That very first one about listening to the first few bars over and over again is so true for me. That is the trap I fall into every single time. I will try to be more conscious of that. So helpful! Thank you!
guess its the reason i kept rewriting my string quartet for this whole 2 years, and now because i kept writing string quartets, i feel like even writing a simple violin is boring, because 'not enough harmony'
It is a bit of a vicious circle, writing 5 minutes of crap, before listening to it makes no sense either, you need a certain level of skill to progress faster without "loop listening". Sometimes it helps to just write anything to continue, you can throw it away later and try something else. And of course using your inner imagination; what do I want to hear after what was written already.
Great video Ryan! I would like to add one thing to the mistake #5 (as a solution): Analyze the music that you love: How the composer construct the phrase? how they conduct the melody? how they compose the B part / the contrast? What's they harmony? My most favorite teacher once asked me "how can you make music that you love if you don't know specifically why you love the music that you listen?". He told me that when he was young, he created a rock band, and he wrote a lot of rock music so easily because he listened and analyzed a lot of that type of music. From that day, I analyze every music that I love, and it is 100% worth it
"Analyze the music that you love" and try to understand how it works, yes that is very important; only problem for me with that is that I am sometimes so in awe how it is crafted that it demotivates me. Music is very complex and these pieces that are relatively "easy" but perfectly balanced, like Chopins posthum c-minor Nocturne are in a sense a miracle. You can understand and analyze the most part, but there remains some mystery why it is so perfect.
Your tip about wasting time listening to the music I've already written describes me perfectly. THANKS! In the past two days I can't believe how much more quickly I've made progress by not constantly listening to what I have. Write, then revise. Got it.
The number one is so true for me. I keep listening to those few bars over and over again and feel like there is no next to that endless loop... I will try to get aware if that for my next composition, thanks for that one! One mistake i always do as well is to try to orchestrate too quickly for a lot of instruments. And I get overwhelmed and give up. What i should do is finish the damn piece with just the Piano and worry about the orchestration later. Cheers and keep up the great work!
The endless loop is the most common problem I see, I think we should blame the software! And yea at my most disciplined I don't move on to orchestration until the piano sketch is done, even if in reality I only get it to 80% it's still better than getting too ahead of myself
I think that more even than writing music, you should actively and critically listen to music you like. Look up the chords (or better do transcriptions from ear), and you'll get a feel for how the chords and their specific context sounds. I can always pick out a minor subdominant chord, because I hear it often in music I like, and I used to look up the chord sheets to check. I don't really need to anymore but I often still do. Now using the minor subdominant comes naturally in songwriting because I know how it sounds and I have a name for it.
It is! One solution is to hit record and improvise, then go back and sort it out afterwards. But of course then you're limited by your improvising abilities so it might not be a perfect solution.
You essentially summarised this at the end, I've sat at the piano and couldn't compose, but after 2 or 3 hrs out of no where I start creating a melody, you can't force it, feelings and emotions become evoked and the fluidity comes.
Very useful to hear that. The most helpful learning practice I have discovered, is not to just score-read and take it for granted that it sounds like that, but pick a small part I find impressive/nice, e.g. 4-8 bars and try to recreate it with my orchestra libraries. One will be surprised that it's not enough just to distribute the notes in a certain way, but also set the right dynamics, and then on top of that understand that the conductor will adjust these dynamics so that it sounds nice. Or discover that the whole chord alone sounds harsh by itself but it's the fat percussion support that makes it sound ok. Try to re-create what you hear, best way to own the score.
As a theorist, your observations on the unhelpfulness of theory books were very insightful. What music theory classes fail to do is make a distinction between prescriptive and descriptive texts. Most of the theory and orchestra textbooks "describe" what method or structure was used, but do not prescribe a way to write in the 21st century, in your own voice, or really anything other than analyzing and copying what has previously been done. Thanks!
My biggest gripe with the book "How Ravel Orchestrated: Mother Goose Suite" is that it doesn't really explain "how" at all, just tells you what's on the page!
I always write using Finale then transfer to DAW. What everyone needs to do first is study counterpoint. Rimsky-Korsakov told Stravinsky he would not teach him until he studied counterpoint.
My problem is I love learning new things and those means that is all I do with music, just learn. They other issue is the difficulty in creating longer forms and progressing a piece of music. I know I need to compose more but I am fascinated by everything talked to music. Your videos help a lot Ryan in trying to move beyond those issue and write
I guess it's nice to know that I've been doing it right but at the same time I need to also study more theory/other people's views of music. I've always been someone who plays and doesn't want to talk about the idea behind it or how it came to be. This definitely gave me some insight on going back to the basics and working on stuff without it being very fancy.
