Ds wants to start composing he has just passed his G7 Clari so we have a break , he did G5 theory last year
but the composing was ver iffy.
Has anyone used any books which might be helpful.
Many thanks
Slarti

Daughter never had any books to help with composing it's something she had ot do for GCSE Music. There was no help from school so it was a case of getting on with it.

Even the compositions lessons she now has are more to do with advice on things they have already written or being instructed to do a particular type of composition.

Your son could always just compose and then learn the "rules" later.

It depends on how you want to go about it - if you want to learn composing by learning how Western classical music is put together, then one should be learning musical form, orchestration and four-part harmony. If you want to just write music, no books are necessary. I don't know the answer- the former seems overkill and the latter seems underkill. I did it by learning form and orchestration but I did an academic music degree (as opposed to performance)

The only textbook I remember was the Norton Anthology of Western Music. Most of the other stuff was from instructor worksheets.

The 'composing' in Grade 5 theory is a rather specific test, where candidates assemble all the knowledge from the other aspects of the assessment.

For a wider understanding of composing and compositional techniques, a more advanced understanding of harmony is essential. Grade 5 only starts to touch on chords and their relationship to one another, without going into much detail.

Harmony in Practice is what I'd recommend - it's an ABRSM publication roughly oriented towards Grades 6-8 theory, but isn't directly related to the exams, but is a solid explanation of more advanced harmonic principles.

The first thing you need to do if you're composing is to decide what you're composing and why; the "why" part is about whether or not you want to perform it yourself, or with friends, or whether you just imagine a performance in abstract which isn't about to materialise - but there has to be an end product in view and you have to think about it as something that could be heard.

As he's a clarinettist, maybe the first thing he should try to do is improvise, tweak and then write down what he played. When I taught very elementry composition in school, kids would bring me their dots and ask me what it sounded like. That's really the wrong way round.

I'd recommend Harmony Melody and Composition by Paul Sturman, and/or its Advanced follow-up, plus a lot of listening to music that he wishes he'd written.

Just to play a phrase that falls out of the ends of your fingers, and I believe that much of the great music in the world started that way, can be the springboard for something much bigger. Sturman's first book begins with analytical work about melodic movement and intervals and chords, etc, which might be so basic if you alredy have gV theory that you could skim over them, but around the middle he's into motivic development and that's where you really start to put the thng together.

Many thanks to everyone ,lots of good ideas
I wonder if lennon mccartney knew about imperfect cadences , or is this what producers do in the studio later.

Hi Slarti (cool Douglas-Adamsy name ) - can I hijack your thread for a minute?

I got into a conversation about composition software - and was considering Sibelius - has anyone around here any experience of this - or could recommend something different? How big an investment would it be to install music software? (I'm vaguely tempted - friend of mine is actively seeking.)

Already possessing a digital piano with a midi output:

Does one need to download software to make the piano compatable/work on the pc or if you buy Sibelius will that be included in the software?

How much RAM and Hard drive is needed ?

Sibelius 6 or 7?

Is Photoscan included in Sibelius or would I need to purchase it separately ?

Is that too many questions?

Oh and -

Does anyone know - are there any online "teach yourself composition" websites?

Thanks, wise forum folk, relying on you as always....

Sibelius is widely regarded as the best music notation software available. Main issue is that unless you are in full-time education, it is fairly expensive (albeit cheaper than it was). It's now about GBP400 (it used to be nearer 700).

There is a pared down version for about GBP100 not sure what it does/doesn't have features wise.

In terms of notational requirements it can do just about anything.

If you have a midi keyboard, it can link to it through your PC.

Sibelius is very expensive still (but when I first bought mine, before it was even available for Windows, and when it was still not wysiwyg and you could only cut/past things a bar at a time, and you drew slurs and ties in excatly the same way, and a hundred other things we wouldn't settle for nowadays, there was precious little change left from ?1000!)

BUT: there are some good free ones. Look for MuseScore, and though Capella isn't free, one friend of mine swears by it; it does depend pon how many bells and whistles you want.

If you have midi connection via USB, you shouldn't need to: Sibelius will take care of it

I'm still using 6, and although I did look dewy-eyed at 7 (I normally do upgrade eventually) I realised I would be paying for something I really coveted but have no immediate use for, which was much more manoeuvrable layouts for text and other things on the page. In my current situation I just need something that will get me from A to Bb

The program normally used with Sibelius is Photoscore, but it doesn't come with it. And Phtoscore Light (lite/) is about as much use as a chocolate teapot, much quicker to type the stuff in yourself. I only got the results I needed when I upgraded not once but twice, to P/score Untimate (I think)

It depends on what you want it for. I ws editing a bit of Mozart from online PDF of the old collected edition, so there was a lot of information there. Usually there's so much editing you need to do when it'sm read the page that, as i said, you might as well type it in in the first place. My friend with Capella says "oh yes, you can scan" but I don't know whether she does, or indeed whether it's included there. All I know is that you can buy a package including both Sibelius and Photoscore, but it's not actually part of it.


