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Soundcloud, and Music Stuff

6 years ago705 words

I've made an account on Soundcloud for my music, ∞ here ∞! I'd like to compose some more too, but I'm plagued by annoying doubts (which is strange because normally my mind is completely at peace, of course).

Apparently I can only upload 180 minutes of music to Soundcloud without paying for some Pro account, so it's not as if I can just upload all the hours upon hours of music I've ever composed (most of which isn't exactly well-made anyway). I may or may not upload some older stuff, but I don't know. Is there any point?

I've been a bit discouraged about making new music recently though, annoyingly. Following a comment on a post a while back, I started watching some YouTube videos called ∞ 8-bit Music Theory ∞, which talked about the musical structure of various pieces of game music. It's certainly interesting, but watching things like that just makes me feel small, clueless, and inept, because I become aware of how much I don't know about composing.

Since I grew up with Classical rather than 'Modern' genres, I never used chord progressions as a foundation for my understanding of music. I get the impression that a lot of people 'learn chords' before anything else, even if their interest in music is only of the "I love listening to my favourite bands and want to play along on a guitar" kind rather than whatever drives people to craft elaborate soundscapes of their own. But I never had that, and it's a shame that I didn't.

Instead, I learned mostly through observation of structure; I spent a lot of time watching the (mostly piano) sheet music of Classical pieces as they played on sites like ∞ this one ∞ (which looks a lot different than it did a decade and a half ago, but interestingly still exists). I enjoyed looking at the 'shape' of the music, the contours the flow of notes made, the rhythmic patterns, and it's those that I experimented with and focused on in my own attempts. I suppose it's because I could see those without extra knowledge, whereas chords are a more abstract concept that requires some additional understanding; if you don't have it, all you see are the notes, and why one chord flows to another isn't obvious.

I've since learned a lot more about chords and know more than just the basics, but since that's how I started, it's only that that still comes most naturally to me. Coming up with complex harmonies - the 'colour' of the music - using clever chord progressions is something that comes much less naturally. Or maybe it doesn't really come naturally to anyone, and I just don't realise how much work and effort is necessarily involved and think that since it isn't entirely intuitive for me, I'm lacking something? I don't know.

It feels like whenever I look at other composers explaining their efforts or their work (or videos such as those on that channel), they speak of chords and their progressions first and foremost, with everything else (melody, rhythm, etc) being some kind of afterthought. Which is why I feel so lacking in confidence about my own ability to compose, since I feel I'm insufficiently skilled when it comes to the most important part.

Either way, watching those videos is why I haven't composed anything in a while, despite a sudden burst of enthusiasm I had a few posts/weeks ago. I feel like I should go out of my way to learn things, or perhaps to watch videos like those and then immediately try to apply the technique(s) they cover so as to add them to my own arsenal... but it feels like work, so I haven't bothered yet.

I'm not sure what writing this will achieve really! Maybe I'll play around with music composition again over the coming days, anyway. I'll post what I come up with if I do!

Some of you have posted (about) music in comments on this blog, so I'd be interested in hearing how you approach composing, especially in regards to things like chords!