Software
I have my trusty ThinkPad laptop. I don’t want to pay for expensive composition software, so everything I write is in MuseScore. I can’t compare it to other composition software, because it’s the only one I’ve ever used. However, its reasonably easy to use, and offers offers pretty much everything I need to compose concert band music, which is what I am mostly interested in. Here are the few things that I would like to see improved:
- Dynamics don’t seem to apply to notes that are added after the dynamics.
- Crescendo and decrescendo don’t seem to sound in the playback.
- (I’ll list other ideas here as I get them.
Another feature of MuseScore is MuseScore.com, which is a score-sharing community for MuseScore users. I might join their community to share some of my scores (once I write scores worth sharing).
Hardware
Using a keyboard and mouse to compose music seems awkward, but for me it is actually the easiest way (especially once you learn the MuseScore keyboard shortcuts). However, I have a Casio electronic keyboard with USB MIDI that I will sometimes use as an input device. I currently have it set to a right angle of my desk. Unfortunately, the model I have doesn’t have velocity sensitivity, but I was a gift, and so I will put up with it until I decide to buy a better keyboard.
Sometimes, I just sit at the keyboard and make up chord progressions and melodies. Trying to remember what I just played is hard, so I found a program called Sekaiju. It was developed by a Japanese programmer, so make sure to read the readme file to learn how to change the language to whatever you speak. You can also change the language through the menu, but it was a little hard for me to find since I don’t know any Japanese!
With my keyboard connected to this program, I can record the MIDI events of the things I play. USB over MIDI on this keyboard is a little slow, so my next keyboard will need to have a faster interface. But considering I usually wind up changing the rhythms anyway, I am mostly interested in recording which chords and notes I had played, not exactly how I played them.
I use this program to record chords and things, and then put MuseScore on a second display so I can use my recording as a reference.
Another Way
You don’t need all this stuff. I’ve always wanted to be able to sit down and write a whole score on paper, confident that every note and chord would sound. However, until I get a better sense of internal pitch, I compose in MuseScore or with an instrument to hear what things sound like. Don’t be ashamed to use the playback function!
Inspiration
Look at my instruments page to see the instruments I play. Sometimes I get ideas when I am playing my instruments. Sometimes I write them down with whatever paper I have on hand, sometimes I just play along with them and store them in my mind, sometimes I forget them entirely.
Other times I think of a melody and try to record it in a score. I’m not always to good at this, though.
Other times I pick a few instruments in MuseScore, decide on a genre, and just start placing notes until I find something that I like. This way of doing things seems to often produce the best results, as I am not trying to making anything particular, but am just seeing what comes out.