You are absolutely right that people are often discouraged from composing, and that improvisation for a lot of people comes naturally, but simply isn't developed later on. My belief is that it's natural result of current educational system. We have massive educational system that is there to literally "produce" thousands of musicians who should later on work in orchestras, or teach in schools etc. To have that kind of massive system, you have to sacrifice something, and that is indeed true passion and inspiration. Educational system is there just to say "you have to learn this and that", and only by sheer luck you can stumble upon teacher with true passion and knowledge of improvisation. And music is in fact not really any kind of exception regarding that. For instance engineering can also be extremely creative, but the way it's been institutionalized, it usually isn't for the same reasons. But, fortunately, nowadays we have so so much information available online for those willing to learn, and that is great thing. In general I agree with almost everything in this video except one thing 🙂 Mozart definitely wasn't regular guy who has just been studying hard. He's one of a kind genius who was able to hear just once 6-part vocal performance, and later on transcribe it perfectly from memory. Nope, that's not something you can practice, that's pure genius and talent. Which of course doesn't mean that he hasn't been working a lot to develop his talent to maximum, but I believe it's quite important not to live in illusion that we are all the same regarding starting position, and we just have to put enough effort. It simply isn't like that, talent is extremely important as a kind of foundation for whatever we put upon it. That's why Mozart's father decided to sacrifice everything for his son once he recognized that talent in him. Nice video, thanks!
Fantastic comment and I agree with all your statements. The modern education system generally stamps out creativity and focuses more on passing the tests and answering questions correctly. But thankfully as you point out, we now have so much information online that can revitalise our creativity. Yes, Mozart was a genius and we certainly shouldn't believe that every musician can be like him. But I was using Mozart's quote more to illustrate the misconception that composers like him didn't work hard at it. No matter how talented someone is, they still need to be productive and consistent at their work. Talent is certainly an important ingredient. But from my experience, just about everyone has enough talent to compose something when given a framework or template. The quality will always vary according to people's talent, but I believe learning to compose is no less a mystery than learning an instrument :) Perhaps I came off the wrong way in this video about that, so I hope this comment clarifies it a bit - thanks for pointing that out!
Growing up in a family where we all sang and harmonized a lot and listened to plenty music, I learned how to sing, hear and re-create melodies and harmonies early on - in my head first. I'm convinced that this was foundational in eventually allowing me to hear new melodies and harmonies, and once I developed more knowledge of which chords serve as backdrops for different melodies (mostly through listening and marginal formal study), it helped get me on my way with writing - first with songs on guitar with simple accompaniment, and then later lots of songwriting and performance. It all took a big turn when I started studying classical guitar almost three years ago. Everything was new technically, and it felt like I was beginning again. I was hoping new music would come to me as well in this new instrumental, orchestral space. Eventually it did, and I wrote my first classical piece earlier this year (a roughly 3-minute piece with traditional and contemporary elements). My music writing is weak, so my instructor helped me with proper notation after my rudimentary effort at it - a good exercise in itself. It was a fun and rewarding diversion with my instructor, since ordinarily I'm trying to refine my playing of Bach, Brouwer, and Sor. I'd be happy to send it to you if you'd like, though it seems you have plenty of new music with you already. It's intermediate level and would be pretty easy for you. Sometimes I think composing requires developing trust and confidence in what we hear inside of us, new ideas, new musical forms and rhythms - and liking what we hear and getting past what others may think. It's a fascinating question - what are the factors that distinguish those who compose from those who don't? And what are the factors that cultivate compositional skills and experimentation? But for now, I'd propose singing, and singing practice, and listening to lots of different music (=ear training). And as someone whose theory-knowledge is still mediocre, I don't doubt that a good knowledge of theory (explicit and/or intuitive through study and experience) is very helpful in making certain compositional choices. Thanks for the writing encouragement and this thoughtful video, Daniel!
Thanks for the great comment! It's really interesting to hear about your experience and thoughts about singing, listening, and composing. I'd love to get a copy of your piece, please email it to creativeclassicalguitar@gmail.com
For me, my pieces do not write themselves, but I do discover them. Each idea or inspiration is a puzzle that I solve. There is only one right answer, and my job is to find it. Sometimes I struggle with finding it, and sometimes I can’t find it at all. I’ve been composing for 7 years now, completely self-taught, and this is the mindset I’ve learned to have. I know there are things I still need to improve on (mostly writing developments and orchestration), but I’m at the point where my works are at least convincing.
