There are rules of construction as in building a house. A house must have doors but the uniqueness of the doors (or lack of) is in the hands of the designer. There are myriad possibilites: so the basic laws of construction are not the least limitation on the level of creativity in presenting the doors.

Who wants a beautifully painted door that doesn't work? We all know what it is to write a passage of music that doesn't work in some way. Much of the problem with untrained composers is that their music doesn't work. It is poorly constructed (sounds poor.) People argue that this is subjective yet they would not tolerate a bathroom fixture that doesn't work, like a toilet: which is where a lot of badly written music belongs.

All the rules, and music education won't help you composing music.

First, you have to have a IDEA, all the rest in music comes exactly then when you need it, not a second earlier.

.

@Angelo Clematide said:

All the rules, and music education won't help you composing music. First, you have to have a IDEA, all the rest in music comes exactly then when you need it, not a second earlier

I think Bach , Mozart and Beethoven all had a very good idea: to study music.

@Another User said:

All the rules, and music education won't help you composing music.

First, you have to have a IDEA, all the rest in music comes exactly then when you need it, not a second earlier.

This is completely false.

You can have a great idea, and if you know nothing, be utterly incapable of working it out and presenting it well.

I'm going out on the limb here. just one time. Because I havn't the inner & deep
disciplin and energy that William, Dave, Angelo, & Clark among others have.
But to mention;
why don't we have The Bach's ,Beethoven's, Mozart, Chopin < ( The Fab Four )
And All the other second string Great composers. In today's society?
First of all one has to have the disciplin and education at an early age. Because this is not leisure music by all means. And it is possible to train young musicians as trained Olympic or NFL athletes strive at that age. Second Which I think is an overlooked and most important point is ; Every day life. Beethoven moved on an average 1 time a month. It becomes unbearable with ordinary people. That should explain on a whole the overall picture. He moved once a month with no satelite dishes, cell phones, computers, ect. at that time. Need one say more ?
That should stir things up a bit !!

also a simple question: Has there been any far east composers, ever ?

Now I'm out of here.
Thank you for your helpful posts all. The rating here is more interesting than cable TV.

How do you know we don't have composers like that today? Are you psychic several centuries into the future?

Also, I have no inner deep discipline and energy. I don't know what that is. I'm just flailing around in general, trying to exist.

I like the Fab Four though.

There are no composers like that today because you didn't name any.

but lets be optomistic into the future and say, with all this thecnology today it will get worse before its gets better. Ray Kurtzweil is an inspiration of the future.

And there's this thing called democracy making the news these day's.

Flailing around in General

Stop luring me back on William. You're doing it on purpose.
Its past my bed time.

@Another User said:

All the rules, and music education won't help you composing music.

First, you have to have a IDEA, all the rest in music comes exactly then when you need it, not a second earlier.

This is completely false.

You can have a great idea, and if you know nothing, be utterly incapable of working it out and presenting it well.



O.K. - let's put it the other way around:

One learned all about music, composition, orchestration etc., but has no IDEA, doesn't hear any music withhin himself !

For example, you don't need to know what range a Waldhorn has, before you don't write anything for it, It's more then early enough when you look that up just then when you need it. This is efficient working! I "teached composition", this itself is a a oxymoron. You can't learn to be a composer, either you have a force inside yourself who makes you one, or not. All studies in the world can't help you when you don't have any idea, driving force you can't resist. I realized that most student don't have any ideas, but think they become composers just simply being in my classes, thru studies, that's a waste of my time.


IDEA FIRST !

.... anything else will follow, comes to you when you need it, automatically!!! You don't need to know a age 19 what you will be knowing at age 47, everything just comes to you at the right time, quasi the second you need it. Of course it helps, and speeds the process up, when you know where the knowledge is stored.

do you understand now what i wanna say?

.

@R.K. said:

also a simple question: Has there been any far east composers, ever ?

i know composer all over the place, but don't know what you mean by "far east". Looking from my place, far east would be Rumania, Bulgaria, Georgia, all Russian countries, or do you mean something else? Which countries are in "far east"?

.

@R.K. said:

also a simple question: Has there been any far east composers, ever ?

How about Toru Takemitsu and Tan Dun?

@R.K. said:

also a simple question: Has there been any far east composers, ever ?

How about Toru Takemitsu and Tan Dun?

Aha that far east...

Toru Takemitsu is a genius, respectively was, have all the records he ever did.

"Tan Dun" is one of the best recorded project ever. It's "THE" reference album i play for clients on my monitoring, especially to those who think they have good engineers.

