jking wrote:p.s if any one can actually write music and poss transcribe
it, i would be eternally gratefull. I can hear the tune in my head, i can
read music but for some reason i cannot transpose it from ear to the
sheet.
Here you are (transcribed from the first time through of each part only).
If you plug it into the Tune o tron at http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html
you can get a sheet of dots to frame on the wall.
Sixteen tunes to my name, only three or so of which aren't complete sh*t. I stopped writing a while back as there are so many good tunes out there already to learn. Joseph's comment about tunesmithing being a relaxing activity has me thinking about going at it again, though.
Cranberry:"I write songs, but no jigs or reels."
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I love song writing, I have written many. There is one member of these forums who have heard both my tunes and songs....and I think it might be pipemaker/highschool teacher Davey Boisvert of greenwood pipes...who is a long, long time firend and has heard a good many of them.
Songwriting combines two of my favorite outlets of expression: melody and the written word. But it also includes a third important element.....compassion, without which a song cannot truly live or survive.
...I write my own songs on guitar. I've done a lot of different styles, and I write both instrumental and regular songs with lyrics. However, I did just finish recording a tin whistle (me playing) part to a song of mine. The song is kind of psychadelic with a good hook to it. I thought that the tin whistle would add a nice element, so I put it in! If I can ever figure out a way to get the song on the web so you folks can check it out, I'll let you know!!
"...patriotism is the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings" - "Sweetheart Like You" by Bob Dylan
BillChin wrote:For me, songwriting is a spiritual experience. Songs come to me, and it is up to me to record them before they drift away. ...I see it in similar terms, that my ideas come from a greater consciousness, not my own.
+ Bill
This has so far been my only experience. I have two waltzes, two jigs, and a reel that have made it to paper before they got away. One came in the middle of a dream, and I woke up and wrote it down for the next day. Kind of like dreaming in another language.
Jason, nice jig! I like the first half of the B part best, with the sequence that builds there.
It is very, ummm like early music where the broad image is totaly ignored while focusing on small snippets to sow in the mind of the dancer, so it has to be easily memorable, then each further addition needs emphasise that idea but nail the dance rhythm to the floor. Embellishments not considered at this very basic level.
So you'll never see an unrepeating Irtrad dance tune. Putting this another way, a symphonic treatment would be far too much, ie theme, variation, dance form, song form and so on.
That coupled with the irritating fact that most people most of the time LIKE certain chords and harmonies forces good tunes into 'categories' eg E minor and G major for example, or C major and D minor.
Thus there are dozens of tunes LIKE Drowsie Maggie and that is perhaps the biggest hurdle to overcome, ie to close your mind entirely to all of those influences.
A challenge of some concrete structure to fit specific constraints may help you greatly. For example, imagine you must compose a simple round in 6/8th with TWO bars for the Lap Dulcimer. Now you have a problem?
So composing to me is about SOLVING problems more than it is responding to some pesky tune in my head, which I must add is probably something I heard on the radio.
Next and probably older than music itself is a 'naturalist' approach or school of composers, you can probably list them for me.. so I'll not waste bandwidth with names. The idea here is to lay about in the woods, the forest, or go to the sea-side, or perhaps loll around by a river ( this you cannot do in the US because you could be swept away ) and so on. In these poses you have to listen to sounds about you and incorporate them into the piece.
Thus the 'Ships A Sailing', ' The Westerly Winds' and so on.
I found that doing this sort of thing is not good for the health, ie chills, sunburn, sand in the wrong places and so on. Instead I try to solve a paricular need and sometime JUST sometimes end up with a starkly original theme. A good example of that sort of thing is the arrival of the Concertina in Irtrad and the tunes which fell easily upon it, so later the tunes that came from that accomodation.
We had a system going for a while where a forum member would write two bars of a tune and post it, then another would add two more, and so on until the tune was finished. Anybody want to try that here? We got some fun tunes out of it!
I rarely sit down with intent to write, I just get a tune in my head and have to ABC it before I forget it altogether. Then I ask people if they recognise it as something they know, and if not, I claim it as an original.
I write for the fiddle, so my tunes may not fit so well on other instruments, and I only write stuff I can play, so the skill levels are low, but as my playing improves over the years I hope to write better tunes.
I come up with new tunes all the time. I thought I was just getting the old tunes wrong but thanks to this thread I now relise that I'm being creative.
May the joy of music be ever thine.
(BTW, my name is John)
I'm glad someone mentioned the "I made this up...and then heard it later" phenomenon. That happens to me all the time. Lately, I've been playing the violin and listening to lots of classical music--and "composing" in my head....oftimes only to find out later that I was just humming a tune I didn't realize I'd heard somehow.
I'm sort of afraid to make up tunes or songs. At least with a song, I'll know my lyrics are original, even if the melody was unconciously lifted.
I just know one day I'll say to someone, "Hey, listen to this tune I wrote" and they'll say, "Uh, Kar, that's Bach."
Tell us something.: Whistle player, aspiring C#/D accordion and flute player, and aspiring tunesmith. Particularly interested in the music of South Sligo and Newfoundland. Inspired by the music of Peter Horan, Fred Finn, Rufus Guinchard, Emile Benoit, and Liz Carroll.
That's why you say, "Hey, listen to this," and then, if they ask "What was that?" say "I wrote it." If instead they say, "Woah, clever arrangement of Bach," just nod and take credit for being clever.