Awesome, that reminds me of a quote about composing being like sculpting. We have a block of material that we are moulding into an image, chipping away pieces until we come to make that vision into a reality :-)
A brilliant recap of good approaches and good attitudes when it comes to really doing composition; and a lot of great encouragements and kick-start tips to get people who are hesitant to compose to get going with composing! Thank you Daniel! And also thank you for mentioning Thu Le's performance.
Thank you for these insights, Daniel. Do you consider yourself more of a composer than a guitarist? Of course, you're great at both. As someone who's never got any formal music education, I've never even contemplated composing.
My pleasure! I'm actually trying to break down the divide between guitarist and composer, so I would call myself a guitarist that composes :-) I don't believe that formal music education is required for composing and that's also something I'd like to help change in people's belief system. Very often, a formal music education won't encourage composition, but lots of theory exercises. These exercises can help us compose, but don't give us a full picture. Instead, I believe starting off with composing is one of the best ways to develop your musical training, because you synthesise everything together - key signatures, time signatures, form, structure, counterpoint, harmony, texture, etc. I encourage you to give composing a go and you can start by taking a free challenge here: creativeclassicalguitarist.com/ Let me know anytime if you have questions!
Why a person shouldn't compose: you've never had an original thought in your life. In kindergarten you never made one drawing, the page was always blank. Whatever you hear, you can repeat flawlessly, and you can only repeat it flawlessly. You shouldn't compose. Why you should compose: you scribble on everything, and you have the relentless need to realize all of your ideas. All of your books have doodles. You played the rubber band, by ear. You whistled, and warbled much to the chagrin of all around you. You might have asked, "Do you hear what I hear?" but usually it was, "I just thought of this!" You should compose.
Interesting point! I would say that most, if not all children are creative? I couldn't imagine a child not wanting to draw, scribble and paint if offered the chance?! I think as we grow older, then creativity is stamped out of us. But I think you raise a good point in that some people's personality will be more inclined towards being creative than others, especially as we grow older.
Nicely put! I think a lot of people would even think that bad composing is a mystery though! People won't even try because it seems like a mystery. Once someone learn just a little bit about compositional craft, then it's quite difficult for things to sound bad (at least from what I've seen/heard). If we listen to what the great composers said, it seems that good composing requires a large volume of consistent hard work and study. Bach and Mozart's quotes really speak to that :-)
Hey! Great video! Would anyone here know where I could get a good overview of compositional techniques and theory that would help someone develop compositions from a scaffolding of sorts which would be based in sections of a piece? I feel like I’ve been winging it for years and this video makes me want to tackle it from that angle. Thanks!
Hi! There's a Composing pathway in my online school that provides an overview of compositional techniques and theory. It would be challenging to put it all into one video. Feel free to schedule in a chat with me and I can show you what techniques and theory you could learn: creativeclassicalguitarist.com/contact
I assume that it's because people think composing is all about the notation... and notation looks very odd to them. That isn't true, as composing relies on concepts that organize your ideas to express them into an actual song, that in the past was learning through notation, assimilating composition with notation. Plus, notation isn't hard to read nor learn either, nor will be the actual mean to write music (as DAWs are more flexible than notation scorer programs in my opinion).
That's a great point, thanks for sharing! I totally agree that notation can seem daunting, but with today's technology, it's never been easier to use notation. And then we have DAW's, recording, etc. that makes it possible to compose without notation too. I've done that in the past using loops and really enjoyed it :)
@@DanielNistico And whenever someone asks me how to make music, I always recommend them to check Music Theory for Producers course by MusicTechHelpGuy, as he teaches composition concepts with a DAW, notation and examples with songs too. It unlocked for me how music actually works
@@ST52655 that's totally cool! I love so much piano music that currently exists, so I think it's easy to be satisfied with what's already out there. Is improvising something you'd like to try?
People shouldn't be encouraged to compose: they should be strongly driven from within, finding it hard NOT to compose. Without spontaneous inspiration, musical ideas are not likely to sparkle, to charm and engage. Too many floundering egos these days looking to identify as artists. Don't make it easy; make them earn it, make it lean on passion.
Glad you are as far as I would guess not in charge of educating children. Quaint notion you position. Show me how encouraging children and non children to give fair attempt to (whatever) outside of their usual zone is somehow going to cheat their experience or the quality of the outcome.
