compose a symphony

I have always wanted to write music – I did compose as a teenager, but I suppose life took over and I lost the knack, now I just can set a goal to write something small-scale, before tackling a full symphony orchestra and the infinite subtleties an orchestra can give.

OK, so I’ve scored some music before but nothing as grandiose as a symphony. I consider any individual that has scored a multiple movement symphony a genius, whether you think it sounds good or not. This is a monumental goal.

Got started at mixing over the weekend. I have to start from scratch, since the tempo shifting caused a lot of my mod wheel and pedal events to be in the wrong place.

I learned a lot mixing Odd Quartet for the RPM Challenge ‘08, so I should be able to do a decent job this time around.

Over the last week I managed to shift all my events to half speed, then double the tempo so everything comes out write when I do notation.

I also went in and fiddled with the tempo automation where needed, so everything’s pretty much the same, but the notation comes out right now.

This messed up a lot of the modwheel and pedal positioning, but I will need to redo that anyway as I go through the mixing process.

So, on with the mixing!

I went through yesterday and did some cleanup in the move of my first movement from Garageband to Logic. In the version of GB I was using at the time, I had no tempo automation, so I just played rubato to get a ritardando when I wanted one.

Now that I have tempo automation, I needed to go through and fix all those events to be correct at tempo, so I can go through next and use tempo automation for my ritard.

Now that I’m done with RPM ‘08, I’m going to get back to my symphony. The good news is I learned a lot about balancing, mixing, and tweaking Garritan Personal Orchestra when I wrote “Odd Quartet” during RPM, so I should better be able to tackle this one.

I’ve been working on it FOREVER. I’m done with the second and third movement, and I’m almost done with the fourth, but I have yet to write the first…:P

It’s so much fun, though, I love composing [when it goes well]. I just have trouble coming up with ideas :( It’s going to be a short symphony, though, about 20 minutes…but I’m really happy about what I have so far! :)

You know the Maestro like Beethoven compose all his symphony, with one taking 2-6 years.
I as a piano student want to compose a symphony.

In 2008 I plan to hit my symphony hard, starting with polishing off the first movement. It’s been note-complete for more than two years. With Logic (instead of GarageBand) I can play the MIDI controls on my Trigger Finger in real-time without changing the notes, so I should be able to make at least the first movement happen.

Next up will probably be the third movement, since I have all the major themes written for that one, and it will also be the shortest movement.

I just bought a second copy of Garritan Personal Orchestra for my new machine, and also picked up Jazz and Big Band. Once those arrive I’ll get to polishing off the first movement.