Composer Roll Call! Liven Up This Sub-Forum! (1 Viewer)

[ur_inner_child]

Come on you composers, dead already?

If you have elected Composition in music, please state your course, your composition period (eg 1920's etc) and tell us a bit about your composition!

How far into the process are you? What are you writing for? What are your thoughts on the course as well as your own work?

Tell us about yourself!

I'll start

Course: University - B Music (Composition) 2nd Year
Composition Period: Avante Garde and Modern elements
How Far into the Process are you? Dangerously far behind. Mine's due next month and I've only got three pages!
What are you writing for? A three piece vocal ensemble (alto, tenor, baritone) & piano
What are you thoughts? On my majorwork, utterly terrible. But it will pick up soon, I can feel it.

 

[Phanatical]

Course: University - B Arts and B MusStudies (formerly B Mus (Comp)), fourth year.
Composition Period: Contemporary Classical
How Far into the Process are you? Early
What are you writing? Piano Concerto
What are you thoughts? It still sounds like a Rachmaninov ripoff.

 

[AmenoKitarou]

Course: HSC Music Extension Composition
Composition Period: Modern-ish (??)
How far in the progress: worse than the thread starter....I got three pieces due in 6 weeks....I got 3 pages....

Wat r u writing?: a violin and Piano piece, a cello duet, a violin duet.

What r ur thoughts:....itz funky~

 

[ur_inner_child]

Bump!

 

[AmenoKitarou]

whoa this is a rare sight....a mod who bumps threads lol~

anyways I'm here to say.....WOOOHOOO!!!

I finished my Music 2 composition 2 months ago, and I finished one of my two extension conpositions just ten~!!!!
WOOHOOO~!!!!

 

[ur_inner_child]

Wow good work! What one is the third one that you have to do?

The violin duet?

 

[AmenoKitarou]

The ones I've finished:

Music 2 core: A piece with 2 shakuhachi's (japanese flute) a piano and maracas. The style imitates Japanese music.

Extension: Piano solo (the cello duet didn't turn out good). A piece with contemporary feel. Difficulty level should be around... 8th grade- Amus level.


The one I have to finish: the violin duet. Using two violins, I'm attempting to imitate the tone colour and style of old Chinese festival music, working on the pentatonic scale.

 

[Shoeless]

hey,
ummm nothing fancy here, im doing music 1 and im doing 3 elective comps; a bit of a swing piece for a small jazz band, a more reggae piece and a pop ballad for piano, violin and bass...ive started thinking about doing some more classical and digital comps for uni auditions as theyre coming round pretty soon and id like to get into a Bmusic or something like that specialising in comp. country bumpkin that i am,i dunno if im gonna get into syd straight away but im sure as hell gonna try. wats it like studying at the con??is it all classically based?? is there any digital/recording course....and wat are u guys planning on doing afterwards?? composing/teaching???

 

[AmenoKitarou]

I'm teaching Piano already~

 

[Shoeless]

but is that it, u know??? is that all ur gonna do after you've finished ur degree??? i mean, ur doing music ext right so chances are ur getting into the con, wat r u gonna do after you've finished, play for the symphony orchestra, lecture, record, tour???? or teach?? teachings cool. but r u gonna do it forever??

 

[AmenoKitarou]

I do piano and cello because I was interested...and because of that I suvived up to Amus piano and aiming to continue, while other people generally get bored and quit.

I don't want to get into the con because I'm not interested in the place. I want to become a professional player, if possible, without going to the con, but I'm not very confident with my playing. I think I might try entering some competitions~ if I'm lucky I might get a boost in my reputation but that's about all my chances.
I can't make speeches, so no lectures for me.
I'm definitely interested in composing, but it's not my main career goal.

I teach now, I'll keep teaching~ It's good money and a very very worthwhile job.

You see...the reason I'm not going to concentrate on pursuing a professional musical career is because there are too many people out there who's way younger yet much better.

Not to mention my dream is to become a japanese Manga artist *see my sig* and a psychologist.

 

[ur_inner_child]

but is that it, u know??? is that all ur gonna do after you've finished ur degree??? i mean, ur doing music ext right so chances are ur getting into the con, wat r u gonna do after you've finished, play for the symphony orchestra, lecture, record, tour???? or teach?? teachings cool. but r u gonna do it forever??

At the con, they teach you a lot of other things.

We do a bit of audio technology, so audio engineering can be close by as an option.

Other musical professions, some already stated

Lecturer/Professor/Teacher
Professional Composer - which can vary from film, ballet, dance companies, concert halls, and commercial reasons such as advertisements, soap operas etc
Arranger
Producer/Manager (for various things)
Conductor
Performer
Accompanist
Music Therapist
Audio Engineer
Sound Technician (for concerts etc)

I'll add more if you think that's not a good range. You'd be surprised of the range within even just one of those that I've listed. Also, I feel there is possiblity to edge toward design, even.

I've done a bit of scribing for a professional composer - doing parts and general "making it look nice" from his sketches - just keying in the notes into Sibelius. I divided the workload with a friend, but all up, the pay was $600. And that's the first shot of I've had, no experience.

 

[Shoeless]

wow that sounds awesome!!! id really like to do something like that...i really wanna get into composition audio stuff next year. i am going to try for the con, but i dunno if its even the best course...like duh its easily the best institution in Aus,but i dunno, its strikes me as more of a performance-based institution....i looked at uni of wollongong and Aust. Institute of music and they look really awesome too...i dont suppose you know the differences between these courses??? do they have more audio engineering or something??? i mean apart from the fact that wollongong is a bit of a hole as far as sydney is concerned...

and wow AmenoKitarou, u've got ur amus on piano AND u play cello AND ur not going to do music next year...u are crazy, but my idol. thats sooooooo cool. maybe u can find a job that involves being a crazy jap anime artist whilst psychoanalysing equally crazy people...that would be too cool.