You're confusing being driven with passion, and also encouragement. Being encouraged isn't a bad thing, it's what helps kids, and even adults go try things they might not have, out of fear of failure or not being good enough. Being driven isn't the same as passion from within. Being driven is like addiction, compulsion. It's like Westerners think encouragement is some kind of authoritarianism, while being driven, like a person who just won't give in, even if it actually hurts him to the point of chronic injury.
Paul Simon often had to really work through sculpting his compositions and ideas often from nothing, just a blank paper. They didn't come to him easily and that's evidence that the whole spontaneous inspiration being the best way is a myth.
Would you say this about literally any field? "People shouldn't be encouraged to play soccer, they should be strongly driven from within." Of course not. How tf are people supposed to know if they're interested in composing if they're never encouraged to even try? "Too many floundering egos this day looking to identify as artists" is at best a separate problem, at worst it's just you getting irritated at people being getting told "good job" when they're not as good as Mozart. There's no hobby of mine I'd like to gatekeep, I don't understand the appeal.
I see your point and know where you're coming from. But from my experience, many people in classical music are discouraged from composing. Only when people try it, then will some get a fire lit and have a burning desire to compose. The people whose published books I showed in the video are examples of this. They were never encouraged to even try composing, or they just didn't know how to start. Once they had the starting point, then off they went with their own motivation to fuel them. I don't think there are too many floundering egos trying to identify as artists in the classical music world. I believe we could use WAY more creative artists in this space. But perhaps in other spaces of music it could be an issue nowadays with technology making some forms of composition so easy, like using AI for example. Anyway, thanks for your comment - it has sparked some interesting conversations!
You are absolutely right that people are often discouraged from composing, and that improvisation for a lot of people comes naturally, but simply isn't developed later on.
My belief is that it's natural result of current educational system. We have massive educational system that is there to literally "produce" thousands of musicians who should later on work in orchestras, or teach in schools etc. To have that kind of massive system, you have to sacrifice something, and that is indeed true passion and inspiration.
Educational system is there just to say "you have to learn this and that", and only by sheer luck you can stumble upon teacher with true passion and knowledge of improvisation.
And music is in fact not really any kind of exception regarding that. For instance engineering can also be extremely creative, but the way it's been institutionalized, it usually isn't for the same reasons. But, fortunately, nowadays we have so so much information available online for those willing to learn, and that is great thing.
In general I agree with almost everything in this video except one thing 🙂
Mozart definitely wasn't regular guy who has just been studying hard. He's one of a kind genius who was able to hear just once 6-part vocal performance, and later on transcribe it perfectly from memory. Nope, that's not something you can practice, that's pure genius and talent.
Which of course doesn't mean that he hasn't been working a lot to develop his talent to maximum, but I believe it's quite important not to live in illusion that we are all the same regarding starting position, and we just have to put enough effort. It simply isn't like that, talent is extremely important as a kind of foundation for whatever we put upon it.
That's why Mozart's father decided to sacrifice everything for his son once he recognized that talent in him.
Nice video, thanks!
Awesome comment!
Fantastic comment and I agree with all your statements. The modern education system generally stamps out creativity and focuses more on passing the tests and answering questions correctly. But thankfully as you point out, we now have so much information online that can revitalise our creativity.
Yes, Mozart was a genius and we certainly shouldn't believe that every musician can be like him. But I was using Mozart's quote more to illustrate the misconception that composers like him didn't work hard at it. No matter how talented someone is, they still need to be productive and consistent at their work. Talent is certainly an important ingredient. But from my experience, just about everyone has enough talent to compose something when given a framework or template. The quality will always vary according to people's talent, but I believe learning to compose is no less a mystery than learning an instrument :) Perhaps I came off the wrong way in this video about that, so I hope this comment clarifies it a bit - thanks for pointing that out!
@@DanielNistico "No matter how talented someone is, they still need to be productive and consistent at their work."
Absolutely!
Nice video, people should be encouraged to try. Oftentimes the best way to understand music is to write some of your own.
Yes, composing is probably the best way to understand music :-) Thanks for your comment!