Very helpful advices! Back in my day music school was way too expensive and far away. I started writing for band and orchestra by trying to copy by ear. Copying and then arranging before composing. Even though I didn't always know the why's, at least I found out what and how. That was a good start. The problem with older books about writing for the orchestra is: they are overwhelming. No sound and no feedback, just information dump without us knowing if it's useful.
Clearly you just had to look up Ryan Leach on youtube instead of trying to find the perfect book :) I am so glad the algorithm just randomly recommended this channel!
Wow the first one hit so hard! Will try to stop getting trapped in listening to my work on repeat- if it works out then thank you in advance for the extra years of life you've given me :)
Thank you for your video. I thought that I have to understand "prerequisite musical theories" to become a fluent composer(and of course they have certain value), but before delving into every complex theoritical materials, it would be much great for me to just sit down and compose music.
Really appreciate you sharing your experiences. There are tons of parallels I feel composers have with one another early on that don't get talked about enough. Would love to see a score reduction video in the future.
Loved the concise description and I definitely am guilty as charged :D One thing that helps me get unstuck from the few-bars-loop is to identify the motifs, lines, groove - and then write something noticibly different - but to be able to cite refer back to the previous lines and motifs....it's partly being lazy, resourceful and maybe timid, but it helps me create a framework that holds the piece together :)
I don't know how you evaded me for so long with these inspired videos and true to life advices. I wish the professors at the university I went to cared to give as much real world self troubleshooting advice.
just ran across your channel, and found your explanations of things to be very straightforward. And, although I am currently only playing covers and not actually composing, I find your videos helpful and informative. When the video above ended, an ad came along for something called the "unison midi chord pack". One of the demos shows how, with a single click, you can assemble a very nice chord progression. Kind of like Grammarly for music - except that you don't need to even start with your own idea. Seems to be completely getting the human element out of composition.
Lol, the first one is 100% facts, I haven't finished a lot of projects because of this very reason. Really appreciate your content once again, blessings!
Hello, I come from your reddit post, thanks for the tips! As someone with ADHD and a beginner I'm very struggling with number 1 and 5. I tend to repeat/loop something over and over because every time I feel like it's just horrible, while I struggle to sit down and "just write" because my stupid ADHD brain expects me to write the next masterpiece for some reason, and not having an instant result doesn't give me the "rush" my brain needs to gain motivation, and overall fear and anxiety makes me afraid of approaching music making even though I really love music. Do you maybe have tips you could share? I appreciate any advice.
Great question, I resonate with a lot of this. If I had to pick one thing I think it would be to truly embrace the "shitty first draft", which means to get the worst possible version DONE before trying to move on. One way I do this is to imagine that I have a deadline of 10 minutes and I have to submit 2 minutes of music (setting timers helps, visual timers especially). There's no way I can waste time noodling with the accompaniment part when I've got to write a beginning middle and end in only 10 minutes. Remarkably the shitty first draft usually ends up being somewhat decent and then can be improved from there.
Hi, I’ve been binging some of your videos! Absolutely love them! This video got me curious on what your past is in music and what lead you to this career? Maybe a video idea… 💪
I am glad you made the point you did about transcriptioning. I see it recommended so often from composers who went to school for music that I assumed they were right. I've been dreading starting. Like you, I couldn't see the point in it. As a beginner, I would love to have some sort of guided structure for composing homework. The Orchestration Recipes product is ok, but leaves a little to be desired. I am about to dig into Composing Music A New Approach (by William Russo, Jeffrey Ainis, David Stevenson) but it can be hard to focus on a book. Plus it'd be great to expand outside of classical. Thanks again for the insights!
If you are new, I recommend Fundamentals of musical composition by Arnold Schoenberg. You can't imagine how this book changed my musical life. I was in first year of musical composition, and my composition teacher was pretty bad. He didn't explain what's a motive, what's monotony, how to create a coherent contrast or what's an ABA. I read the book of Schoenberg with another of his books (I dont remember the name, but it was a book that shows you a lot of examples of constructions. It starts with a one bar motive created on a tonic chord, and then a two bar motive created on a dominant and tonic, an so on). One of my best musical experiences so far. Once you read the book, you find everything that Arnold says in all the songs: You can recognise the antecedent and the consequent, the motive, the general form, and the best of all, the books explains you how to construct everything STEP BY STEP (Arnold was a teacher and a composer, so he knew what he was doing). Once you finish the two books, you can continue with Alan Belkin Musical Composition Art and Craft (I think that's the correct name, it's the light blue book that you can see this video). Awesome book and the perfect complement of the Schoenberg books (Schoenberg gives you the fundamentals, Belkin goes beyond the fundamentals, and expands the basics). If you are looking for a beginner orchestration book, I recommend the Adler book or the Rimsky book. Both are excellent, but they can be very dense
Maybe it works for some people? Maybe it just doesn't work for someone with ADHD who zones out at the soonest available opportunity 😆Lu's recommendations are excellent, check out those books!