 

[AmenoKitarou]

ahahahah~ thnx for that~
I really am not interested in taking usic in uni... but I love spreading the knowledge of music around in the form of teaching (NOT lectures yuck...)
hahaha~

 

[phatic]

Not sure if I qualify for this thread yet, but I'll post anyway - it looks a bit too quiet here.

Course: 2007 B. Mus Qld Conservatorium
Composition Period: None in particular
How Far into the Process are you? Finished the entry portfolio (7 short pieces).
What are you writing for? Piano
What are your thoughts? Hmmm... These are my first 7 compositions, so I'm not too sure about them. The set of variations on a theme is probably the best piece - I managed 9 without sinking into mundanity. Ah, if only I could spend all day every day composing...

 

[Shoeless]

lol good ole QLD conservatorium...wore my best hippie outfit to that audition...thats awesome that ur getting for there...there were soooooooo many applicants for compostion i saw the list and was like YAY kindred spirits!!!!! the steve cronin guy that lecturers there looks like a real legend too....hmmm my only question is what did u write to get in???? i write pop, so naturally i was kicked out of the door practically b4 i was inside, however im thinkin if i started writing less lyrical songs i might stand a fraction more of a chance... i know u say that u write in no particular genre, but might u try to categorise urself, or better yet, post ur comps...(i know sometimes its scary sharing them with the rest of the world) so i can check them out???? thanks tonnes and good luck ......the shoeless one.

 

[phatic]

lol good ole QLD conservatorium...wore my best hippie outfit to that audition...thats awesome that ur getting for there...there were soooooooo many applicants for compostion i saw the list and was like YAY kindred spirits!!!!! the steve cronin guy that lecturers there looks like a real legend too....hmmm my only question is what did u write to get in???? i write pop, so naturally i was kicked out of the door practically b4 i was inside, however im thinkin if i started writing less lyrical songs i might stand a fraction more of a chance... i know u say that u write in no particular genre, but might u try to categorise urself, or better yet, post ur comps...(i know sometimes its scary sharing them with the rest of the world) so i can check them out???? thanks tonnes and good luck ......the shoeless one.

Whoa, hi! It's great to hear from someone else who applied, especially for composition.

Yeah there seemed to be quite a few applicants - around 30(?) with interviews on Tuesday, and I'm not even sure that this was all of them... Was yours on Tues as well?

All of mine are classical pieces for solo piano. I'll post some mp3s, since the composing program I use is fairly obscure. Most likely they're Baroque or Classical I guess, since I stuck entirely to the key signatures (modulating occasionally).

I think Stephen Cronin would be a really good teacher to have as well. Hopefully he also teaches composition in the pre-tertiary program, since that's the one I got in to.

Also, how did you go with the theory/aural test? Some of those questions were a bit overly technical I thought... I totally ruined the aural section, lol.

Did you know about the Bachelor of Popular Music at the Gold Coast campus? I don't know much about it, but maybe that would be better? If not, good luck next year!

Oh, here are the mp3s. The first one is a short Rondo, and the second is a Theme and Variations.

http://home.iprimus.com.au/casadelmare/luke/track_04.mp3

http://home.iprimus.com.au/casadelmare/luke/track_07.mp3

 

[Shoeless]

hey hey,
wow a real live composer!!!! lol...they seem to be a dying race, at least where i come from... yeah i was a tuesday girl. i think maybe that was all the people going in for comp, the rest of the day seemed to be broken up into different instruments...piano and otherwise....gosh, imagine if there were more....wow!!!! anyway, congrats on gettin in, ur stufs way cool....do u find it hard to write classical stuf?? i mean, have u ever tried writing pop???id have thought that classical would be tonnes harder, i mean if u study AMEb ur doing classical stuf sure, but everytime u turn on the radio theres pop...and i find it hard to get into the 'classical' headspace, u know??? anyway, im starting to write some less lyrical stuf, im going down for a syd con audition.... (lol i have strange, crazy dreams) and its strictly 'fine contemporary only' so yeah...no lyrics.anywayz, goodluck for brissy....if all goes well i'll prob end up at QUT so yeah....might see u makin big money on the brisvegas scene!!!
catch ya round like a rissole. shoeless.

 

[phatic]

Hehe. Writing classical is easy(ish), since it's the only music I listen to and love. I haven't done any AMEB exams either, as I've only been composing since May - so you can see why the compositions are fairly simple. I think I only got in due to the fast progress, rather than my skill level.

If you prefer listening to pop music, then it would be only natural to write pop music, I'd imagine.

Anyway, thanks, and good luck to you too with the Sydney Conservatorium audition!

 

[bahodl]

Hi all - it's so great to hear from other composers! I love it and have been composing since year 9 before I really had any musical training - I guess ideally I'd be writing music for film but yeah good luck to all of you who have applied to places!

Course: University - B Arts (Media and Communications) 2nd Year, at Sydney Uni planning to major in music, and hopefully do honours and some postgrad perhaps.

Composition Period: Well I'm not doing a formal composition (yet!) but the composition assignments I've done have been varied, plus at home I try and stretch my limits (not very successfully usually )

What are you thoughts? To all who don't get in to what they want: There is more than one way to skin a cat, and as long as you can do music and major in it then you can go pretty much anywhere with it at uni.