Is that enough answers?

Well, even Sibelius and all these others won't really teach you to compose, they'll just give you the opportunity to input the notes you have composed.

Edit: I think I've misspoken myself. There's a large supply of worksheets you can print out or adapt, and some of those are certainly early exercises in composition. This is on Sibelius 6

(Incidentally, the old Sibelius that I had for the Acron computer was called 2Sibelius 7" so they seem to have caught up with themselves

I've been looking at Sibelius too and would like to know what the difference is between Sibelius Student, Sibelius 6 and Sibelius 7. I would like a comprehensive composition software but I don't want to spend too much if it's not necessary. My child is interested in composing ensembles and orchestral works. Do the cheaper versions only allow one instrument compositions?

I think Sibelius Student is intended for use in schools as well as for students at home. I don't see the point of it if it only allows one instrument so I suspect it will allow ensemble composiition.

Sibelius student allows more than one instrument. Does most of what Sib6 does but doesn't have so many plugins.

http://www.sibelius.com/products/sibelius/...comparison.html compares First, Student and 7.

Seven is pretty much just a version of 6 for the newer computer chips (is that 64 bit?) suffice to say - it won't run on my older PC, but if you buy it you can download version 6 and then get version 7 for free (well because you've paid for it) if you update your PC.

Thank you guys!
And a big hello to FullofWind (brilliant name - do you play the bagpipes?)
Always nice to meet another parent. Let me know how you get on with your software buying?

Apparently Daughter's school have Logic pro (but humble Year 7s aren't allowed to play with it.) What's that all about? Curiousity only - not going to buy an Apple Mac unless I get a surprise tax rebate or a visit from the money fairy.

Reminds me of daughter's school they had one copy of sibelius version 3 or somehting. No one could use it because it was on the teachers laptop

Logic, as I understand it, is like Cubase - can do music printing on the stave, but is intended first and foremost as a sequencer, for composing with sound, recorded phrases - audio editing and recording, largely. (I don't think I've explained that very well)

I bought Sibelius 7 a couple of years ago for my daughter and was able to get it more cheaply as it was for educational use. I can't remember now how much cheaper it was, but there was quite a difference. I had to produce a letter from the school to say that she was studying music in order to get the discount. At the time she was probably in year 8, so didn't need to be studying it at a specific level.

What has been your experience of it soccermum? I thought Sibelius 7 was knew - do you mean 6? Also, can orchestral compositions using multiple instruments be used?

With all versions of Sibelius you can write for huge orchestras. And you can add one bar at the beginning or in the middle of an entire symphony and it will immediately redraw the pages so that the layout is still OK.

And you can make parts for transposing instruments, and have them display in the score either as transposing or non-transposing, as you choose.

ALMOST, whatever you ask if it can do, it can do it (That's what you pay all that wonga for)

Thanks Linda.ff.

So to clarify - if I buy Sibelius 6, it will do all of the above?

Yes. I presume you can still buy version 6?

I support this. But a basic knowledge of (4 part) harmony is a useful to help you control what you are doing; tidy up loose ends, lay out the instrumental parts to their best advantage (according to the effect you want). Too deep an involvement and you may be constricted by the rules - something to beware.

I don't think it's possible to teach students the creative side of composition- how to compose - but a lot is learned from study - looking at form, proportion, antiphony and that; same with instrumentation. Score reading is important for instrumentation, and even if you have an orchestra or ensemble at your disposal it probably won't want to try out every note of your arrangements until you are fairly sure of what you are up to. Instrumentation is also important for arrangement as many new composers compose at a keyboard then arrange their work once they're happy with the short score. There's only one way to acquire the background and that's to study scores - simple ones at first. To get a beginner reading, a piano score is a good start. Then a string quartet.

Even so, the person determined to compose will start as you said - just compose - and build up over a period of time.

There are some good IT aids for composition: sequencers and sampling systems, the sequencer lets you set the notes for each instrument and articulation against a time-line, usually lets you control the dynamics. The samplers are recordings of individual notes of each instrument which you can sequence.

All good fun!

I have purchased Sibelius 7 Academic Student, so once I have set it all up - that will take a while in our household - then I will report back. Of course I won't know what to look for, nor do I have an interest in it, so I may not be able to offer any information of any worth.

Please do report back! Son has never upgraded from Sibelius 5, and it seems to be adequate for his needs.

If only you'd posted before my purchase!

I don't think you can still buy Sibelius 5, though! And Sibelius 7 is 64-bit, which is worth considering.