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Your thoughts on composing at the piano vs. in your DAW

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Do I hear what I want to write before I've written it or after I've heard it?
I just try to be intentional about it. That's not for everyone though (@John Cage).
 
Here are some thoughts about composing from Eric Whitacre.

He wrote this back in 2008, but still entirely appropriate food for thought:


(He's not a fan of composing in the DAW for very valid reasons which he states)
I am all for pencil and paper, but sooner or later, we need to "import" our composition into a notation software, right? I mean, I can't just keep building physical file containers and expect the papers to last forever.

I do like the idea of keep using pencil and paper until I absolutely need to switch to a notation software, so this article is quite helpful.
 
I am all for pencil and paper, but sooner or later, we need to "import" our composition into a notation software, right? I mean, I can't just keep building physical file containers and expect the papers to last forever.

I do like the idea of keep using pencil and paper until I absolutely need to switch to a notation software, so this article is quite helpful.
Agreed... I need to see more score paper in front of my eyes than is offered by a computer screen, or even a 27" monitor with Sibelius.

I would also very much agree with Whitacre when he says that it's far too easy to just 'cut and paste' music, which leads to pretty poor compositions (unless you're after nothing but ostinatos or pure minimilistic ideas).

I think its' a great essay that Whitacre wrote, and I'm glad I found it many years ago when I was trying to justify to myself that it's OK to be 'old-school' and use pencil and paper the way I did before I even had Sibelius (in my case). (...it's still a great reminder to me if I feel 'I've lost my way'!)
 
It depends a bit on one’s definition of what composing music is, doesn’t it? If by ‘composing music’ you mean that you should be able to write down, as accurately as possible, all the essentials that define a piece of music (its notes, timbres, tempo, dynamics and such) — i.o.w. the traditional, conventional idea of what composing music is all about — than yes, I can imagine that pencil and paper (or some satisfying digital equivalent) would be the first and most important stage of the composing work.

But this being the 21st century and all, and our tools to make music with having developed, changed and expanded on enormously in recent decades, ‘composing music’ might well have come to mean something very different for some people. Me, I sort of lean towards the definition: filling a time slot with audio organized in a way that makes musical sense to me. And audio, in my definition, can be anything. Likewise, ‘musical sense’ is a very broad term.

I have pieces that combine traditionally composed sections (often originating during piano playing sessions) with material that can only be generated (following my instructions) by a well-stuffed DAW and that can’t be written down in any of the existing musical codes either. Composing, to me, can just as well mean opening a filter, inserting a delay, picking a pulse wave instead of a sawtooth wave, or distorting a reverb ..., than writing a melody, deciding on an harmonic progression, laying out the structure, orchestrating a rhythm, or writing some counterpoint. And in my view of what composing music is or can be, there’s no musical hierarchy between any of these skills or creative activities either.

I think one, being totally honest with oneself and guided by one's own personality rather than by some prevailing norm or tradition, should choose and learn the tools — whatever these may be — that help prevent the contingency of being unable to express oneself or getting in a creative cul de sac. If that means learning to play the piano well, then that’s what you gotta do. No mercy, no excuses. If it means studying the theory of composition and orchestration, then study you must. In earnest. If it means becoming intimately familiar and comfortable with the ins and outs of, say, Omnisphere or NI Reaktor, then that is where the challenge lies that you have to face. Again, and always: with complete commitment.

I mentioned ‘being honest with yourself’ in the previous paragraph: the great thing about this is that it will make the road, or roads, which you have to follow unignorably visible.

_
 
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I have what I guess might be considered an odd workflow (or maybe just inefficient?). First, I can't write cold into a DAW, so I always make a notation sketch first. Usually, I'll start with a melody, which I can enter in the notation program with just a mouse.

Then I'll use the keyboard to try out harmonies - only because if I don't, I know I'll end up just using some variation of I/IV/V/vi :grin:. Noodling around on the keys opens me up to trying harmonies I wouldn't have thought of unaided (and which I couldn't name if my life depended on it!).

I know I could probably make things a lot simpler by training my inner ear better!
 
I do like the idea of keep using pencil and paper until I absolutely need to switch to a notation software, so this article is quite helpful.
Why i still prefer paper & pencil to solutions like Staffpad etc. is the visual and haptic aspect.
I can keep different versions of an element on a sketch and i can lay lots of sheets on my carpet when i need orientation.
Sometimes i also like to mark parts of sketches with crayons in different colours.
This is something that usually is more relevant for longer pieces that have lots of thematic transformations and mutations. I simply don't think that this workflow works in a similarly good way on the monitor...
 
My thoughts are if I composed on a piano, wrote it down, and THEN started working in my DAW I'd never make a deadline.

Moreover, working in the DAW from start to end is essential for me when writing to picture and trying to come up with ideas that fit well with the action. I can replay a scene instantly over and over, zoom in frame by frame if needed, and edit the shit out of the cue until I get it just right. I admire the 'old school' composers who wrote cues without this luxury. I simply do not have that level of talent.

Maybe someday I'll have interns and/or staff whom can take my sketches and match them to picture. Until then, every day starts and ends in the DAW.
 
If you are interested in composing in the late romantic symphonic style and wish to use piano as a way to germinate a full orchestra piece, I suggest the following:

Liszt made a piano solo reduction of every Beethoven symphony. Using this as a model, you can decipher ways to articulate the orchestra through pianistic gestures and see what materials he abridged and how he shrunk the orchestrations.