Excellent content as usual Ryan, I am new to your channel but I am so glad I found it. Keep up the great work. I am looking forward to your upcoming video on score reductions, this is a skill that I have been struggling with.
I like the comment about "writing music" is the best way to learn how to write music. I'm not sure I agree that it's a waste of time to look for new ways to compose...it's just a different learning style. Some teachers unfortunately have "control issues" and they want you to write music just like they do. It's fine to learn a basic core concept, but if you don't "play with it" and adapt it to your own ideas, then you will wind up sounding like everyone else. Personally, I like to try the basic concept (like doubling clarinets and strings on the melody to glue the counter melody in the flutes), but then experiment with other timbres and see what mood they create and if that gives you a new color that matches your own style. There is no such thing as one correct way of learning...good teachers adapt to their students.
Absolutely, I'm all for learning new things. It's not a waste of time to learn new ways to compose, I just mean it can easily become a form of procrastination!
from the Guitar Craft Aphorisms : - Let us embrace our mistakes as friends and teachers. - Mistakes are at the centre of learning. - There are no mistakes, save one: the failure to learn from a mistake.
« I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge. » - Igor Stravinsky
I realy can relate to this. Studying books, articles, videos and forget to actually just DOIN'G it. :) Theory is great but it can be also grow up into a wall between me and my creative, playful source because then worries are kicking in and the little words: "Am I doin'g it right?" are getting bigger and bigger. (Sry for this poor english..)
What DAW do you recommend/use? I'm trying to get into music production, but I don't know what tools I need to do it, even though I have all these sounds in my head I want to get out.
Thanks for the video Ryan, I've been watching your channel for a while and on this video I finally decided to comment, as I liked it very much. So conclussion is, I should remove my subscription to your channel, stop watching and keep up only with composing? 😇 very interesting thought Ryan, the one that makes the difference between building a profession and consuming entertainment 🤔. Many thanks and congrats for your channel!
00:34 Wow, ok then... you start with a personal truthbomb. 😅 If I am honest, I have sorta realized this, but it is helpful to hear someone say it. I do waste too much time. But I also have a habit of playing it on loop while writing. Fine if you have max inspiration and write super fast. Excluding best case scenarios, the resulting ear fatigue really really isn't doing any favours. If I am happy with the results of writing, I do waste way too much time listening to it, you made me realise within the minute. I mean, someone has to enjoy my music. I feel obliged. xD Jokes aside, I really am happy the algorithm deemed your channel as potentially interesting. You have the most practical perspective on music theory I have seen on this website. Like, at the end of a lot of videos, you have new things to try out. That potentially really will help in the writing process. And probably broadens one's writing style Edit: Woah, your fifth mistake perfectly explains what grabbed my attention with your TH-cam content. And why your approach to music theory on TH-cam is such a breath of fresh air. Or rather it explains why you would make that kind of content
Hi Ryan, thank you for these videos, they are great, I just recently found your channel! In the video you mentioned about doing a video on doing a score reduction. Did you ever get a chance to do that video? I've been looking for it but haven' found it yet. I'd love to see your take on how to do that, cheers!
what movie is the scene at 2.16 from? and really great video I recently found your chanal and I am so glad I did. Imma head throu all your videos and try to learn as much as I can so I can practices it later on in praxis. Thank you for all your work
Mistake 3: I have to say, my experience with writing in DAWs is the complete opposite. Because of looping, writing is faster than ever. Start with a 1/2 bar idea, Repeat those bars 4 times. As most writing healily relies on repeats you have a foundation. For example the typical 1 2 1 3 structure in a 4bar/8bar loop, probably you keep some form of the 1rst bar, but heavily altered and non-resolved. Those alterations are done very fast and easily cuz you can just select all notes depending on pitch, transpose em at the same time. Prior to delving into music theory and when I did not yet understand its usefulness, this is very much how I wrote. Just trial and error, see if I get something I like. So purely on feel. Because it is so fast and easy to transpose notes and directly hearing the results, it is actually a viable strategy. But combined with some music theory and more informed and directional decision-making, it is ridiculously fast. But I do think it is very limiting in the style of writing, and it is time-consuming to artificially add human error in a convincing and nice-sounding way. Which is why I would very much like learn writng via midi-keyboard. It is on my to do list ^^ PS: This might be key to my experience here, but regarding DAWs: I come with the sole experience of FL studio's piano roll, so I have no reference, but that particular piano roll is like the best one ever. No reference, but I cannot imagine any other outperforming in workflow efficiency (provided you know all the tools and hotkeys).
