justabeginner
New Member
After playing around with orchestral VSTs for about a year, I am now pretty confident when it comes to transcribing other people's work and think I can obtain decent results (for my level of skill, at least) when it comes to orchestral/cinematic music. However, when I try to compose something original I find myself stuck with these problems:
1) no idea where to start, so I try jotting down ideas on a piano VST - however I'm not a piano player so I find myself limited by my technical skills and find myself running in circles around the same old ideas;
2) I finally land on something good (let's say 4 bars with some piano chords/melody) and start building up on it by looping it, but then I can't find a way to "break out" of the loop
3) I land on something good, manage to break from the loop but then it feels like I always go in the same direction as other things I composed before (in a very obvious way)/I end up "composing" something that has been composed before.
Sorry if this post sounds a bit like a rant, what I'm after is simply some advice as how to approach songwriting for orchestral music, in particular how to start and how to develop ideas (I have some experience and slightly more "success" with rock/guitar-centric music, but have struggled with those things there too). I appreciate everyone has their own style and methods, but I hope to learn something from people who have more experience and success than me!
Thanks in advance for reading this little rant and for any help!
1) no idea where to start, so I try jotting down ideas on a piano VST - however I'm not a piano player so I find myself limited by my technical skills and find myself running in circles around the same old ideas;
2) I finally land on something good (let's say 4 bars with some piano chords/melody) and start building up on it by looping it, but then I can't find a way to "break out" of the loop
3) I land on something good, manage to break from the loop but then it feels like I always go in the same direction as other things I composed before (in a very obvious way)/I end up "composing" something that has been composed before.
Sorry if this post sounds a bit like a rant, what I'm after is simply some advice as how to approach songwriting for orchestral music, in particular how to start and how to develop ideas (I have some experience and slightly more "success" with rock/guitar-centric music, but have struggled with those things there too). I appreciate everyone has their own style and methods, but I hope to learn something from people who have more experience and success than me!
Thanks in advance for reading this little rant and for any help!