Im a lost soul! Need some guidelines or help!!

[Dondarrion]

Hello everyone, first of all i want to say that this is a great forum and i thank everyone writing in here answering questions for noobs like me, and ofcourse i want to thank Jason to for his music and everything!

I´m kinda lost on how to proceed education wise or just generally with my music.

I´ve loved game music and filmscores as long as i can remember and im a huge fan of Nobou Uematsu, Koji Kondo, and of course Jason, aswell as numerous film composers etc etc.
I played some piano when i was younger, but then i picked up the guitar when i was 13 years old and im now soon 21. I guess i´ve played (seriously) for about 3-4 years.
Im currently in Hollywood, CA at Musicians Institute on the guitar program, and about to finish my 2nd quarter.
The problem is as the time goes now im just getting more and more interested in arranging and composing, and less interested in just becoming a virtuoso on guitar. Im must more interested in voice leading, melodized (XD) harmony, contrary motion and etc etc, all of that.
However i feel pretty limited to execute ideas on the guitar compared to the piano for example, especially closed voicings, some are actually impossible to play on the guitar.
So my wonderings are:
Am i wasting my time here at GIT?
Should i just be happy with these 2 quarters i got and move on to focusing on piano more?
Or should i stick around for my other 2 quarters?

I know its impossible for someone to tell ME what to do, i just kinda want to hear what some fellow ppl interested in the same thing, think about this.

Thanks!

[Melda]

As someone who graduated with a Bachelor of Music in Composition degree in 2006 and hasn't done anything with it since, you might not want to take what I have to say as gospel.

I don't think any studies we ever do are completely wasted, though; whether you continue with your current studies or not, you'll have learnt things and had experiences in this time that you wouldn't have got anywhere else, and I think that's worth something, even if you do ultimately decide to take a different path.

The main reason I wanted to respond to this was to point out that you don't need to be a piano virtuoso in order to compose and arrange, although admittedly people from a piano background do seem to have a more native understanding of harmony.

I never really bothered picking up anything more than basic keyboard skills, and played trombone for eight years before studying composition at university. And even though I haven't actually done anything with my music degree, my lack of piano-ness didn't prevent me from composing and arranging.

I'm not saying piano should be avoided, I just don't think all composers/arrangers absolutely must be fluent in it, although keyboard skills may come in handy.

Not sure if this helped or not, but I just thought I'd jump in by pointing out even those of us who don't play piano are equally capable at composing and arranging as piano-based musicians, so you don't need to feel as though you absolutely must learn piano in order to become a composer/arranger.

[dannthr]

There are a slew of fantastic composers whose primary or principle instrument was guitar.

To name one off the top of my head: Berlioz.

This doesn't stop you from writing, but it does INFLUENCE your writing.  Your personal musicality will determine a lot of how you write.

Should you also pick up the piano? Yes.  It'd be good for you, not to mention that a keyboard is the primary music/midi input used in most studio setups.

You don't need to be a virtuoso.

[Dondarrion]

Thanks a lot for the quick answers! Its just great for me to be able to bounce these thoughts with some people!
I think im gonna stick around my remaining two quarters, but im gonna choose electives thats more into this kind of area.
Ive choosen "chord melody" for example, and "scoring for film and tv"(which i guess is pretty basic). It just feels good to have some kind of direction ^^

again thanks!

[Melda]

I am envious your instition offers film and television scoring classes.

Mine didn't.

[Dondarrion]

Heh well i think we only have one project during the first quarter of that class, its a lot about the business in general too, but its gonna be fun!

Where did you study composing? Im kinda curious about schools like that to check what i can do next. Im from Sweden though, and i think theres a lot of classical schools and composing schools in Europe, thats the impression ive gotten

cheers

[Melda]

I completed my Bachelor of Music in Composition at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia.

It's a good conservatory, but they just don't have any film/television/game courses.

[Dondarrion]

Ah nice! =)

Courses specifically for game scoring would be a cool thing, i dont know if ive heard about anything like that.
But from what i understand the procedure can be kind of different from film scoring, what with ingame triggers to where the music start, etc.

I started trying to write some parts, inspired by a line of fantasy books, but im taking it pretty slow atm since i have a lot of schoolwork, its fun as hell though!

[Melda]

Yeah, I think game music is harder to write because it has to stand up to many more listenings than a film score.

Not that film scoring is easy, but a film score is generally heard once per sitting, as people don't usually watch films eleventy bazillion times.

But that's how many times a piece of game soundtrack may end up being repeated during the many hours someone spends playing a game from start to finish.

It's that much harder to make music that can stand up to so much repeated listening.

[sacrenouille]

My first instrument was the guitar, and then the harmonica, then the flute, piano, clarinet, trumpet, violin... and some others... I couldn't stop. I would never master ANY of the instrument but becoming even a quite "advanced" beginner was enough for me to "feel" how these instruments should be written for when I composed. It helped me a lot. So, I would say that playing guitar or piano (which are polyphonic instruments) is the good choice for composing, but try to have some interest for some other solo instruments such as woodwind instrument and brass, so that you know how they should sound like, or easy/hard they can be played. If not trying to play them, just try to get in touch with someone who does, and ask them lots of question