Hi I've recently begun to compose and at first I was off to a pretty good start, however after a couple of months I noticed a bit of a steep fall in the quality of my music, I don't have any training in composition and am doing this instinctively by improvising on the piano and writing down when the improv gets good and then from there I refine edit polish etc, is this downward trend in the quality of my music to be expected?
Most likely the quality if your music hasn't fallen, you've just started developing a more refined sense of what, to you, makes good music. And so you listen to music you like and now that you've gotten involved in it you're starting to hear things you never did before, and appreciating more. But your listening ability will always develop faster than you're writing skill can keep up with, so you're just dealing with a gap. This video is a great one -> th-cam.com/video/GHrmKL2XKcE/w-d-xo.html
@RyanLeach so you were right, I decided to play my pieces to others and the feedback was pretty much all positive, so I've decided to record my first piece and upload it to youtube as it's the most complete and polished of my compositions however I'm having trouble playing whilst recording, I don't know how many takes I've done, the nerves don't seem to be relenting, any advice on this one, should I just get someone else to play it?
@@natureboy1961 are you playing an acoustic instrument or MIDI? If it's MIDI just play it in as best you can and then clean it up. Or there are plenty of people who just daw the notes in, which I often do myself!
Composer number one mistake is to never have played music. I could have read a hundred books, but actually playing or studying master pieces give you more information on how to write
@@RyanLeach oh I'm so glad. I have spent the last two months working with it. Such a game changer. Things to do: You have five note lengths to attach samples to. Makes a huge difference if you do this. And the expression maps are amazing. I have now got little glyphs for ALL my strings. So I can access about 30 different samples for each staff. Let me know if you need any expression maps. I have built loads
Imo you still havent learned the lesson. "I wish I had listened to the teacher, but I still went out there looking for new things to try". Its not about learning new things its about when to apply the things youve learned. Dont design music in 9/8. Make music first and if the music's expression calls for 9/8, use 9/8.
💰 How to Write LIBRARY MUSIC Editors WANT to Use th-cam.com/video/lnU3YcZg54o/w-d-xo.html
That very first one about listening to the first few bars over and over again is so true for me. That is the trap I fall into every single time. I will try to be more conscious of that. So helpful! Thank you!
Same. “Well, nothing else I’m coming up with seems to fit or sound as good as the beginning, I guess that’s the end of this one.”
guess its the reason i kept rewriting my string quartet for this whole 2 years, and now because i kept writing string quartets, i feel like even writing a simple violin is boring, because 'not enough harmony'
It is a bit of a vicious circle, writing 5 minutes of crap, before listening to it makes no sense either, you need a certain level of skill to progress faster without "loop listening". Sometimes it helps to just write anything to continue, you can throw it away later and try something else. And of course using your inner imagination; what do I want to hear after what was written already.
Great video Ryan!
I would like to add one thing to the mistake #5 (as a solution): Analyze the music that you love: How the composer construct the phrase? how they conduct the melody? how they compose the B part / the contrast? What's they harmony?
My most favorite teacher once asked me "how can you make music that you love if you don't know specifically why you love the music that you listen?". He told me that when he was young, he created a rock band, and he wrote a lot of rock music so easily because he listened and analyzed a lot of that type of music.
From that day, I analyze every music that I love, and it is 100% worth it
Great suggestion! Especially asking "Why?" when analyzing besides just "What?"
"Analyze the music that you love" and try to understand how it works, yes that is very important; only problem for me with that is that I am sometimes so in awe how it is crafted that it demotivates me. Music is very complex and these pieces that are relatively "easy" but perfectly balanced, like Chopins posthum c-minor Nocturne are in a sense a miracle. You can understand and analyze the most part, but there remains some mystery why it is so perfect.
Your tip about wasting time listening to the music I've already written describes me perfectly. THANKS! In the past two days I can't believe how much more quickly I've made progress by not constantly listening to what I have. Write, then revise. Got it.
