cousin_it comments on Brute-force Music Composition - Less Wrong

13 Post author: HughRistik 22 May 2009 06:02AM

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Comment author: cousin_it 22 May 2009 07:53:36AM *  3 points [-]

Can't speak with authority as a composer here, but I found your piece harmonically okay and spoiled only by lack of logic and form, not lack of melody.

Here's how you may get form: take a few measures of your piece that form a cohesive block, maybe from the beginning to the notes d c#, and play them repeatedly until your ears bleed and you desperately want the music to go somewhere else. Then go somewhere else - do something outrageous on the piano, and then return to your first few measures. Voila, instant verse-chorus form :-) The music should shift when you want it to shift, not just because a new measure has started and demands new chords. There's nothing wrong with repeating a lot and rephrasing a lot.

Here's something born from this kind of methodology. I lack your hearing and harmonic sense, so I just make the music as stupidly obvious and self-similar as possible.

Comment author: HughRistik 22 May 2009 07:46:18PM 0 points [-]

Can't speak with authority as a composer here, but I found your piece harmonically okay and spoiled only by lack of logic and form, not lack of melody.

Yeah, composing one chord at a time without writing it down wasn't good for structure, either.

I think your idea is interesting, and I'll listen to your piece when I'm not at work.