Your way to compose music

[Deleted]

Hello!

I'm new here in the board and I have a general question to you:
What is your way to compose music?

Do you always start with the melody? If yes, how do you go about that?

How do you work with harmonies? What do you try there?

What about the instrumentation? Do you have the right instruments already in your head?

Because I have some problems to get the right mood for certain themes
I want to know how do you compose to hit the right mood?

I wish I could compose music like that:


Or that:


But I really don't know how to translate my emotions into musical language correctly, because
I don't know how to start and how to go in the right direction.

I think I have all the necessary requirements that a composer needs:
a good ear training, knowledge of music theory (scales, modes, chords, intervals,....)

I'm currently trying to compose a music about a relaxing scene dealing with a man
sitting in a cafe in front of the Eiffel Tower in Paris.
As I said I really don't know how to use all the music theory knowledge to put my emotions into music.

I hope you could help me!

Thank you very much!!

Crysko

[Ed Sharpe]

Many of my pieces start with an idea. It may be be melodic, it may (rarely) be a vertical structure (Harmonic), many times it is a rhythmic seed that starts it off. Mostly it is just getting what I hear in my head down on paper. Sometimes what I have in my head is garbage, but I still need to put it down on paper to get out of my head so that I can get to the "good stuff" that is in there. So what I am saying is the perhaps you just need to start writing something, anything. Maybe what you write will work for your scene, maybe it will not; but if it does not then you have one: learn what does not work, and two: gotten it out of the way so you can get to the next idea. Does that seem like a lot of work? Probably; but how much music have you written? Some of this is just a mater of experience and practice. I have posted more than a hundred pieces of music Sibelius Music and now Score exchange, but I have written maybe ten times more material (most are just fragments that I rejected).

As for your "scene" set your self some limits and see what you can come up within those limits. Like limit your self to just three instruments, maybe only the use of certain scales, like pentatonic scales for the melody. Only use 3/4 6/8 or 9/8 time signatures and see what you come up with.

[Ed Sharpe]

PS: I do not know what your musical background is, so it hard to give detailed advice. Do you have Bio posted somewhere?

[Deleted]

Thank you for your reply!

You can read my bio in my profile now.

I have written a lot of music but I were never satisfied with it.
It's because I used all the first ideas for my music, even if they were garbage.
I never knew that I must pick out the good notes from my "bad ideas".

So you think I should write down ALL of my ideas, even if they are not good melodies / ideas?
Then I should look which one, two or three notes are good in my ideas, right?
Or which chords or which rhythm motive will be good for my theme?

Some composers use the piano and record themselves when they improvise.
I think they experiment with major-minor-scales and all the modes as well.

It's really hard job to compose the right mood AND to get a catchy melody for film score music,
because I want to compose music for TV and media.

Look forward to more help!

[Deleted]

Another approach, if you're having trouble matching your emotions to music, could be to find music others have written that match a particular feeling you have and study those scores for melody/harmony/instrumentation.

[Deleted]

Or if you don't have access to the score, you could resort to your music training to identify those things. For instance, the Final Fantasy music that you linked to has many modal-like harmonies and other chords you wouldn't find in a typical major/minor scale. It sounds like it is written for full orchestra, having strings, winds, brass, and percussion in it, though the overall feel is light (and in case you're wondering, the dance-like rhythms are probably what help create the light feeling).

[Deleted]

Thank you! Yes, that's a good idea. And when I have studied one music with all its elements and typical aspects then I could experiment with this elements as well to find myself in the right mood, right?

[Kevin]

Precisely. However the trick is to be able to switch it on no matter how you are feeling.