The number one is so true for me.
I keep listening to those few bars over and over again and feel like there is no next to that endless loop...
I will try to get aware if that for my next composition, thanks for that one!
One mistake i always do as well is to try to orchestrate too quickly for a lot of instruments. And I get overwhelmed and give up.
What i should do is finish the damn piece with just the Piano and worry about the orchestration later.
Cheers and keep up the great work!
The endless loop is the most common problem I see, I think we should blame the software! And yea at my most disciplined I don't move on to orchestration until the piano sketch is done, even if in reality I only get it to 80% it's still better than getting too ahead of myself
I think that more even than writing music, you should actively and critically listen to music you like. Look up the chords (or better do transcriptions from ear), and you'll get a feel for how the chords and their specific context sounds. I can always pick out a minor subdominant chord, because I hear it often in music I like, and I used to look up the chord sheets to check. I don't really need to anymore but I often still do. Now using the minor subdominant comes naturally in songwriting because I know how it sounds and I have a name for it.
Oh I can relate to that so much. Foremost with constantly listening back to every bar I write , but it is a habit that is hard to overcome.
It is! One solution is to hit record and improvise, then go back and sort it out afterwards. But of course then you're limited by your improvising abilities so it might not be a perfect solution.
You essentially summarised this at the end, I've sat at the piano and couldn't compose, but after 2 or 3 hrs out of no where I start creating a melody, you can't force it, feelings and emotions become evoked and the fluidity comes.
Very useful to hear that. The most helpful learning practice I have discovered, is not to just score-read and take it for granted that it sounds like that, but pick a small part I find impressive/nice, e.g. 4-8 bars and try to recreate it with my orchestra libraries. One will be surprised that it's not enough just to distribute the notes in a certain way, but also set the right dynamics, and then on top of that understand that the conductor will adjust these dynamics so that it sounds nice. Or discover that the whole chord alone sounds harsh by itself but it's the fat percussion support that makes it sound ok. Try to re-create what you hear, best way to own the score.
I agree with that one. I did that a few times with excerpts from John Williams music and that helped me a lot!
As a theorist, your observations on the unhelpfulness of theory books were very insightful. What music theory classes fail to do is make a distinction between prescriptive and descriptive texts. Most of the theory and orchestra textbooks "describe" what method or structure was used, but do not prescribe a way to write in the 21st century, in your own voice, or really anything other than analyzing and copying what has previously been done. Thanks!
My biggest gripe with the book "How Ravel Orchestrated: Mother Goose Suite" is that it doesn't really explain "how" at all, just tells you what's on the page!
Nobody can tell you how to write in your voice.
Well, your last "mistake" is the reason why you have so much knowledge to share :)
Thank you very much fir pointing all those mistakes out, as it turns out I made all of them...
I feel personally called out by a lot of these XD definitely guilty of trying to run before walking.
I always write using Finale then transfer to DAW. What everyone needs to do first is study counterpoint. Rimsky-Korsakov told Stravinsky he would not teach him until he studied counterpoint.
My problem is I love learning new things and those means that is all I do with music, just learn. They other issue is the difficulty in creating longer forms and progressing a piece of music. I know I need to compose more but I am fascinated by everything talked to music. Your videos help a lot Ryan in trying to move beyond those issue and write
I know! Studying music is a black hole of endless things to study and learn!
At least all the mistakes turned you into a concise, coherent teacher. I imagine your music is just as clear.
I guess it's nice to know that I've been doing it right but at the same time I need to also study more theory/other people's views of music. I've always been someone who plays and doesn't want to talk about the idea behind it or how it came to be. This definitely gave me some insight on going back to the basics and working on stuff without it being very fancy.
Yea if I had to pick only one I think it would be trying (and failing) to be fancy.
Wow you really called me out on the last one
Very good... I like listening to other composers and teachers to learn a little more. Thanks for sharing...
Very helpful advices! Back in my day music school was way too expensive and far away. I started writing for band and orchestra by trying to copy by ear. Copying and then arranging before composing. Even though I didn't always know the why's, at least I found out what and how. That was a good start. The problem with older books about writing for the orchestra is: they are overwhelming. No sound and no feedback, just information dump without us knowing if it's useful.
Love it! Thanks, Ryan!
Thank you, Ryan! I really appreciate shout videos, as I watch every one of them every single day. On to writing music!!!
Clearly you just had to look up Ryan Leach on youtube instead of trying to find the perfect book :)
I am so glad the algorithm just randomly recommended this channel!
