how the hell do people even compose music? - Voxelmanip Forums

Compa	Compa please just get off the internet already jamie	Posted on 2022-08-14 18:47 Link \| ID: 447
please just get off the internet already jamie Posts: 197 Joined: 2022-06-28	like it seems so complicated, i can't explain it, but transferring what you hear in your head (yeah sometimes I kinda get like fragments of random made up melodies and shit in my head) to a piece of software just seems like such a pain, I don't really 'get' how people manage to do that then again I have no understanding of music theory at all and am too dumb to force myself to learn it

ROllerozxa	ROllerozxa Site Admin	Posted on 2022-08-14 18:51 Link \| ID: 449
Site Admin Posts: 229 Joined: 2022-06-04	Indeed. I've always wanted to compose my own music and tried in the past, but it always ends up being complete trash. The closest thing I've ever come to anything decent was the Sudoku soundtrack and that's extremely basic and short. (intended to be looped in-game) The fun thing about tracker music is that the song construction is available... Like open source music. You can start fidgeting with each track and extract the samples and do all sorts of things with it to figure out how it's constructed.

Compa	Compa please just get off the internet already jamie	Posted on 2022-08-14 18:53 (edited 2022-08-14 18:54) Link \| ID: 450
please just get off the internet already jamie Posts: 197 Joined: 2022-06-28	somehow i feel bad because i feel like i'd just be copying someone elses style and that i have to come up with things myself idk (probably because am dumbdumb but feel like i have to not look dum) ;w;

olive	olive	Posted on 2022-08-14 22:25 (edited 2022-08-14 22:27) Link \| ID: 452
Posts: 48 Joined: 2022-06-29	I did Music for two years as a GCSE, and am not sure how I managed to get an ok grade. Been a clarinetist for as long as I remember, but damn I could not compose anything even when being taught about it. â€¦I'm a big "you just need to learn/practice" person, but with writing music… I'd be willing to believe you need some innate talent. Posted by Compa just be copying someone elses style Every form of art is just copying, they just call it inspiration. Genres exist for very good reason.

Compa	Compa please just get off the internet already jamie	Posted on 2022-08-14 23:12 (edited 2022-08-14 23:13) Link \| ID: 454
please just get off the internet already jamie Posts: 197 Joined: 2022-06-28	I'd be willing to believe you need some innate talent. honestly I believe it's this for basically anything (art, music, writing, acting, producing videos, etc) and that's why certain people make it and others just can't do things no matter what tbh the amount of people who are really capable and skilled at doing things on every community I go, just constantly makes me feel like I have to gtfo because I'm not useful to anyone

luatic	luatic	Posted on 2022-08-15 12:43 Link \| ID: 456
Posts: 43 Joined: 2022-06-16	I haven't composed any music and consider it mostly out of my reach, but here's how I think it might work. I'd argue that nowadays it's mostly trial and error. Songs are short and artists don't churn out too many of them. Simply smash a couple notes together on a paper, play it and see how it sounds. Then iterate on that. Getting good at this means (1) developing a feeling for what sounds good (being able to rate a melody) (2) figuring out how to improve a melody/theme and (3) developing good heuristics for all of this. Translating the "melody in your head" into a music sheet is nontrivial but supposedly can be learned.

ROllerozxa	ROllerozxa Site Admin	Posted on 2022-08-15 22:46 Link \| ID: 457
Site Admin Posts: 229 Joined: 2022-06-04	Posted by Compa somehow i feel bad because i feel like i'd just be copying someone elses style and that i have to come up with things myself idk (probably because am dumbdumb but feel like i have to not look dum) ;w; If you've ever listened to enough tracker music you would recognise that a large part of tracker music share the same samples. One example was when I was listening to Arcane Toaster's tracker music discography and noticed one sample that sounded eerily familiar to ones in aurora.mod's baseline. Seemingly she would have taken from the same sample library aurora.mod used, and I could recognise the instrument as "hey, it's that aurora.mod bass/drum sample", but it did not in any way feel unoriginal, because it was used in a completely new way.

