For Those Who Write Original Music...

@LSchefman is an amazing composer, he's blessed, he's keen on detail, and he spended into sufficient gear.
Though I had over years piano lessons, was able to play reading the sheets, I quit playing the piano and taking lessons, soon I was infected by a virus named electric guitar in 1992. I started as an autodidact, had two years of guitar classes with a teacher prior he left for his university studies. He taught me to use my ears instead of playing strict like given by a tab. The fretboard offers different opportunities for the same tone or chord. It took me some years before I dared to use a guitar for my own music. I had of course "developed" some - what I called - finger trainings, likewise song fragments, licks or so. 2013 or so - whilst I was attending a class to become a hatha-yoga-teacher (aside my job) - I bought a DAW and started to record those ideas. I don't compose by writing chords or so on a sheet of paper. It's exploring the fretboard. Of course there is something I imagine in my mind. The core intent of recording is to conservate those "ideas" and to reset the brain for new approaches. For my fathers 75th and 77th birthday I dragged those tunes on a CD. He was amazed by this DIY present from my heart. He died last year, I kept my creativity. This year to her birthday my mother received a CD with the new songs since the passing away of my dad. The first tunes were impressed by the yoga practice.

My approach is to develop intro, verse, chorus, bridge, outro, shape the ideas as the basic, play the tune as a whole repeatedly, then I record the rhythm figure, add a bass line (I use an octaver effect for that to play it with an ordinary guitar), maybe I add some fills and/or a guitar solo. Up to now, I'm not able to arrange a drum track.

Latest example.
 
@LSchefman is an amazing composer, he's blessed, he's keen on detail, and he spended into sufficient gear.
Though I had over years piano lessons, was able to play reading the sheets, I quit playing the piano and taking lessons, soon I was infected by a virus named electric guitar in 1992. I started as an autodidact, had two years of guitar classes with a teacher prior he left for his university studies. He taught me to use my ears instead of playing strict like given by a tab. The fretboard offers different opportunities for the same tone or chord. It took me some years before I dared to use a guitar for my own music. I had of course "developed" some - what I called - finger trainings, likewise song fragments, licks or so. 2013 or so - whilst I was attending a class to become a hatha-yoga-teacher (aside my job) - I bought a DAW and started to record those ideas. I don't compose by writing chords or so on a sheet of paper. It's exploring the fretboard. Of course there is something I imagine in my mind. The core intent of recording is to conservate those "ideas" and to reset the brain for new approaches. For my fathers 75th and 77th birthday I dragged those tunes on a CD. He was amazed by this DIY present from my heart. He died last year, I kept my creativity. This year to her birthday my mother received a CD with the new songs since the passing away of my dad. The first tunes were impressed by the yoga practice.

My approach is to develop intro, verse, chorus, bridge, outro, shape the ideas as the basic, play the tune as a whole repeatedly, then I record the rhythm figure, add a bass line (I use an octaver effect for that to play it with an ordinary guitar), maybe I add some fills and/or a guitar solo. Up to now, I'm not able to arrange a drum track.

Latest example.
You're so kind regarding my work!

Seems to me you're doing the right things.
 
I really like this. Really cool. I hear the synth melody (the one with the vibrato) as a human voice... Great piece, but so short! What was the intended use? It sounds very cinematic.
Thanks for the kind words!

I have no idea whatsoever what to do with it other than stick it on my website, where it can be ignored by a wider audience!

[insert laughing until I cry emoji]
 
I share your joy, original music composers, and I share your pain. Composing is NOT easy. It's a combination of insecurity, confidence, hubris and unmitigated fear to put your stuff out there into the world!

As everyone has heard from me, ad infinitum, I compose music for ads, some film and TV for a living, and do a crap ton of original orchestral music, because I got into it during COVID isolation.

This is my website, love it, or hate it, it's got a page of ads, a page of orchestral and a page of electronic music. There's even some guitar music (who cares, right? It's all about music in ANY form for me).


I'm out there trying my damndest to create original music. There are NO covers or 12 bar blues (which of course is a fave style anyway). Why the obviously unrelated variety of styles?

Because I am still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up!

Maybe you're in a good spot with your original work. Maybe your style is set in stone, I wish mine was. Whatever your thing, I want to hear it! The few, the Proud, the Composers! Let's hear some stuff, my friends. I'm 100% supportive of your work.

If we're about the music, and not merely the gear, let's commiserate...strike that...let's share. ;)
Les,

Everytime I go to your site I am seriously in awe of some of the things you bring to life in your music, you are truly gifted good sir. Why must you decide what you want to be when you grow up? Just keep evolving and expanding what you do. It is not about finding a path its about paving your own
 
Les,

Everytime I go to your site I am seriously in awe of some of the things you bring to life in your music, you are truly gifted good sir. Why must you decide what you want to be when you grow up? Just keep evolving and expanding what you do. It is not about finding a path its about paving your own
Hey, I'll take the compliments even though you're way too nice. ;)

I started paving my own path when I left the law firm I was working for at 26 and started my own firm to establish a better way of doing things. That firm proved me right, grew and became successful. Yet I eventually felt restricting myself to a lifetime in law wasn't what I should be doing. So, for better or for worse, I went into my music career at the ripe old age of 39.

I like to kid myself about the career switch, "What do I want to be when I grow up?"

The ad music business is changing. There's way less original music, way more licensed old songs, and fewer agencies in my area doing the work that pays well. My interests have recently gone more in the direction of orchestral music. I'm older. So I'm teasing myself with the same question: What do I want to be when I grow up? ;)
 
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