia whereby someone for example can both see and hear a painting. They associate the colors they see with specific notes they claim to hear in their mind. I can imagine people with this kind of ability will want to use it for composing music. They go outside, look at the morning sunrise, go back inside and compose what they just heard. Amazing ability, right? Certain hallucinogenic drugs can give you this ability temporarily, but some people are born with this gift.
Eino wrote:One of my tricks to composing music is to take a statement, life event, or fantasy..Then put it to music.
Like the music I did this past two weeks, Grand Morning Sunrise.
I was watching the sunrise one morning, and said to myself. "Oh Grand Sunrise how sweet it is, to walk in a world with sunshine." and I put that statement, and emotion into music.
You can hear the statement throughout the music, and I ended it with the flute on "how sweet it is".
https://soundcloud.com/eino1953/grand-moring-sunrise

I was wondering how you make so much music so fast. I am jealous of that ability.
Snarf wrote:
Eino wrote:One of my tricks to composing music is to take a statement, life event, or fantasy..Then put it to music.
Like the music I did this past two weeks, Grand Morning Sunrise.
I was watching the sunrise one morning, and said to myself. "Oh Grand Sunrise how sweet it is, to walk in a world with sunshine." and I put that statement, and emotion into music.
You can hear the statement throughout the music, and I ended it with the flute on "how sweet it is".
https://soundcloud.com/eino1953/grand-moring-sunrise

I was wondering how you make so much music so fast. I am jealous of that ability.
It may seem fast but some of my projects, have taken weeks, and even years to produce.
Grand morning sunrise took me about two weeks to get right.
I do have a lot of classical music training, I started playing the piano, and reading music at the age of 10, and I'am 61 now. It's many years of experience.
In the early 90's I started making midi music, and have doing it ever since.
I really identify with what you just said Eino.

After watching a documentary about the daunting jump from the stratosphere on the 60's I really got inspired to make a song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8RRkMsHOMU

I recall from the documentary that you pass some time on freefall without even feeling or hearing the air because it's so thin up there that is has no friction.

Differently from the recent RedBull financed jump, this was made in a time where it was really unthinkable and nobody really understood the effects of space and really high altitudes and jumps on the human body.

So, I did not yet create that song because I still am incompetent as a audio producer, but everytime that I imagine myself on that jump a song plays in my head.
I remember a post you made awhile back, Eino, about the Imagination.

When it comes to composing music, I find that the Imagery/Imagination is one of (if not the!) best resource for practically anything. Couple the Imagery with music theory and you're set. The images our Imagination produces contain so much information--thoughts, feelings, will-impulses, sensations. All of this information can be communicated through music, with the Imagery, impulse, instinct, and music theory all coming together to say what needs to be said.

A simple exercise is to take a phrase and see where your Imagination goes with it. Something simple, like "The young boy lay on the grassy hill." An image may immediately come to mind, and perhaps even a story--everyone's own Creative Individuality will see it differently. This boy could be about 10, looking up, thinking about the red-headed girl at school he has a crush on. The hill is his quiet place, far away from everyone, with smooth grass and a big blue sky with huge white clouds. It makes me feel serene and happy, and I begin to empathize with the boy and his first love, and laugh at the sweet plight that he is in.

All of THAT being said, let yourself enjoy the image and trust your instincts and listen if you hear anything, hum to yourself, noodle on the piano--if it is strong enough, the image will affect your whole being. You can even change parts of the image by asking questions, like "What if the boy is pensive not because of a young love but because of a fight with a good school friend? What would that look/feel like?" A sadder atmosphere. Or "What if he is sitting there and a storm begins to roll in? Where does everything go from there?" Foreboding. The Imagination is limitless. Getting a lot of music theory down will help match what you think/feel/desire while Imagining. Imagining a dark, distorted hospital? Augmented and diminished chords everywhere (if we're going outside of traditional harmonic progression to create the proper atmosphere). The boy on the hill? Major scale, completely tonal, major harmony, with some minor seventh harmonies added in for a somewhat melancholic effect (that's just where my mind goes).

Sorry for the long rant there! The Imagination is just so exciting, as is pairing it with music theory. ;) Another cool thing to do is listen to world music and get a sense of what scales/modes/harmonies other cultures from other parts of the world use, and how it represents them--their location, their stories, what they think/feel, how they view the world, etc. Just some personal ideas/beliefs.
So beautiful.
Reminds me of Captain Picard playing the ressikan flute in Star Trek TNG 'The Inner light'
http://youtu.be/bGXnkFrhpR8
käyttäjä80637165 wrote:So beautiful.
Reminds me of Captain Picard playing the ressikan flute in Star Trek TNG 'The Inner light'
http://youtu.be/bGXnkFrhpR8
Wow,
That dose have some similarities to it. I may have heard it before, and used it in the back of my mind.
Eino wrote: It may seem fast but some of my projects, have taken weeks, and even years to produce.
Grand morning sunrise took me about two weeks to get right.
I do have a lot of classical music training, I started playing the piano, and reading music at the age of 10, and I'am 61 now. It's many years of experience.
In the early 90's I started making midi music, and have doing it ever since.
I already had the impression, we were about the same age, but you're even a bit older then me.
I'm 51, and started about 4 years ago, with lmms, still I am gonna try to catch up with you. ;)

I always felt a click with people who make music though.

I was at a fair and there was a black guy playing blues. I could not sit still, and our eyes met. And we smiled.

I made attempt at making music earlier though, but that stopped early, mostly because of not having enough money to buy a real synth / keyboard, besides another expensive hobby.

I worked back then at Fokker, an airplane company, who had a computer club.
I borrowed a Yamaha dx7 from that club, and hooked it up to the Atari ST I had. :P
The Atari ST run Cubase.
I was soon very disappointed though, that Yamaha keyboard was not polyphonic. :(
Gps wrote:I borrowed a Yamaha dx7 from that club, and hooked it up to the Atari ST I had. :P
The Atari ST run Cubase.
I was soon very disappointed though, that Yamaha keyboard was not polyphonic. :(
The Yamaha DX7 was polyphonic, even my DX21 little brother to it had 16 note polyphony and split keyboard. It was a real pain to program though and the MIDI implementation wasn't brilliant.

But if we're trading CVs, I'm older than either of you but with no real training, just 40-odd years off and on playing bass and guitar in various groups and playing about with synths including building them, just for fun. And as I only started with LMMS about a month ago I have a LOT of catching up to do. At the moment I have downloaded so many samples and instruments and effects that I'm completely confused. I just decided that it's time to go back to just the basic LMMS instruments and make some music instead of spending hours and hours just fiddling about testing more new sounds.

But I know I'm not good at composing so people's hints on how to get from nowhere to something that sounds like music have been gratefully received.

Steve