Growing up in a family where we all sang and harmonized a lot and listened to plenty music, I learned how to sing, hear and re-create melodies and harmonies early on - in my head first. I'm convinced that this was foundational in eventually allowing me to hear new melodies and harmonies, and once I developed more knowledge of which chords serve as backdrops for different melodies (mostly through listening and marginal formal study), it helped get me on my way with writing - first with songs on guitar with simple accompaniment, and then later lots of songwriting and performance. It all took a big turn when I started studying classical guitar almost three years ago. Everything was new technically, and it felt like I was beginning again. I was hoping new music would come to me as well in this new instrumental, orchestral space. Eventually it did, and I wrote my first classical piece earlier this year (a roughly 3-minute piece with traditional and contemporary elements). My music writing is weak, so my instructor helped me with proper notation after my rudimentary effort at it - a good exercise in itself. It was a fun and rewarding diversion with my instructor, since ordinarily I'm trying to refine my playing of Bach, Brouwer, and Sor. I'd be happy to send it to you if you'd like, though it seems you have plenty of new music with you already. It's intermediate level and would be pretty easy for you.
Sometimes I think composing requires developing trust and confidence in what we hear inside of us, new ideas, new musical forms and rhythms - and liking what we hear and getting past what others may think. It's a fascinating question - what are the factors that distinguish those who compose from those who don't? And what are the factors that cultivate compositional skills and experimentation? But for now, I'd propose singing, and singing practice, and listening to lots of different music (=ear training). And as someone whose theory-knowledge is still mediocre, I don't doubt that a good knowledge of theory (explicit and/or intuitive through study and experience) is very helpful in making certain compositional choices.
Thanks for the writing encouragement and this thoughtful video, Daniel!
Thanks for the great comment! It's really interesting to hear about your experience and thoughts about singing, listening, and composing. I'd love to get a copy of your piece, please email it to creativeclassicalguitar@gmail.com
Thanks, Daniel. A timely video clip.
Thanks Bill! Was there a particular point you found most helpful?
Great video Mate 🎉
Thanks mate!
For me, my pieces do not write themselves, but I do discover them. Each idea or inspiration is a puzzle that I solve. There is only one right answer, and my job is to find it. Sometimes I struggle with finding it, and sometimes I can’t find it at all.
I’ve been composing for 7 years now, completely self-taught, and this is the mindset I’ve learned to have. I know there are things I still need to improve on (mostly writing developments and orchestration), but I’m at the point where my works are at least convincing.
Awesome, that reminds me of a quote about composing being like sculpting. We have a block of material that we are moulding into an image, chipping away pieces until we come to make that vision into a reality :-)
What do you write for? If you write for guitar, then I'd love to see some of your music!
@@DanielNistico nothing for guitar sadly. I mostly compose for string quartet or orchestra.
A brilliant recap of good approaches and good attitudes when it comes to really doing composition; and a lot of great encouragements and kick-start tips to get people who are hesitant to compose to get going with composing! Thank you Daniel! And also thank you for mentioning Thu Le's performance.
Thanks Khiem!!
Nice video Daniel and good explanation of why you write a melody first
Thanks Sam! But you do such a great job with harmony too! Loved your latest piece :)
Thank you for these insights, Daniel. Do you consider yourself more of a composer than a guitarist? Of course, you're great at both.
As someone who's never got any formal music education, I've never even contemplated composing.
My pleasure! I'm actually trying to break down the divide between guitarist and composer, so I would call myself a guitarist that composes :-) I don't believe that formal music education is required for composing and that's also something I'd like to help change in people's belief system. Very often, a formal music education won't encourage composition, but lots of theory exercises. These exercises can help us compose, but don't give us a full picture. Instead, I believe starting off with composing is one of the best ways to develop your musical training, because you synthesise everything together - key signatures, time signatures, form, structure, counterpoint, harmony, texture, etc. I encourage you to give composing a go and you can start by taking a free challenge here: creativeclassicalguitarist.com/
Let me know anytime if you have questions!
Why a person shouldn't compose: you've never had an original thought in your life. In kindergarten you never made one drawing, the page was always blank. Whatever you hear, you can repeat flawlessly, and you can only repeat it flawlessly. You shouldn't compose.
Why you should compose: you scribble on everything, and you have the relentless need to realize all of your ideas. All of your books have doodles. You played the rubber band, by ear. You whistled, and warbled much to the chagrin of all around you. You might have asked, "Do you hear what I hear?" but usually it was, "I just thought of this!" You should compose.
