A symphony in process

Or how I began to write music

Photo by Jana Sabeth on Unsplash

Have you ever noticed how one thing leads to another, to another, to another, until suddenly you find yourself doing something you never thought you could?

I have always loved music. I played the recorder, the clarinet, and the harp. I tried to learn the piano. I sang in various choirs, and I wrote simple songs without accompaniment. I was always looking for someone else to write the accompaniment because I didn’t play anything well enough to play what I wrote! I took music theory in college and was told I had a gift for melody, but oh well, without piano or guitar I couldn’t do much. (Harp came later.)

So about those songs that needed accompaniment—finally someone told me I should write them myself. Hah! By now there were music composition programs where you could notate what you wanted, and the computer would play it back! At last, I could hear what I wrote for accompaniment.

I began with Garageband. Here is one of my early pieces. It’s called Wishing.

Then I discovered Noteflight, an online program where you can notate the music and the computer reproduces what you write. It wasn’t the best sound quality, but it was a start for writing and not just using loops. A sample of an early piece is below. It’s called Chosen.

I experimented with longer pieces using an ostinato underneath a melody. This one is called Love’s Reply. The first part I like, not the second so much. I had more to learn.

Then came the next huge step: a new program called Finale with greater sound quality and notation capabilities. And here was the immense challenge. I had a poem that I thought should be a choral symphony. No one wanted to write it. Then someone said, “You should write it.”

No way! I knew nothing about orchestration or how to write long complex pieces with structure. Where should I start?

Just start! So I did. I battled my way through learning the software, and started with melody…after melody…after melody. Then I began adding harmonies with different instruments. I would bring the results over to the Noteflight community for their feedback. I learned as I went. This went on for years! Finally, I received LogicPro as a gift, and I had to transfer everything into that program.

The piece is called Lux Dei. When I listen to it now I hear its shortcomings. But I am proud of how far I have come. This is entirely computer-generated by a novice user. Believe me, I still have a long way to go. But please, enjoy!