Wow the first one hit so hard! Will try to stop getting trapped in listening to my work on repeat- if it works out then thank you in advance for the extra years of life you've given me :)
Great video, some things I truly didn't realize I was falling into
Thank you for your video. I thought that I have to understand "prerequisite musical theories" to become a fluent composer(and of course they have certain value), but before delving into every complex theoritical materials, it would be much great for me to just sit down and compose music.
Really appreciate you sharing your experiences. There are tons of parallels I feel composers have with one another early on that don't get talked about enough. Would love to see a score reduction video in the future.
Loved the concise description and I definitely am guilty as charged :D One thing that helps me get unstuck from the few-bars-loop is to identify the motifs, lines, groove - and then write something noticibly different - but to be able to cite refer back to the previous lines and motifs....it's partly being lazy, resourceful and maybe timid, but it helps me create a framework that holds the piece together :)
I don't know how you evaded me for so long with these inspired videos and true to life advices. I wish the professors at the university I went to cared to give as much real world self troubleshooting advice.
Please keep making videos Ryan the info that you are giving is so valuable
Thank you for your advice! Have you uploaded a video on score reduction? I don’t know if I missed it scrolling through your recent videos.
I don't think I've gotten to a score reduction one yet, not on the list for the next month but hopefully someday
just ran across your channel, and found your explanations of things to be very straightforward. And, although I am currently only playing covers and not actually composing, I find your videos helpful and informative.
When the video above ended, an ad came along for something called the "unison midi chord pack". One of the demos shows how, with a single click, you can assemble a very nice chord progression. Kind of like Grammarly for music - except that you don't need to even start with your own idea. Seems to be completely getting the human element out of composition.
Lol, the first one is 100% facts, I haven't finished a lot of projects because of this very reason. Really appreciate your content once again, blessings!
Thanks, you’ve inspired my next video!
Your content is gold! Thank you.
You can say that again! Thanks~
Hello, I come from your reddit post, thanks for the tips!
As someone with ADHD and a beginner I'm very struggling with number 1 and 5. I tend to repeat/loop something over and over because every time I feel like it's just horrible, while I struggle to sit down and "just write" because my stupid ADHD brain expects me to write the next masterpiece for some reason, and not having an instant result doesn't give me the "rush" my brain needs to gain motivation, and overall fear and anxiety makes me afraid of approaching music making even though I really love music. Do you maybe have tips you could share? I appreciate any advice.
Great question, I resonate with a lot of this. If I had to pick one thing I think it would be to truly embrace the "shitty first draft", which means to get the worst possible version DONE before trying to move on.
One way I do this is to imagine that I have a deadline of 10 minutes and I have to submit 2 minutes of music (setting timers helps, visual timers especially). There's no way I can waste time noodling with the accompaniment part when I've got to write a beginning middle and end in only 10 minutes.
Remarkably the shitty first draft usually ends up being somewhat decent and then can be improved from there.
I trust this dude. Definitely subbing.
The fourth one is EXTREMELY important, everyone needs to hear this
Definitely the one I’d focus on if I could talk to my college student self!
Thank You Very Much Sir!
🙂🙏
This is saving me. Thanks a lot
Hi, I’ve been binging some of your videos! Absolutely love them! This video got me curious on what your past is in music and what lead you to this career? Maybe a video idea… 💪
I am glad you made the point you did about transcriptioning. I see it recommended so often from composers who went to school for music that I assumed they were right. I've been dreading starting. Like you, I couldn't see the point in it.
As a beginner, I would love to have some sort of guided structure for composing homework. The Orchestration Recipes product is ok, but leaves a little to be desired. I am about to dig into Composing Music A New Approach (by William Russo, Jeffrey Ainis, David Stevenson) but it can be hard to focus on a book. Plus it'd be great to expand outside of classical.
Thanks again for the insights!
If you are new, I recommend Fundamentals of musical composition by Arnold Schoenberg.
You can't imagine how this book changed my musical life.
I was in first year of musical composition, and my composition teacher was pretty bad. He didn't explain what's a motive, what's monotony, how to create a coherent contrast or what's an ABA.
I read the book of Schoenberg with another of his books (I dont remember the name, but it was a book that shows you a lot of examples of constructions. It starts with a one bar motive created on a tonic chord, and then a two bar motive created on a dominant and tonic, an so on). One of my best musical experiences so far.
Once you read the book, you find everything that Arnold says in all the songs: You can recognise the antecedent and the consequent, the motive, the general form, and the best of all, the books explains you how to construct everything STEP BY STEP (Arnold was a teacher and a composer, so he knew what he was doing).