Interesting point! I would say that most, if not all children are creative? I couldn't imagine a child not wanting to draw, scribble and paint if offered the chance?! I think as we grow older, then creativity is stamped out of us. But I think you raise a good point in that some people's personality will be more inclined towards being creative than others, especially as we grow older.
Bad composing is not a mystery. Good composing is s mystery
Nicely put! I think a lot of people would even think that bad composing is a mystery though! People won't even try because it seems like a mystery. Once someone learn just a little bit about compositional craft, then it's quite difficult for things to sound bad (at least from what I've seen/heard). If we listen to what the great composers said, it seems that good composing requires a large volume of consistent hard work and study. Bach and Mozart's quotes really speak to that :-)
Hey! Great video! Would anyone here know where I could get a good overview of compositional techniques and theory that would help someone develop compositions from a scaffolding of sorts which would be based in sections of a piece? I feel like I’ve been winging it for years and this video makes me want to tackle it from that angle. Thanks!
Hi! There's a Composing pathway in my online school that provides an overview of compositional techniques and theory. It would be challenging to put it all into one video. Feel free to schedule in a chat with me and I can show you what techniques and theory you could learn: creativeclassicalguitarist.com/contact
I assume that it's because people think composing is all about the notation... and notation looks very odd to them. That isn't true, as composing relies on concepts that organize your ideas to express them into an actual song, that in the past was learning through notation, assimilating composition with notation. Plus, notation isn't hard to read nor learn either, nor will be the actual mean to write music (as DAWs are more flexible than notation scorer programs in my opinion).
That's a great point, thanks for sharing! I totally agree that notation can seem daunting, but with today's technology, it's never been easier to use notation. And then we have DAW's, recording, etc. that makes it possible to compose without notation too. I've done that in the past using loops and really enjoyed it :)
@@DanielNistico And whenever someone asks me how to make music, I always recommend them to check Music Theory for Producers course by MusicTechHelpGuy, as he teaches composition concepts with a DAW, notation and examples with songs too. It unlocked for me how music actually works
I’m a pianist and I don’t want to compose anything.
@@ST52655 that's totally cool! I love so much piano music that currently exists, so I think it's easy to be satisfied with what's already out there. Is improvising something you'd like to try?
People shouldn't be encouraged to compose: they should be strongly driven from within, finding it hard NOT to compose. Without spontaneous inspiration, musical ideas are not likely to sparkle, to charm and engage. Too many floundering egos these days looking to identify as artists. Don't make it easy; make them earn it, make it lean on passion.
Glad you are as far as I would guess not in charge of educating children. Quaint notion you position. Show me how encouraging children and non children to give fair attempt to (whatever) outside of their usual zone is somehow going to cheat their experience or the quality of the outcome.
You're confusing being driven with passion, and also encouragement. Being encouraged isn't a bad thing, it's what helps kids, and even adults go try things they might not have, out of fear of failure or not being good enough. Being driven isn't the same as passion from within. Being driven is like addiction, compulsion. It's like Westerners think encouragement is some kind of authoritarianism, while being driven, like a person who just won't give in, even if it actually hurts him to the point of chronic injury.
Paul Simon often had to really work through sculpting his compositions and ideas often from nothing, just a blank paper. They didn't come to him easily and that's evidence that the whole spontaneous inspiration being the best way is a myth.
Would you say this about literally any field? "People shouldn't be encouraged to play soccer, they should be strongly driven from within." Of course not. How tf are people supposed to know if they're interested in composing if they're never encouraged to even try? "Too many floundering egos this day looking to identify as artists" is at best a separate problem, at worst it's just you getting irritated at people being getting told "good job" when they're not as good as Mozart. There's no hobby of mine I'd like to gatekeep, I don't understand the appeal.
I see your point and know where you're coming from. But from my experience, many people in classical music are discouraged from composing. Only when people try it, then will some get a fire lit and have a burning desire to compose. The people whose published books I showed in the video are examples of this. They were never encouraged to even try composing, or they just didn't know how to start. Once they had the starting point, then off they went with their own motivation to fuel them. I don't think there are too many floundering egos trying to identify as artists in the classical music world. I believe we could use WAY more creative artists in this space. But perhaps in other spaces of music it could be an issue nowadays with technology making some forms of composition so easy, like using AI for example. Anyway, thanks for your comment - it has sparked some interesting conversations!