I've always wanted to compose a concerto

[downfader]

Been mad for music ever since a lad, at our house - even though a working class family - we have always listened to pretty much anything. I even began writing music in my teens. Never been that brilliant at it, more of an experimenter with sounds and ideas. One thing I have always, always wanted to do is compose a Concerto. A real one as grand as Grieg's A Minor, or Rachmaninov's F#m.

Sometimes I listen to Classic FM at work. By the reaction of fellow workmates you'd think I'd eaten a baby. I find that reaction pretty sad and insulting at times. They dont even work with me ironically, so I tell them to **** off. Cant stand radio 1, sometimes Ilisten to radio 2 but mostly its just noise on the stations imo.

I've dabbled with my own recording gear in the past (sadly not used since around 2004 but I still have it all) and this is as close as I've ever come to composing anything truly classical sounding:
The Glass Overture
Japan (possibly this one too in a weird way as I droned on the violin)

Would be very nice to actually do it oneday. Pipe dreams and all that, I know. I havent a clue how to read music, what the majority of notes and chords are.. even how to play most instruments LOL! Makes you wonder if anyone from similar working class backgrounds has ever done it?

 

[Gerry Attrick]

Not quite as distinguished as Elgar or Brahms, but a friend of mine penned, when in his teens, a complex brass band composition which the band I was playing with at the time played as part of a concert programme. It was very well received by the audience, and even more so when they learned it was written by the principal cornet.

Sad thing is that that the lad in question subsequently desserted music for other academic studies.

 

[661-Pete]

Very good effort, Downfader!

I've listen to both your works: the first thing I'd say, maybe, is that there are no definite rules in music! Classical or otherwise. You write what you want to write, sometimes it'll hit, sometimes it won't. It's a game in which there are many losers, I'm afraid! But I compliment you on what you have achieved.

To me what you have written is not what I would call 'classical'. But what is 'classical'? How can you compare a Mozart, say, with a Schoenberg? You have, maybe, overcooked your ground bass theme, your constantly repeated leitmotif, particularly in the 'Japan' work. That puts it more in the popular genre. Maybe that was what you intended all along?

Anyway, try to get the inspiration to get back into it. And learn to read and write conventional musical notation if you can - it will unfold a treasure into your hands!

I composed a little in my teens and twenties, including the makings of a piano sonata (inspired, perhaps, by Bartok). But I've written nothing since then. Sometimes the bug deserts one .

 

[downfader]

I think the bugs always been there, more so the older I get. I still dabble but mostly with software - it just doesnt have the same feel as tweaking knobs, or setting up a mic in front of a guitar amp. Never had the wish to be famous or rich from it, I'm a realist, LOL.

I like repetition too, which prolly explains the riffs I used in those two. Sometimes improvisation, too, those old blues musicians get me everytime.