TOP 10 COMPOSING HACKS!

Just Received my first orchestral commission (15 minutes): this will be usefull!

For me best example of imitation of nature is in Beethoven 5th symphony 4 part. The part of climax sounds like a rooster 🐔 (kotkodaak)

Brilliant video. I have always whistled my ideas into my voice recorder app on my phone. There must be countless people thinking I'm a weirdo as I rush to the nearest quiet spot I can find just to whistle something only I'll later be able to understand later on. Worst of all, my wife once asked if I was having an affair based on this behaviour in the house. That said, I think my main hacks are to think about emotions and then audience reaction right from the start. If a piece's only redeeming feature is that I composed it, the sad truth is it is probably rubbish and needs to go in the bin.

Reminds me of a hack I once used, random scale, put note names, naturals and sharps on paper snippets, throw them in a hat, draw randomly 8 (or some other number :) ), that is now your scale. Then compose music based on this.

Exactly the kind of video i was looking for! Tyvm

good thumbnail! i click

I really like your “what comes next” hack. It strikes me as a fantastic way to use others’ creativity to spark your own!

very funny about the phone advice...I do exactly the same and I thought I was the only one...

All things return to their source. Without love, compositions are organized sound and not music. There is your hack.

I have so many short recording from smart phones it would probably take me over a year to categorize it all 😅

I had a few melodic ideas come to me during nightmares or as hypnogogic hallucinations I had during times of immense stress, depression or insomnia. These were sometimes accompanied by truly horrific imagery and the melodic ideas are quite mournful and uncanny. I’ve had this happen 11 times since early 2020. I wish I could have such musical ideas in my waking life.

"You're not a real composer if you use technology"
David Wise enters the chat

I love your accent. It reminds me of my friend from England who I could talk about classical music with for hours. Now he’s in Tel Aviv. :,) Keep up the great work.

For fact 1 (collect instruments): I've recently been given a saxoflute - a toy desgined for children. It has many segments to change the length of the tube. Three of them have finger holes. It has a fipple for a mouthpiece, but despite this (and its name ), it's a brass instrument. I've been experimenting with harmonics, and shorter or longer instruments. It has helped my understanding of how brass player play. (I'm a woodwind/keyboard player, and this had only been a theoretical understanding before.)

There should be voice dictation apps for the physically handicapped but would like to compose music

What does an independent musician do to get their service as composer commissioned for someone elses projects? I struggle to find a market for my main skill, and frankly it is a bit disheartening. Spent near 15 or so years trying to find a foothold where I could make a living off of one of the few things I can do really well and time has degraded my intrinsic motivation to compose and make artwork.

This creates a second problem for me to overcome, I must rekindle my intrinsic motivation to compose somehow in addition to finding my niche market.

This video somehow feels like it helped me to feel a bit more motivated, I heard music in my head as I imagined the woodwinds with the french horn.

One tip for recording yourself - if you can, be really clear with your notes - it sucks trying to transcribe yourself when you can't tell what you were humming! So maybe go a bit slow and use "dums" or something consistent. And... if you can do it with a metronome, it might be a bonus, but you gotta stay in the moment of course! :)

Is this the same voice from head space?

It's a shame they haven't shown the For Schools TV series episode once again but in the evening which features an interview with George Fenton as he composes with computer software.

Composers when see other composers composing in the pc: patetique

Then David Bruce recommends it: faNtAStiquE

Thank you very much David! I need to use all the hacks you mentioned! Kind regards.

Notation is one area where software hasn't quite caught up

I think that 'don't use the piano caveat' is a very, very silly idea. Great video!

Some nice starting ideas. Thanks for this.

8 guitars about to get 9.. Step One:Done

My smartphone has no audio recorder... so smart.

A bit late to the party but composing contrafacts is a great way to get the ball rolling. Take the changes of a Bach partita or a jazz standard etc. and impose your own melody. Then, if you see fit, you can adjust the harmony to your liking.

It was such a relief to find out that you record different melodies and rhythms on your phone with your mouth. I do this all the time, and if anyone ever heard them, I'd be committed.

I am sure you have and probably done a video about it, has Dorico Pro come across your path yet? Looks like you are using Sibelius. A lot of Sibelius and Finale people have moved over to Dorico as it is a more modern and user friendly iteration of music notation software developed by the original creators of Sibelius for Cubase. Great tips some of which I have used including the restrictions one in the form of a piece for piano only using 3 notes for the melody. Fantastic channel mate. I have to ask though, are you spending more time creating editing and producing these videos than actual composing?

The way you have the instruments hanging in the background looks really cool! What is the spring thing for?

My favorite hack: Having a French Horn in the background and talking about it but never actually playing it. This is not a joke, please play the horn David please.

I'm not gonna lie, I use some tech to compose. I use Musescore, and that's because of my hand-writing.

Edit: Sibelius and Finale are way too damn expensive. I'm a black person in American with a Micky D's salary, can't afford that.

The Study of Orchestration by Samuel Adler has coverage of extended techniques. It is very expensive.

Not really what I expected. I thought this would be about "hack" composers.

Complement for tip n°3. Have a Reefer as well.💚

Thanks for the video. Do one of those books tell you how to transpose from one key to another?

pention to limit "top 10s" for music to only "top 9" because the curse of the 9th

such a freak weirdo,mate..

So if we have to collect instruments, we also need to learn the basics of each of them, right?

i want full pdf version books on of a this video ???!!!!

Awesome ! haha my phone is full of "peeree tee piri paree"

You said you draw inspiration from visual imagery; would you take a look at Mandubulb videos, or other 3D fractal imagery? I am interested in where that might take you.

Amazing video, but can we talk about how adorable that lego piano bit was 😍

Hack: listen to some unfamiliar music at really low volume, so you can't really make out the melody, and allow your imagination to fill in whatever you're uncertain about. be sure to have a recording device on standby for note taking. (You can also do this by going into another room from the music source or running a loud machine in the vicinity to make it hard to hear).
another one that i haven't used yet but i've heard of: play 2 pieces of music at the same time and see what the mesh and clash of them produces in your imagination.
i also tend to get good ideas when i'm falling asleep or waking up.
i ALWAYS carry a recording device with me. you never know when inspiration will hit.

I absolutely love variations in any form, but reading most of the comments, Nobody mentioned Brahms' Haydn Variations (also known als variations on the St. Anthony Choral) or Dohnany's Variations on a Nurserey Rhyme. The most popular is probably Mozart's take on the same theme.

David, you’re tips are priceless!! As is your channel! Thank you!