.

@Angelo Clematide said:

O.K. - let's put it the other way around:
One learned all about music, composition, orchestration etc., but has no IDEA, doesn't hear any music withhin himself !

This fellow you describe is in the wrong business. If he doesn't have any ideas than what's the point? I have more ideas than I could ever count. They will be executed either well or poorly based upon my application of both innate gifts and compositional tools aquired from private study with a master and study of the great masters. This study (at least in my case) has brought me to the place of presenting my ideas a thousand times better than if I hadn't.

I don't understand why people wrestle so with the idea of study or rules. The greatest composers who ever lived were very well aquainted with these processes and taught them to others. It's all about the music - not the rules. Every art and science has it's foundational principles which may be bent, broken or abandoned. But one must possess something before you can discard it.

Your're right Dave, it doesn't make sense. Just happen to me that all student at the academy where that way. I quit the job in 1980.

.

@Another User said:

All the rules, and music education won't help you composing music.

First, you have to have a IDEA, all the rest in music comes exactly then when you need it, not a second earlier.

This is completely false.

You can have a great idea, and if you know nothing, be utterly incapable of working it out and presenting it well.

I agree. Much of my living is made "helping" people who have not studied music, and while I gouge every penny that I can out of them, I still feel sad that some of them have been too lazy (or even arrogant) to take the time to study. After all I'm not even suggesting a course at a Conservatoire, just some listening and score studying so that they would have some idea of how to achieve the sound that they want. Obviously we can't all be experts at everything, but I would have thought that if I wanted to be a builder I would have bothered to learn something about most of the trades involved.

DG

I think what angelo is trying to say maybe, is that if you right your composition first on piano to say, and then, orchestrate it. It would be of more interest.
Write and rewrite on piano first until its honed to an idea. Worth listening to.

I've just had some more time to play with the orchestration pallet i had set up with VSL pro ed. I'm very excited that I have more than enough instruments to make up an entire virtual and performance orchestra, about 73 instruments. A success after many days of learning each instrument and how it sounds. After about 4 sitting only, its abvious that VSL is acheivable and one can achieve and produce quickly if certain rules are followed , like not playing 2 cres violins performance legato instruments at one time and other small minor hurdles. Then i realized that while all these great sounds are being created, I'm not really saying anything at all. Because I'm improvising as I'm going along. Had I played an already created piece, it would of had more meaning and interest to a listener.
but a lengthy peice requires all the knowledge possible to create. A short song doesn't.

Angelo, yes I did mean western music. sorry I'm just now catching up here.
Obviously, Its education.

best

@Another User said:

Angelo, yes I did mean western music. sorry I'm just now catching up here.

No, i don't know any earnest composers from the far east, who compose in the tradition of european serious music. Far East would mean Malaysia, Vietnam, Korea, China, Japan.

Well, one i know, Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996), a brilliant genius from Japan. I'm sure there are more, i simply just don't know it. I know composers from all over Europe, from Protugal to the Ural mountains, and from Island to Georgia (the country, not the US state).

General, the composing for orchestra or music "a la European" ends where west Asia starts, that's is when you cross the border from christian/caucasian Goergia with the capitol Tbilisi to muselman Aserbaijan, that's where Europe cultural wise ends in the east.

I know composers in Tbilisi Georgia, for example:

GIYA KANCHELI, a madman, revolutionary, and genius, responsible for many scandals.
http://www.schirmer.com/composers/kancheli_bio.html

or

ZAKHARY PALIASHVILI (1871-1933)
http://www.tcmc.ge/index1.html

I believe that Georgia is the outermost "bastion" of European culture, after that you enter a complet other culture.

.

I wonder how Tan Dun would feel about being a "recorded project"...
an interesting title, for sure!

[;)]

J.

@jbm said:

I wonder how Tan Dun would feel about being a "recorded project"...
an interesting title, for sure!

[;)]

J.

Was talking about the album:

Tan Dun, Bitter Love

don't know anything else, didn't even realized that it's the name of a composer, thought it's a band or single project.

.

yeah, I figured something like that... didn't he also do Crouching Tiger? or have I been smoking crack again...

J.

Yup - he did the scores for Crouching Tiger..., Hero and Fallen though he is first and foremost famous for his concert works, which include Heaven, Earth, Mankind (composed for the 1997 Hong Kong handover to Chinese rule), Water Concerto: For Water Percussion and Orchestra, and Out of Peking Opera.

Incidentally I only mention these works 'cos they're the ones I've seen him conduct at the BBC proms - I'm sure there are others!

Martin