What got you into composition?

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[nickamandote]

oh.. i'm an amateur but i first started out when i was 13-14 years old and i've built my first improvised instrument: a guitar with violin strings and also composed my first song. many years later i started to use computers and im still learning more today... anyway i guess music it's in my blood since my father and uncle also play an instrument.

[ariston]

I really got into composition with Mike Oldfield's Amarok, which led me to discover his older albums. The idea of one man writing and recording all of that shit got me so excited I started writing sheet music and recording and overdubbing on to two tape recorders with a 5$ Grand Canyon souvenir drum, a 100$ Yamaha keyboard and my mom's cheap acoustic classical guitar. I wrecked that last one, because I unknowingly restrung it with STEEL strings (doh!). Boy, was she mad (but she never played the damn thing anyway, and only knew three chords so what the hell).

I'd written one song before, which my organ teacher let me record in his studio as a sort of going-away present (we were moving to the States). It was a hugely complex 6 minute epic, and a pastiche of early Genesis and 1982-era Dire Straits. Painful to listen to now, but youthful enthusiasm goes a long way. He let me use his M1, DX7, and TR-808, and that was great, but the vocals took three hours, because I was so shy I sang like a timid mouse with larynx problems.

[ObsoleteAcc99]

[DELETED]

[mutantdog]

I wanted to be a guitarist when i was a kid. I wasn't that interested in learning or playing the instrument, it was more the idea of being a guitarist that appealed to me. I got on a little better with bass but still lacked the drive to really learn it. I leaned more naturally towards drums but, being the sort of kid i was, i didn't want to be a drummer sat at the back of someone else's band.

I was always quite into computers so when i discovered Octamed for the Amiga i was hooked. I didn't need to play anything in real time, i could create whole songs, i could construct every part and change bits easily without having to re-do everything, i could make rhythms and melodies out of any sound i could get my hands on. Everything that had previously held me back didn't matter any more.

Of course, the limitations were there back then, it was all samples and HD space was pitiful. I didn't understand music theory, although i learned a lot about rhythms during this time. I had a good sense of song structure although, coming from a heavy metal background, it was something of a struggle to translate this to such a different format. I later discovered dance music and all the wealth of electronic styles out there and it all made more sense.

By my late teens, like many others my priorities changed greatly. DJing became my primary music outlet, my interest in the technical side of audio shifted to sound systems and my day-job took up much of the rest of my time. I still tinkered with making tracks to play out using Sony Acid (then Sonic Foundry) but never had the time to fully commit to making tracks in any big way.

It's really since my thirties that I've gotten into composition and production in great depth. Having access to the sort of tools available now means i can create the sort of things I'd never previously imagined I'd ever be able to. Moving away from DJing freed me from the boundaries of genre and the influence of the dancefloor. While i consider myself to be more a producer/engineer/designer in terms of skill set, its only really in these last few years i feel like a real composer.

[bluedad]

Got my first guitar, a cheap electric at Christmas 1964. I was 9 yrs old. Under the tree Christmas 1968 was a classical guitar and the Beatles white album. I received a bit of money from my grandmother, and at a music store, I bought a book of the White album transcribed. So, over the school holiday I was immersed in the Beatles. It was also during that holiday that I had the thought that I, too, could write a song. So I did!
It was horrible, all I remember now is the title, Mints.
But that started a landslide of writing, which I did all the time. I would always write lyrics first, and then come up with something on guitar.
Ironic now, I struggle with lyrics today. Back then the words just flowed...
When McCartney's first album came out, he played all the instruments, and I thought, yeah I want to do that too!
So there were reel to reels, sound on sound, the revolutionary Fostex 4 track cassette, midi and computers in the 80's until Steinberg vst
technology gave us what we have today.

[aMUSEd]

I used to be a guitarist primarily but lost full use of my left hand getting assaulted by a NeoNazi so switched to keyboards. I'm an OK ish keyboard player but not great as my left hand is still rather clumsy so I use the computer to compensate for my limitations, plus I always loved electronic music and modern classical, experimental prog and jazz and try to combine all of those influences in my weird creations.

[ATN69]

My parents bought me a toy keyboard 1971. I was 2 years old. By the time I was 3 years old I played my first melodies that I picked out by listening to the radio. The very first song I learned to play was "we shall overcome". My parents was nice enough to buy better keyboards for me and when I was about 8 years old I compose my own music. Already then it was kind of synth pop music. The local radio station came to my house and made a recoding of my music and it was played in the radio. In the 80's me and some friends started a synth pop group and we had a lot of gigs. At the age of 16 I went to music academy. I like classic music but I really cant play it because my finger technique is not correct. I did not have any proper teacher in my younger years and I was already used to my own finger technique. I just could not un-learn and learn the right way. In music school I got into Jazz music. Since then I love Jazz and especially to play it. I worked with some friends at Pama records in Sweden. One of my friends still work there. But in the end I never choose music as a carrier. Now I just make music for fun. Its my hobby. Like Theo I am now an EDM head but I still like to make various kinds of music. I cant focus with just one genre.

[harryupbabble]

Initially, the thought "Writing a song can't be that hard, I want to do that." is what got me into composition. Subsequently, the thought "Today, I played all these speed scrabble games and had fun and got adrenalized but at the end of the day I have not created anything." is what keeps me trying to compose songs.

Although I think creating something good has got to be good for the ego... maybe creating something bad is the next best thing because "it's better than nothing". The idea of nothing is just so depressing. Got to have something. Anything. It's okay to say that because when was the last time a composition wasn't constructive? I thought Crazy Train was a destructive song but really it isn't, it seems. Misinterpretation is probably the worse it can get?

Composing is a great activity. Got to be active. Get into that ye all. The result of that activity can benefit other people too. Songs can change bad mood to good mood. And other people's songs have made more than a few headaches go away. And maybe influenza too. And if desired, good mood can be changed to bad mood. Her Friday song did that to you? You rediscovered disgust? How powerful is that? It's more powerful than drugs in some cases? Maybe even better than what Walter White made? Maybe even better than vandalizing and more gratifying than graffiti? Debatable, some might say.