Heredos	Heredos	Posted on 2022-08-16 07:14 Link \| ID: 459
Posts: 46 Joined: 2022-06-16	of course there is some sensibility to sound involved, but not only. music is math. just a loot of math. i haven't checked, but the math teacher of a friend, learnt piano just to be able to prove that music can be created through a formulae he created, and the music apparently souded more than decent. slapping the sounds in your head in a computer or a scoresheet is as hard as playing them with an instrument (i also played clarinet for quite some time), but it becomes easier with some ear training. also, if a short sample with a few notes sound good, this does not mean it will do good music. since music is all about surprising the listener, you can't just use a sample and loop it, you'll need to do slight modifications to this sample, change octave in the bass track or add a carefully crafted melody on top of it. but don't abuse and put too many surprising things in your song else the listener will just end up getting lost

Compa	Compa please just get off the internet already jamie	Posted on 2022-08-16 18:06 (edited 2022-08-16 18:06) Link \| ID: 460
please just get off the internet already jamie Posts: 197 Joined: 2022-06-28	explains why I seem useless around other men, I'm terrible at maths and lack spatial awareness tbh :c

WonderWeeaboo	WonderWeeaboo	Posted on 2022-08-19 00:24 Link \| ID: 470
Posts: 8 Joined: 2022-07-01	You don't need to know more than the very basics of Music Theory in order to start composing honestly, there are plenty of self-taught composers around, the first name that comes to mind being Nobuo Uematsu. I personally think hands-on experience with an actual Piano (and maybe any other Instrument may help but for actual inputting notes into a DAW you will require a Piano keyboard nonetheless) is still the best way to learn melody structure and get creative quickly, or maybe that's just me and I'm wrong, idunno. Still haven't tried making anything videogamey or melodically involved as I'm stuck with electronic music, plus I kinda suck at it and I never have good ideas.

LavaCreeperPeople	LavaCreeperPeople	Posted on 2023-09-19 15:05 Link \| ID: 695
Posts: 9 Joined: 2023-08-18	Creating bad music is more fun than creating good music.

Compa	Compa please just get off the internet already jamie	Posted on 2023-10-02 06:27 Link \| ID: 710
please just get off the internet already jamie Posts: 197 Joined: 2022-06-28	Posted by LavaCreeperPeople Creating bad music is more fun than creating good music. You only say that because you're also a n00b, though.

kittynunu	kittynunu	Posted on 2024-03-15 19:20 Link \| ID: 754
Posts: 4 Joined: 2024-03-14	Oooooh... I just stumbled upon the thread :3 Well, my response isn't exactly tracker music related since I don't compose tracker music at the moment. I have multiple methods of composing music. I often improvise on piano to spawn some new ideas and just let it flow. I would make recordings of my improvisations so I can preserve whatever I played. Also, people say that I'm a gifted musician, which might say something

ROllerozxa	ROllerozxa Site Admin	Posted on 2024-03-15 20:48 (edited 2024-03-15 20:51) Link \| ID: 755
Site Admin Posts: 229 Joined: 2022-06-04	Posted by kittynunu Also, people say that I'm a gifted musician, which might say something This might be why you're able to "just improvise", heh. ^^ Like if I were to "just improvise" it'd just be random noise and me moving around the keys trying to hear where the sound I'm thinking of would be. It's probably a combination of a lot of training and experience (and your perfect pitch certainly helps too) that makes you able to just sit down and improv play e.g. Cave Story's Mimiga Town soundtrack on piano and having it actually sound good. As for performing music on piano compared to tracker music, well, it's a lot more real time. You've got a lot more time to think when you're tracking when you're not performing it in real time. For me that makes it a bit easier because I can just feel around until I find the tone I'm looking for and have it sound okay when it's being played back. (Basically what I did with the Sudoku soundtrack... never been able to make anything better than that x3)

kittynunu	kittynunu	Posted on 2024-03-15 21:32 Link \| ID: 756
Posts: 4 Joined: 2024-03-14	Posted by ROllerozxa This might be why you're able to "just improvise", heh. ^^ (...) Thank you for your response! Back in the old days when I started improvising on piano (before I even knew the word "improvise"), it was also a lot of somewhat random noise with me just trying to find the right key to play. But I got better and better over time. Now I can sometimes compose some of my best songs from improvising. For instance, my song Sunset has some of its own history with how it came to be, but I would say that some parts of the song were made from my improvisations. And yes, my perfect pitch is definitely helpful. I have no idea where I would be today if it weren't for my perfect pitch, but I think I probably would've been a different person. You're right on the fact that performing music on piano is a lot more real time compared to writing a tracker music. But I would say that there are advantages and disadvantage with both improvising on that piano and tracking and this could vary from person to person. For me personally, I find that playing piano while making an audio recording is a very quick way to transfer my ideas onto something that preserves it. But when making a music in a tracker software or something like that and I'm entering the notes with a non-realtime step-by-step "method", I would often lose some good ideas and it makes it a bit hard for me to continue writing because my remaining ideas might turn into some garbage. But that doesn't mean I can't make music with a "non-realtime step-by-step method". In the beginning of my unfinished "5/4 Fmaj7" song, I actually just entered the notes in MuseScore, step by step and I didn't have piano with me when I started writing the song. But later on, I actually improvised on piano a bit, to help myself write the song further. I'm happy with how the song turned out so far and some people have listened to it and loved it!