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[flame99]

Well, I've begun using some random bits of freeware I've found online to start composing a bit of music, mainly due to lack of anything better to do. So far, it hasn't been a very fruitful endeavor, but I may as well post any results that I'm happy with here. Criticism is very much welcome, since I have no prior experience in making music.

1. Elsewhere (40 s) [Unfinished], the first piece I've worked on. It's a purely piano piece, and it's far from complete. It isn't very long right now, and some of it doesn't sound very refined or complete, but it's still a work in progress.

[Eagleon]

It's a start! Keep going - I personally think everyone could be composing music if they had the drive, but like any artistic skill, it takes patience to get somewhere with. Try lots of styles and instrumentations and techniques to find a voice - what you love composing may not be unbelievably popular in any 'scene' you point at, but if you don't love what you're making it'll come through in the music. Don't let people tell you it's not a good career choice if you're really interested in it, either, there's plenty of wiggle room between nobody and superstar, and plenty of musicians have day jobs as musicians for projects that need something more specific than stock jazz #87.

I'm curious what software you're using. Having branched out from acoustic guitar to electronic music, I personally started with PowerTab (sadly non-functional on win7 last I tried), and then my brother got me into FruityLoops/FL Studio. I've also used LMMS for one track, which is free and useable enough that I could make something in it my first try without a lot of grief, though I didn't work with it long. Other people will tell you to use Reason, but I found it clunky for non-sample-based work.

The reason I ask is that, especially for piano, throwing in reverb (convolves the sound to create a feeling of atmosphere) and a subtle low-pass filter (clips off higher frequencies with a little bit leaking through) can help make it sound much less artificial. Also, it sounds like you're using stock midi - as soon as possible, get a VST plugin like PianoOne, the results are much more pleasant and dynamic if you vary the velocity (volume) of each note. There are also other midi patches available - the General User GS soundfont is pretty nice for what I call 'sketches', to make a melody in a familiar instrument if I'm not quite sure what voice I want to use, and I also like diving into the HammerSound library for more esoteric stuff like bodhran, etc.

If you need help setting anything up or have any questions, let me know.

edit: one other thing... you say there are parts that bug you, you can identify those parts, so figure out why! It took me more than ten years to realize that no one will tell me why but me, that I had to experiment by tweaking every part in a section, sometimes parts before or after that section, to work out why something wasn't working. It's very difficult to critique music in a way that the musician can use - I personally liked the dissonance of what you made or I wouldn't have commented, but that may be exactly what's annoying you.

[flame99]

Thanks!
I've been using a piece of software called Noteflight. It's free, online, and while it's pretty limited, it's still quite effective for basic composing. I'll definitely look into the software you recommended, though, since I'm not a huge fan of it.
I liked the dissonance as well, actually; what was bothering me was more how the piece seemed to almost stall at times. I've been working on it, and I think it sounds considerably better now. I'll be uploading the new version of Elsewhere in a little bit, once I get it set up.

[Eagleon]

Ahhh, ok. I'll say that LMMS and the like can't really do sheet music style composition like what Noteflight does. They opt for a pianoroll format instead, like this

Spoiler: HEUG IMG (click to show/hide)

The advantage is huge for electronic music, which is ultimately not reliant on humans being able to play any of it or see how it's made Those bars at the bottom set each note's velocity, and I can switch that out to panning, or anything else I want really. Then there's LFOs, automation tracks which can control individual knobs within a synth or the parameters of other controllers, input mapping to translate the output of a controller using mathematics.... *nerd*...

Not that you can't make piano music in LMMS or FLStudio (I have.) But if you want what you make to translate well to piano, I would say get and learn to play piano/keyboard! Even a small amount of knowledge of what goes into playing an instrument can translate into a better understanding of how to compose for it.

I know for a fact that there's other composition software that does sheet music while also using VSTs or other generators to not sound horrible. I think Cakewalk can. I just can't think of any free ones.