Any general tips? I have my first proper composition homework to do over half term - the only brief is 'a piece in sonata form' - I just don't know where to start, I've come up with a few melodies which last for 8 or 10 bars before I decide I don't actually like them.
Thanks.

I think that's a tall order for someone who hasn't composed too much before - an assumption and sorry if wrong but if you need suggestions on how to start....

Sonata form is fair enough but it means choosing two contrasting subjects (contrasting to make it interesting) then putting them together through the bridge, modulating as necessary. Then development and recap. So try to find two 8-bar or 16-bar melodies that have some contrast. Using 8 or 16 bars means it's easier to break into equal phrases which might help. Keep it simple - if the first subject is in major, the second subject will be dominant. If the first one is minor make the second one the relative major. Just a couple of suggestions, anyway.

Good luck

Thanks for your help. One reason I discarded one of the melodies I was attempting to write was taht it was in a minor key and it seemed to me that there are lots of chords you aren't "allowed" to use because they're diminished/augmented. Obviously this can't be the case, there's loads of music in minor keys which doesn't do this, but I don't really understand!

For what instruments are you writing? For some composers, appropriate melodies are suggested by the tone quality or the traditional restrictions of a particular instrument (look at the horn solo in the introduction to the fourth movement of Brahms' Symphony 1).

Some additional points:

1 Good melodies often conform to strong chord sequences, and chord sequences can't be copyrighted, so you can use any that you find in existing compositions, so long as the melody differs.

2 Sonata form doesn't necessarily start with a long, fully-formed melody. Listen to Beethoven's Symphony 5: the first subject starts as a fragment. Moreover, it's rhythm starts the second subject and appears again in the third movement. Sibelius is another symphonist who often starts with fragments and joins them up later.

3 Some self-educating composers of the past learnt how to write in a particular form by taking an earlier composition as a framework and replacing the themes with their own. If you want to do that, I suggest taking a keyboard sonata from Domenico Scarlatti as your model. These are all fairly short, and their form is very clear.

Thanks. Instrumentation-wise it will be some combination of violin and piano - I think that's easiest because that's what I play. Probably solo piano because violin and piano seems like it might be more complicated, and solo violin would be pretty hard too.

I've been given a similar task over half term (also my first piece of composition hwk). We have to write a 3 minute piece of film music, having been given the title 'Darkness to light'.

I really didn't have a clue where to start, so just decided piano solo would be easiet, c minor was a good 'dark' key and sat at the piano and tried to come up with some kind of chord progression because that was the bit that scared me least. Once i'd got something - only 4 bars, I just tried playing anything above it to try and find a melody that worked. But then I realised I wanted a bass part, but had run out of hands, so I added a cello, then I thought the chords were a bit bland so the piano got bigger chords and a violin got the melody. And now i've pretty much got the dark bit done, just have to find a not-too-cheesy way to go light.

I think rather than decide in advance what instrument/melody etc you're going to use, work out either the harmony or melody, and let the rest come from there.

I think that the most useful thing that my music teacher has said to us over last month is not to worry about getting composition wrong, because there is no such thing

I understand your pain over harmonising in the minor! So many possible triads before you start adding 7ths and more, and difficult not to break "the rules". But here's hoping the rules of 4-part aren't part of your brief!

Don't music teachers actually teach composition?? It seems (and I've experienced this at the secondary school where I teach, too) that pupils are just given a task and sent away to get on with it, with no clear idea how to go about it. Starting off composition with Sonata Form is - as Kai-Lei says - something of a tall order. Why not start pupils off with binary / ternary or rondo form for goodness sake? Or setting a short poem, or something on a ground bass, or a romantic miniature...?

Kenm's advice seems very sound, but I'm not sure that Scarlatti's sonatas are actually in Sonata Form (didn't 'sonata' mean something different before the Classical period?) so be careful with that.

In my experience, you are are quite right, they don't teach it, and in many cases don't give any guidance at all.

Oh well, composition isn't very important, so I suppose that doesn't really matter.

They are in Binary form (more precisely AABB)

It just meant a piece "sounded" (i.e. an instrumental piece - as opposed to a cantata - or a piece sung). And Scarlatti himself called the few that he published in his lifetime "Essercizi" - not sonatas.

Composition? Schoenberg's "Fundamentals of Musical Composition" is great - but better still is simply imitating your favourite composers.

Like, er, Mozart? How is that clarinet concerto coming along?!

At the moment it sounds like something Noddy Holder might have produced on an off day.

Who he?

Not wanting to teach grandmothers to suck eggs or anything, but have you thought about starting with something a bit simpler, like a piano sonata exposition perhaps?

Ah ... but this is far from my first attempt at composition. It is just a departure from the usual 32 bar pop-song format. I still think "imitate your favourite composer" is good advice. You can start by just copying them, and changing a few bits.

You have to study what Mozart did specially with suspensions, appoggiaturas and similar. Study the first movement of the A major Sonata (No 11? The one with variations) or the second movement of the famous C major one (No 15 I think)

good luck!

One feature of sonata form is that for almost any rule you can find a work that breaks it. Contrasting second subject is the rule, but listening to Haydn 104 (which I am at present) I was reminded that he introduces his second subject group with the first subject in the dominant. He gets contrast by having a canonical entry soon after and then introducing new material. I'm not recommending this to a beginner, but if you get to your 104th symphony, you know how to make this sort of thing work.