Hey everyone, I'm new

[Guinn]

I'm Guinn. I have a decent musical background and know my basic musical theory.

And I have absolutely no idea how the heck I compose music.

For one thing, I cannot find a melody that suits my desire and whenever I do come to one that I like, I look at it further and find it's basically a copy of a melody I liked from another song. The same goes when I try to create melodies from chord progressions, the chords are exactly like another song. As somewhat of a reference, I'm aiming to compose kind of soundtrack type music and I listen to plenty of John Williams, Hans Zimmer, as well as several Romantic Era composers as well, and somehow whenever I'm trying to create something, they always seem to influence it far too much.

I love it when a song can sound like an emotion, or a color, or create a portrait of a personality (my favorite example of this is John Williams's Leia's Theme from Star Wars).

Can anyone give me some beginner's tips?

[Dr_Dissonance]

Greetings Guinn and welcome to the forums!

1) Listen to more modern classical, there's some really REALLY emotional pieces found there! (I'm not bias or anything)

2) Creating a chord progression exactly like another song is an unfortunate, but common occurence...the trick is to make the song itself sound different to the song it resembles through the other aspects of music, such as rhythm, timbre, etc...

3) This is more of a question: What programs do you use? And depending on the answer, someone here will be able to give you a hand at using them effectively!

4) With Classical (or 'soundtracks' as you effectionally call it), think about what would sound good where! So, even if you've finished a section of strings and love it, listen to it some more and think 'what else would sound good here?' That's how I tend to create the real complicated layers that crop up in my works...

5) Learn from everyone! Ask questions, even if you think they're silly, chances are, they're not!

There's plenty more tips to tell, but they can either be told later, or you'll figure them out real quick!
Enjoy your time here!

[bartekko]

1. get a musical instrument, preferably with a piano keyboard

1.5. (optional) learn music theory

2. bang your head on the instrument (or simply improvise till you find something that sounds good, if you like this way better) NOTE: if you want to make it themed somehow, make sure to get in the mood by i.e. watching a load of star wars, and putting leia near yourself

3. add a bit of this, a bit of that

4.???

5. profit


6. go to 2

[Guinn]

Well, I figured I could just figure it out once I got the ball rolling a bit but right now I'm writing in Musescore, have Kontakt 4 + Symphobia as well as FL Studio 10. Not really sure how to use instruments made in Kontakt in FL Studio but I think I'll just worry about the actual music first before getting into the mixing, unless I can do both at once with the other programs. Musescore's MIDI interpretation of notes is terrible at best

Edit: Most of my terminology comes from learning piano and I'm not sure if it's a general thing but I learned that Classical era included composers like Bach and Mozart and had a very different style of music from more modern day music in soundtracks. In other words, I don't think calling "soundtrack" music soundtrack is affectionate, and I'm quite certain it is not correctly called Classical.

[Dr_Dissonance]

Text

Argument time!

I'm referring to the genre, not the period...
You'd be right with the period, that style of music is far different to modern day soundtrack-style!
But with the genre, it applies to all instrumental music involving instruments from the orchestra.
I don't like seperating 'classical' and 'orchestral' (which I know you didn't use that word, but most people call soundtracks that) as it implies that they should be thought of as seperate...when that is completely not the case...

But anyway, I'm just being an elitist douche as usual, so ignore me! Welcome to the forums!!!

[Guinn]

Text

Argument time!

I'm referring to the genre, not the period...
You'd be right with the period, that style of music is far different to modern day soundtrack-style!
But with the genre, it applies to all instrumental music involving instruments from the orchestra.
I don't like seperating 'classical' and 'orchestral' (which I know you didn't use that word, but most people call soundtracks that) as it implies that they should be thought of as seperate...when that is completely not the case...

But anyway, I'm just being an elitist douche as usual, so ignore me! Welcome to the forums!!!

Haha, don't worry about it, I do that all the time. Again, if we mean the same thing then I doubt it matters. If I see classical used a lot to mean involving instruments of the orchestra, then I'll start using that. Until then I will just go with whatever I'm most comfortable with.

On another note, I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with the instrument samples I have in Kontakt. Google searches appear to not help either. Someone help a poor newbie?

[Dr_Dissonance]

Have you got them working in Kontakt yet? Usually, you use Kontakt as a plugin for your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) which in your case, is FL Studio 10! Check to see if they work in Kontakt, then check to see if your Kontakt works in FL Studio!

[Guinn]

Have you got them working in Kontakt yet? Usually, you use Kontakt as a plugin for your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) which in your case, is FL Studio 10! Check to see if they work in Kontakt, then check to see if your Kontakt works in FL Studio!

...I have no idea what you just said T_T Symphobia works in Kontakt, I can play stuff in there, but past that I really have no idea what I'm doing.

Again, forgive my total lack of knowledge here lol.

[Darktrot]

Welcome Guinn
Simply Do what feels right.
All of us really just Fuck around till we find something that sounds neat Dont control yourself to one thing. Experiment.

[Dr_Dissonance]

...I have no idea what you just said T_T Symphobia works in Kontakt, I can play stuff in there, but past that I really have no idea what I'm doing.

Again, forgive my total lack of knowledge here lol.

That's quite alright...I'm not familiar with FL Studio, but I believe you can load Kontakt into it and have, say, the piano roll play what instrument you have loaded into it!

But like I said, I'm not familiar with FL Studio, add me on Skype if you have it (Dr_Dissonance) and I'll add you to various places in order to find someone who knows FL Studio better!

[Tsyolin]

Have you got them working in Kontakt yet? Usually, you use Kontakt as a plugin for your DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) which in your case, is FL Studio 10! Check to see if they work in Kontakt, then check to see if your Kontakt works in FL Studio!

...I have no idea what you just said T_T Symphobia works in Kontakt, I can play stuff in there, but past that I really have no idea what I'm doing.

Again, forgive my total lack of knowledge here lol.

Well I'm sure I can give you a hand with this if you get into Skype. I use Kontakt and FL Studio for all of my projects.

[Interrobang Pie]

All this advice is bull. The only steps are make music and get feedback. Rinse and repeat infinitely.