Are there any composers on this board?

[monafam]

I'd be interested to know if any of you are "unsung" composers in your own right.   

I had a Music Appreciation teacher in college (Paul Siskind) who is a composer and I've thought about getting his stuff someday.

[John H White]

Back in 1948 at the age of 17 I decided that most of the composers at that time had lost the plot and decided I wanted to show them the way by writing a symphony in the "proper" style of Haydn. The only trouble was that I knew practically nothing about harmony and counterpoint at that time, so the project got shelved.For many years the material for this work was going through my head until, in my mid sixties, I came across the Open College of the Arts which offered a music writing course. After a couple of years on this course I had written a string quartet starting with a nasty chromatic fugue and a divertimento for wind quintet, which has more recently been recorded privately by a professional ensemble. In what was meant to be the final year of the course I turned my attention to the symphony which had been tormenting me for half a century and, with the aid of Noteworthy music writing software that I had adopted early on in the course, completed my 50 year old task in 1998.
   Unfortunately, it sounds just like it is: a poor imitation of what Haydn could do so much better!
    For a good number of years I had been collecting material in my head for a much more "advanced" symphony in what might be described as mid 19th Century style. I decide to re-take the final year course so that I could make this new symphony my main project for the year. My "Vectis" Symphony was completed just in time for the Millenium, so that I could say it was written in the 20th Century. Vectis is the old Roman name for the Isle of Wight, where I now live and each of the 4 movements is associated with a different feature of the Island.
   I brought the score along to the conductor of our local band, the Isle of Wight Symphony Orchestra, but he, although acknowledging it to be quite an achievement on my part, turned it down.
   However, a couple of years later, through the good offices of my son in law's Wirral based violin playing sister, it was played through without timpani by the Wirral Symphony Orchestra at one of their rehearsal meetings. It was certainly a great thrill to hear my music being played by real musicians in spite of the lack of timpani. I myself attempted the cymbals and triangle parts in the finale but tended to miss my cues-----couldn't even read my own score!
One thing I noticed was that the musicians, who were apparently doing it from sight, tended to get it better in the repeats.
   I got corrected by the conductor who pointed out that I had the the time signature wrong in the opening movement---it should have been 3/4 and not 6/8 as I had written it.
  Since then, I've written a more user friendly second string quartet and an adagio towards a third symphony but these days I tend to concentrate on copying out the music of lesser known composers, such as Spohr, Lachner, Onslow, Raff etc, into Noteworthy software for uploading to the Internet at the Noteworthy Scriptorium and in MIDI form at the Classical Music Archives.

[monafam]

Thank you so much for sharing!  That is really cool to read about.

What has been the most difficult thing in composing music, or learning about how to compose music? 

I think it's really fascinating.  As for me, I never really had any aspirations.  I think it would be fun to do, but I'm 33 now with no real musical training personally.  Plus, I'll blame the work and my 4 kids on my lack of time to pursue something like this (it couldn't be I'm just not willing to work at it?    ). 

[Lew]

Monafam - To get an idea of what a completely self-taught Romantic composer was capable of, listen to the 3rd symphony ('Military') of Franz Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee (1786 - 1868). You might well enjoy his unique style. The piece is on the Sterling label (CDS 1073-2).

Lew Lewis

[John H White]

Monafam, you'll notice that I was twice your present age when I took up music theory in earnest. Hopefully, they'll be plenty of time left for you when your family have grown up. Now, at 78, I've taken up the cello and my teacher is just coming up to her 83rd birthday but still plays regularly in the Isle of Wight Symphony Orchestra and sings in the Cantata Choir! Its never too late to start!!!

[monafam]

Thanks for the Franz Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee recommendation.  I plan on checking his works out.

Also, I appreciate the "it's never too late" comment.  I think it would be fun to delve deeper into classical music!

Were your courses/lessons, etc. very expensive?  I am sure that will vary, but I was just curious.

[John H White]

I think that, when I was doing them, the Open College of the Arts courses were around £200 a year but since then, they seem to have doubled in cost. There may be cheaper composition courses on the Internet if you do a search for them. A good theory course for beginners is offered by the Canadian based Garry Ewer.