I was wondering if any of you are interested in a collaborative composition. I'm on my winter break from college and am looking to start some new compositions, so if any of you are interested and fairly versed in the compositional arts let me know, I'd love to work on something. I'm pretty much open to any style of "art" music.

do you have any idea how the collaborative process might take place? I've got an awful lot of compositions on the go but am always up for something interesting if one can find the time and the means!

Sorry, I don't really have anything hooked up on my computer yet for contributing ideas for a recording. What would be the best way to go about doing something of that nature on a forum? Perhaps if you get something started I can jump in somehow.

I am looking forward to hearing more of your ideas and thoughts on the forum however. Are you a composition major? If so what composition classes have you taken so far?

Well, something I think would be quite good fun for the whole forum would be a project where we pass around a composition and each add a little material to it; it would be a sort of collage or quilt of sounds if you will. We would first agree upon a style or form, outline the piece, and then each take a turn adding music to it. I'm not sure if a collaborative project like this has been done in the past, but it would be fun to possibly create the forum's very first composition.

As to the logistics of such a project, I use Finale to compose, but you guys don't necessarily need to have it to participate. What you could do, if you prefer writing by hand, is write the music down on manuscript paper and scan it to me. I'll then put it into finale. Another possibility is to find a free music notation program on the web. One I used for a long time and still use on occasion is Noteworthy Composer. If none of these options work for you, then any composition/notation program through which you can create midi files will do; finale reads midi files and I'd be able to work with it. The only problem with this is some of the chords and notes might not be spelled correctly and I'd need some clarification as to correct spellings.

Well there's a general overview of what this project would be like. I'll take any questions now and expound upon it some more later. After everything's all cleared up we'll start composing, granted enough people want to do this. Look forward to hearing from you!

Hey sarabande, sorry I forgot about your post in my previous post. I am not a composition major, but hope to become one in the near future. I'm currently studying music education at The College of New Jersey. I'll be finishing up my bachelor's next semester and hopefully study composition at a conservatory afterwards. The only composition classes I've taken are private lessons with my music theory professor, since my school doesn't offer courses in composition. I have, however, taken many theory courses, which I guess could count as composition courses. I've added another piece to my other post, check it out if you're interested!

I'd love to be involved. I use Sibelius, but could send you attachments in graphics formats.

my suggestion is this - pick a program of sorts, a set of small, related poems, and we could each pick our favourites on a first come first serve basis, and write little character pieces to eventually end up all going together.. this would be the simplest way, and of course we could each advise each other on works in progress, so that whenever we'd agree with what someone else had to say, we could continue to revise all the pieces until everyone's as happy with everything as possible. This way it would really be possible to both work together and work on our own, as literally writing the same pieces together would be much more complicated and difficult to get good results with.

What does everyone think? If everyone agrees, all we have to do is find a program that everyone likes!

PS - I use Finale too, and AFAIK, there's enough compatibility to use import/export between Sibelius and Finale, so this could all work out great if everyone has one or the other. If anyone has neither, I think there's a free version of Finale called Finale Notepad that can be used this way as well.

count me in this project.

Thanks kcoul! That program idea is a very good idea. I'll ruminate over the specifics and tomorrow outline the project and lay down some guidelines. In the meantime, if anyone has an idea as to what material they'd like the suite to be based on feel free to offer suggestions. I'll start a new post tomorrow with all the details. Looking forward to working with you!

i think that maybe we should set limit on length of each section one person can write. i know some of you could write a symphony or concerto (at least one movement) or any lengthy work, but some people (like me) cannot. so, if you want more people to join in for the project, then the scale for each section piece has to be small.