Once you finish the two books, you can continue with Alan Belkin Musical Composition Art and Craft (I think that's the correct name, it's the light blue book that you can see this video). Awesome book and the perfect complement of the Schoenberg books (Schoenberg gives you the fundamentals, Belkin goes beyond the fundamentals, and expands the basics).
If you are looking for a beginner orchestration book, I recommend the Adler book or the Rimsky book. Both are excellent, but they can be very dense
Maybe it works for some people? Maybe it just doesn't work for someone with ADHD who zones out at the soonest available opportunity 😆Lu's recommendations are excellent, check out those books!
Great suggestions! The Schoenberg is the first time I encountered the Sentence Form, which I didn't see mentioned again until Caplin.
Did you ever do that piano reduction video? I’m very interested in that.
Excellent content as usual Ryan, I am new to your channel but I am so glad I found it. Keep up the great work. I am looking forward to your upcoming video on score reductions, this is a skill that I have been struggling with.
BRILLIANT!!! Thank you very much!
I like the comment about "writing music" is the best way to learn how to write music. I'm not sure I agree that it's a waste of time to look for new ways to compose...it's just a different learning style. Some teachers unfortunately have "control issues" and they want you to write music just like they do. It's fine to learn a basic core concept, but if you don't "play with it" and adapt it to your own ideas, then you will wind up sounding like everyone else.
Personally, I like to try the basic concept (like doubling clarinets and strings on the melody to glue the counter melody in the flutes), but then experiment with other timbres and see what mood they create and if that gives you a new color that matches your own style. There is no such thing as one correct way of learning...good teachers adapt to their students.
Absolutely, I'm all for learning new things. It's not a waste of time to learn new ways to compose, I just mean it can easily become a form of procrastination!
from the Guitar Craft Aphorisms :
- Let us embrace our mistakes as friends and teachers.
- Mistakes are at the centre of learning.
- There are no mistakes, save one: the failure to learn from a mistake.
« I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge. » - Igor Stravinsky
Great video Ryan, thanks a lot for that... I am relating a lot to what you have said and made those mistakes myself. Kind regards and blessings, Max
Thank you.
You are very welcome.
Subscribed!! Great videos
I realy can relate to this. Studying books, articles, videos and forget to actually just DOIN'G it. :) Theory is great but it can be also grow up into a wall between me and my creative, playful source because then worries are kicking in and the little words: "Am I doin'g it right?" are getting bigger and bigger. (Sry for this poor english..)
really good insight
What DAW do you recommend/use? I'm trying to get into music production, but I don't know what tools I need to do it, even though I have all these sounds in my head I want to get out.
I leave mistakes in. This is good for recognition.
Score reductions are a must see video.
Thanks for the video Ryan, I've been watching your channel for a while and on this video I finally decided to comment, as I liked it very much. So conclussion is, I should remove my subscription to your channel, stop watching and keep up only with composing? 😇 very interesting thought Ryan, the one that makes the difference between building a profession and consuming entertainment 🤔. Many thanks and congrats for your channel!
Ha, no no not like that!
Been there, done that.
Love this!
Thanks!
00:34 Wow, ok then... you start with a personal truthbomb. 😅
If I am honest, I have sorta realized this, but it is helpful to hear someone say it. I do waste too much time. But I also have a habit of playing it on loop while writing. Fine if you have max inspiration and write super fast. Excluding best case scenarios, the resulting ear fatigue really really isn't doing any favours.
If I am happy with the results of writing, I do waste way too much time listening to it, you made me realise within the minute. I mean, someone has to enjoy my music. I feel obliged. xD
Jokes aside, I really am happy the algorithm deemed your channel as potentially interesting. You have the most practical perspective on music theory I have seen on this website. Like, at the end of a lot of videos, you have new things to try out. That potentially really will help in the writing process. And probably broadens one's writing style
Edit: Woah, your fifth mistake perfectly explains what grabbed my attention with your TH-cam content. And why your approach to music theory on TH-cam is such a breath of fresh air. Or rather it explains why you would make that kind of content
You said all in last one
Excelent video!
Good one👌
Great video! Also very cool to notice that of the 5 books on your shelf, I have 3 of them myself ;-)
Whichever they are, I probably recommend the other two!
@@RyanLeach Persichetti, Belkin, Adler. Will check out the other two :-)
Write. Write on. I like that.
How do I get better at composing, by composing, if I can't compose to begin with?
