How to Get Started with Composing on the Piano

Most of the most famous music composers, ancient and contemporary, rely primarily on the piano in their compositions. Imagine that the template of a symphony could be arranged with all precision and skill on the piano, as the great composer Franz Liszt did when he arranged Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on the piano, and this was one of his most important achievements as a pianist and an important composer.

Therefore, the piano is the basic and main instrument in the orchestra, so that every orchestra depends on it in the tuning process. You have certainly listened to the most famous international songs after they were arranged on the piano, and you are certainly eager to play these songs on the piano or to compose a song or piece of music of your own.

So, come with me to infer the basic keys to the process of creativity and musical composition.

As we know, the musical scale consists of seven degrees or marks, and for each degree, there is an acrostic consisting of three marks, and this is called the natural chord, meaning do mi sol. Re Fa La. Mi sol si. Fa la do. etc.. it is possible that this is Major or Minor.

When the chord becomes composed of four signs, such as Sol Si Ri Fa, for example, we call it Seventh, either it is Major, Minor, Diminished, Semi-Minor, Semi-Diminished, or Dominant Seventh if it falls on the fifth degree of the chord.

When it has five signs, we call it “nineth,” such as do mi sol si flat re. From Do to Re, there are 9 notes. When it is made up of 6 signs, such as Re fa la do mi sol, we call it the eleven chord, until after that we reach the thirteenth chord, which is made up of 7 signs, such as mi sol si ri fa la do.

This is the nature of chords in music, so when you hear classical music, for example, this music is made up of the chords of these chords.

As for the process of learning to compose, I will give you some advice, which is to select a specific piece of classical music and analyse it according to the chords on which it is based.

This, of course, requires consulting an experienced music teacher. When you analyse this piece, you will decode the musical code on which it is based.

Example: I have a work written to La flat Major, which is a waltz, i.e. a dancing triple rhythm.

I composed this waltz based on a simple basic rule, where I placed a musical theme, i.e. a simple melody, for the right hand, and then I placed the correct harmony for this melody in the left hand, which was simply this: I began by playing the piece in the first degree of the maqam, which is called the tonic, i.e. the root position.

This involves playing La flat, Do, and Mi flat, then transitioning to the dominant’s fifth degree, which consists of Mi flat, Sol, and Si flat. Following that, I moved to the fourth degree, which includes Re flat, Fa, and La flat. Notably, both the fifth and fourth degrees align with the La flat major position. Understanding this concept comes from studying major and minor scales, along with other scales like the diminished, augmented, and dominant seventh scales.

Therefore, after assigning these two degrees (the fifth and the fourth), I took the accompanying minor for these two degrees, i.e. the fifth degree, mi flat sol si flat, has an accompanying minor: do mi flat sol, which is do minor.

The fourth degree, Re flat Fa La flat, has an accompanying minor, which is Si flat Re flat Fa, which is Si flat Minor. As for the first degree, which is written on its same key signature which is la flat do mi flat had an accompanying minor, which is fa la flat do, which is fa minor.

In this process, I built this simple piece of music based on three major and three minor degrees accompanying it. To find out the accompaniment minor, all you have to do is go back one and a half notes from the first sign of the Accord Major.

For example, Do Major, you have to go back one and a half tones, that is, from Do to si, a half tone, from si to si flat, another semitone, and from si flat, to la, another semitone. and with this you get On La Minor, which is the minor accompanying the Do Major and takes the same key signature.

Conclusion:

With this simplified explanation, you can use the first key to composition, which is first studying theoretical music, then testing what you have studied by analysing one of the classical pieces of music and then starting to compose something similar as simple as possible.

Also, constantly listening to classical music develops your sensitive musical ear because classical music, as I said before, is the mother of all music, and from it emerged the various styles of music such as jazz, pop, rock, and so on…

If you have a song that you like, search for the sheet music for this song on the Internet and do it. By analysing it and then playing it, you will gain extensive experience in the field of composition.

You can also read many composition books that contain all the benefits, as a large portion of these books can be downloaded for free from the internet.

Related articles:

• An Introduction to Understanding Musical Composition