Questions tagged [composition]
For questions about the creation of new music and the techniques used to do so.
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Exposition in Bach's fugue repeats?
Analyzing Bachs first fugue in C major
I can't understand something.
I have colored all the subjects and answers in the picture and wrote their structure in the picture below but it seems that the ...
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6/8 or 2/4 with triplets?
Just a quick question.
Can I use 2/4 with triplets instead of 6/8; will I get the same groove?
I guess the only difference is that in the case of 2/4, my second down beat would be more accented than ...
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How can I identify the key of a piece I'm composing?
When I want to start a new composition, I never know how to determine the key, so I often end up with something that looks like this: No key signature, and lots of accidentals. How do I choose a key?
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Do all musical phrases have a structured form?
I recently submitted a question about a phrase that was neither a sentence nor a period but I still haven't figured out one thing: are all musical phrases either a period or a sentence? If there are ...
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can anyone help me in writing a quartet
hi i've been doing some analyzing and after learning counterpoint and 4 part harmony and studying a little about forms today for the first time i wrote a period to turn in into a ternary or a simple ...
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Why is the contrabass clarinet treated as a "loud" instrument in compositions?
I was playing some contrabass clarinet parts and wondered why there are so many passages where every single bass instrument is playing, minus the contrabass clarinet. The bass clarinet, tuba, and ...
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Is it a thing learning semantics/emotions of melodic/rhythmical intonations or harmonic progressions, not "music theory" per se?
I wonder if there were any deep analyses of this topic. It might be hard to explain what I mean.
Here are my subjective observations with some thoughts:
Starting with the keys: the key placement of a ...
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Is adapting existing melodies a useful way to improve composition skill?
As the saying goes ‘immature talents borrow; mature ones steal’. When I write songs I normally start with chord changes and try to sing something over them, but this often results in uninteresting ...
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How do I make microtonal music less jarring? [closed]
I'm a beginner at composing with microtones. I understand that microtonal music is going to be jarring for most people because it is so different compared to 12-tet music. My current strategy is to ...
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Working on writing a fugue exposition
I am trying to write a fugue exposition in F minor with 3 voices. However, I don't succeed in rewriting the counter-subject in the tonic key. More generally, I was wondering what are the main issues ...
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Is it possible to write a song “pitch first” or “key first”?
I believe there are 3 possible main elements to a song (not minding dynamics, articulation etc):
The Type of Sounds + their order & The Amount of Sounds (Vowels, Consonants & Syllables & ...
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What makes a melody the “main melody” of a song?
A melody cannot exist with just one note, it requires 2 which implies that more change could be the biggest factor in making a melody the center of a composition. I am essentially making the ...
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Why don't musicians get bored of listening to their own song dozens of times over while composing and refining it?
I am not a composer, and I am sorry if the question seems overly daft or obvious. When a composer (I have in mind someone working on a DAW) is composing their own song, why don't they get tired of ...
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Can a Harp Play This Melody?
I feel as though this is likely possible, and just rather difficult, but as someone who hasn't ever played one, I thought it was best to reach out and check! Tried to google it but didn't have much ...
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Help reading music sheet [closed]
Could someone help me explain this music sheet of Frere Jacque?
The is a Violin key, A mole on the A line and some notes. What do I habe to do with them in order to play this the correct way according ...
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How to modulate from A minor to C minor? [duplicate]
I have one bar in a film score to go from A minor to C minor and have no clue how to do it! Plese help
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How to modulate from Am to F#m?
I can't figure out what chords to use to get from Am to F#m. My modulation skills are awful, and I literally have no clue where to start. I can modulate to relative major/minor keys, but can't seem to ...
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What is covered in music GCSE?
I'm picking my GCSE options next month and I am considering music. Does anyone know what is covered in it and also what makes up the final GCSE grade?
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How hard is composing a song like ancient Greek music today?
And by this question I mean a song that sounds like an actual ancient Greek song, with ancient Greek instruments (lyre, kithara, salpinx, etc.) being used.
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What is the difference between background, middle ground, and foreground?
Is the idea of structural levels background, middle ground, and foreground only studied in schenkerian analysis?
I’m still viewing the background as the simplest layer of a song, which to me would be ...
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How to achieve a similar "vibe" to this song? [closed]
I want to write a song similar to "dumb dumb" by mazie. I want to achieve a similar feel of weird, dreamy nostalgia the song has. I know a lot of this feeling comes from dissonance between ...
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How do I add another composition [closed]
For my music class, we had to make a minor melody and a major melody. For the final project, we have to put these together in ABA format, so either major-minor-major or minor-major-minor. In ...
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Is there any benefit in trying to play a song by ear?
I started playing Take Me Out To the Ball Game by ear on the piano and I find that I have been making several mistakes in knowing what note comes next. I don't know the lyrics well but I am familiar ...
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Was Bernstein's interpretation of Mahler's 9th Symphony correct?
During his fifth Norton lecture at Harvard University, Leonard Bernstein famously speculated that Mahler's ninth symphony was symbolically prophesying his own death, the death of tonality (the advent ...
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Will this section be playable by a professional pianist and a professional violinist?
So I am composing a piece for a competition, and it has a strict criteria about the song being playable. I am looking for reviews for a section in my piece for playability.
The piano part , 16th notes ...
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How does swapping parts affect an arrangement
So, thinking about a typical arrangement structure, from what I know, is built from bass parts to effectively soprano ones. So within a group of instruments, let's say trumpets, you could have 4th ...
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How do I define my own style as a composer?
Much has been said about the idea of a musical style. We can group composers of similar places and times together (e.g. the "Classical" style in Vienna), discuss groups of jazz musicians ...
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Why does Schoenberg think of "'semi-contrapuntal treatment' of the accompaniment" as a way of adapting a motive's melody to changes in its harmony?
Schoenberg says that the melody of a motive may be adapted to changes in the harmony "[b]y transposition," "[b]y addition of passing harmonies," or "[b]y 'semi-contrapuntal' ...
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Changing the harmony of a motive ''by additions at the end,'' according to Schoenberg
Schoenberg says that the harmony of a motive may be changed ''[b]y additions at the end'' (Fundamentals of musical composition, page 10). He cites examples 25c-i to illustrate what he means (see ...
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Can I use fast tremolo or triads on the third register?
When I compose music I always tend to avoid writing fast tremolo and chords in the low register as it can get really muddy, but where is the boundary after which I should avoid tremolos and chords?
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