Hi Ryan, thank you for these videos, they are great, I just recently found your channel! In the video you mentioned about doing a video on doing a score reduction. Did you ever get a chance to do that video? I've been looking for it but haven' found it yet. I'd love to see your take on how to do that, cheers!
Bartók
subscribed.
what movie is the scene at 2.16 from? and really great video I recently found your chanal and I am so glad I did. Imma head throu all your videos and try to learn as much as I can so I can practices it later on in praxis. Thank you for all your work
Pretty sure it's from Synecdoche, New York
Mistake 3: I have to say, my experience with writing in DAWs is the complete opposite.
Because of looping, writing is faster than ever. Start with a 1/2 bar idea, Repeat those bars 4 times. As most writing healily relies on repeats you have a foundation. For example the typical 1 2 1 3 structure in a 4bar/8bar loop, probably you keep some form of the 1rst bar, but heavily altered and non-resolved. Those alterations are done very fast and easily cuz you can just select all notes depending on pitch, transpose em at the same time. Prior to delving into music theory and when I did not yet understand its usefulness, this is very much how I wrote. Just trial and error, see if I get something I like. So purely on feel. Because it is so fast and easy to transpose notes and directly hearing the results, it is actually a viable strategy. But combined with some music theory and more informed and directional decision-making, it is ridiculously fast.
But I do think it is very limiting in the style of writing, and it is time-consuming to artificially add human error in a convincing and nice-sounding way. Which is why I would very much like learn writng via midi-keyboard. It is on my to do list ^^
PS: This might be key to my experience here, but regarding DAWs: I come with the sole experience of FL studio's piano roll, so I have no reference, but that particular piano roll is like the best one ever. No reference, but I cannot imagine any other outperforming in workflow efficiency (provided you know all the tools and hotkeys).
It's all about me:)
Hi I've recently begun to compose and at first I was off to a pretty good start, however after a couple of months I noticed a bit of a steep fall in the quality of my music, I don't have any training in composition and am doing this instinctively by improvising on the piano and writing down when the improv gets good and then from there I refine edit polish etc, is this downward trend in the quality of my music to be expected?
Most likely the quality if your music hasn't fallen, you've just started developing a more refined sense of what, to you, makes good music. And so you listen to music you like and now that you've gotten involved in it you're starting to hear things you never did before, and appreciating more. But your listening ability will always develop faster than you're writing skill can keep up with, so you're just dealing with a gap. This video is a great one -> th-cam.com/video/GHrmKL2XKcE/w-d-xo.html
@RyanLeach so you were right, I decided to play my pieces to others and the feedback was pretty much all positive, so I've decided to record my first piece and upload it to youtube as it's the most complete and polished of my compositions however I'm having trouble playing whilst recording, I don't know how many takes I've done, the nerves don't seem to be relenting, any advice on this one, should I just get someone else to play it?
@@natureboy1961 are you playing an acoustic instrument or MIDI? If it's MIDI just play it in as best you can and then clean it up. Or there are plenty of people who just daw the notes in, which I often do myself!
@@RyanLeach acoustic instrument, never heard of midi, I'll check that out
Composer number one mistake is to never have played music. I could have read a hundred books, but actually playing or studying master pieces give you more information on how to write
Lmfao that first mistake is my BIGGEST mistake but I allow myself to make it cuz it makes the process more enjoyable; perhaps too much tho 🤔 😂
What is a daw
digital audio workstation
@@RyanLeach thank you I do not possess a Daw....but I would like to buy one.
To become a better composer I have to compose??? I didn't sign up for this
Yes to never copy/paste. Unless you are artistically sure to do so
A few home truths there.
ohhh...does this mean you've embraced DORICO ???
Ha yes I've gone all in recently. Not a master by any means but starting to get comfortable.
@@RyanLeach oh I'm so glad. I have spent the last two months working with it. Such a game changer. Things to do: You have five note lengths to attach samples to. Makes a huge difference if you do this. And the expression maps are amazing. I have now got little glyphs for ALL my strings. So I can access about 30 different samples for each staff. Let me know if you need any expression maps. I have built loads
do you any expression maps for Cinematic Studio libraries?
@@RyanLeach ah..no not yet. I only have the first strings and don't use them. I have BBC VSL synchron ( which sound amazing )
Imo you still havent learned the lesson. "I wish I had listened to the teacher, but I still went out there looking for new things to try". Its not about learning new things its about when to apply the things youve learned. Dont design music in 9/8. Make music first and if the music's expression calls for 9/8, use 9/8.