Search for “symphonic transcription” and “symphonic reduction” and you will find lots of material to glean further methods.

Take simple pieces from Bach like inventions, preludes, or something from the French suites. A courante or minuet would be good to test yourself on how to explode a piano piece to a chamber orchestra. Scarlatti would work well also.

Some Chopin nocturnes lend themselves well to orchestrations.

Beethoven sonatas are very symphonic (the moonlight is a good start)

By breaking up the process, you free yourself from the pressure of composing AND orchestrating AND interfacing with the technology.

Even if you want to eventually migrate to a more 20th century style of music, the romantic and earlier styles are great (and necessary) for building this foundation.
 
Some wonderful tips above.

I always go straight to DAW (tick, tick, tick), but sometimes have a piano “scratch track” running in tandem with the main arrangement. I use it to sketch out rough ideas or throw down a quick idea which I don’t want to forget.

Also assorted random half brained ideas scribbled on the back of envelopes.
 
I always go straight to DAW (tick, tick, tick), but sometimes have a piano “scratch track” running in tandem with the main arrangement. I use it to sketch out rough ideas or throw down a quick idea which I don’t want to forget.
thats pretty much how I work as well..

But .. I would be interested - and this question goes out especially to all who did pop/edm-music as well - how much do you see composing/arranging in DAW forces or limits you to think and work in clear block elements/sections/harmonies vs thinking more linear? Coming from pop (meaning only working in DAW in the past) I always used to think in clear structures and blocks - and the hope using something like StaffPad (or notation) would be to free myself from that, thinking and working more linear. Am I overthinking that? Is that limit just happening in my head?
 
Once the piano version sounds coherent enough, I record it into Cubase to be my "guide track" and make a separate audio render to build a tempo map. It's only after this that I start with orchestration (i.e. samples).
Why do you need an audio render to create a tempo map? I usually do it with the midi. Really curious about that.
 
thats pretty much how I work as well..

But .. I would be interested - and this question goes out especially to all who did pop/edm-music as well - how much do you see composing/arranging in DAW forces or limits you to think and work in clear block elements/sections/harmonies vs thinking more linear? Coming from pop (meaning only working in DAW in the past) I always used to think in clear structures and blocks - and the hope using something like StaffPad (or notation) would be to free myself from that, thinking and working more linear. Am I overthinking that? Is that limit just happening in my head?
I understand where you're coming from. After years of writing in standard song form, I still lean towards that structure if I'm not writing to picture.

I spent quite a while working with manuscript whilst studying music many moons ago, but it's a skill I've long since abandoned - I haven't needed to pick up a pencil since. To say I'm rusty would be an understatement.
 
thats pretty much how I work as well..

But .. I would be interested - and this question goes out especially to all who did pop/edm-music as well - how much do you see composing/arranging in DAW forces or limits you to think and work in clear block elements/sections/harmonies vs thinking more linear? Coming from pop (meaning only working in DAW in the past) I always used to think in clear structures and blocks - and the hope using something like StaffPad (or notation) would be to free myself from that, thinking and working more linear. Am I overthinking that? Is that limit just happening in my head?
I think it might be (for me anyway). I remember those pre printed sketch pads with 4 bars per line. It made for easy musical organization for commissions that wanted arrangements for big band or pops orchestra type music.

Writing odd number phrases and things on those pages wasn’t a giant hurdle when I think about it; I just had to make extra rehearsal markers and double bars to let my eye see the end/beginning of each section if it landed in the middle of a page somewhere.

The daw is almost better for oddness than the page since the arrange page is one giant “staff” no page turns or anything. I can drop in a different time signature anywhere at anytime, super super convenient, don’t have to worry how it works out on the page if it was a paper conductor score.
 
Why do you need an audio render to create a tempo map? I usually do it with the midi. Really curious about that.
I was never able to make a truly convincing tempo map by drawing lines (my style is orchestral Romantic, probably very old-fashioned and exaggerated for a lot film music folk, with molto vibrato and whatnot).

What I record is a piano version that's of course more simple than the final orchestration, and I view it as MIDI "performance" where I can let go and play freely and "with feeling". The resulting tempo is more organic, slowing down naturally just a tad at phrase endings, accents, speeding up at arcs, and so on.

Of course, solo piano tempo and orchestral tempo are not the same but in Cubase, it is possible to have multiple versions of tempo maps, so this becomes my "tempo guide", which gets refined and where tempo variations get wider or narrower depending on orchestrations.
 
I always used to think in clear structures and blocks - and the hope using something like StaffPad (or notation) would be to free myself from that, thinking and working more linear. Am I overthinking that? Is that limit just happening in my head?
"Classical" music is also based on clear structures and blocks. They are 4, 8 or 16 bar segments, depending on style, that have rather rigid internal organization (beat-driven chord changes, cadences, repeating segments).

In a sense, pop music is a genre of infinite instrumentations of the handful of "cliché" patterns from classical music. Especially modern pop chord progressions which are almost always the descendants of the cadential-like progressions in classical music from the 1800s...

In pop music, 100% of musical material is forced to rigidly follow the pattern - by design. Chords, phrases, arcs - everything.

But in classical music, the intent is contrary - to disguise the pattern. This is done by developing more variation in melody (compared to pop), harmony (tonicization, modulation) and polyphony (countermelodies, etc). Pedal point is especially powerful in creating the sense of unfolding despite a clear pattern structure underneath.

I don't think you're overthinking it at all, but the solution is in creativity and technique, not software.
 
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