Impossible to quantify, of course, but a question nonetheless for Dopers who are active in music:
What percentage of musicians (of all types) have composing ability, and how common is such ability? (not necessarily people who actually do serious composing work, but just have the ability to come up with something original, as opposed to only being able to play what they can sight-read, or what someone else made)
Rough ballparking or WAG estimates are just fine, just an IMHO-type question.
Hmmm … I can’t think of a musician that at some point has composed a song. Now, my background is mostly working with rock bands and jamming in high school and stuff, but in every band I’ve ever been in, every musician has had some original work somewhere along the line. I mean, I’m not going to say it’s 100% at all, but I’m guessing a majority of semi-serious to serious musicians have work of their own.
It varies.
I know a lot of musicians who play in cover bands and have no interest in writing. (Call them Group A, for Amateur). Cover bands have always been more in demand that originals, so musicians who want to play out casually and make a little money won’t be incentivized to write their own songs. If they do write, it will be because they have a primary motivation to.
Mitigating this: being able to write commercially-appealing original material will enhance a musician’s fortunes if they aspire to professional success beyond playing out casually. Singers who write their own songs will make more money if they manage to get signed. (Call them Group B, for ‘hit it Big’. Who sometimes emerge from Group A).
FWIW the close circle of musicians I perform and record with are much more likely to write original music. We’re mostly older and have decent jobs (and/or pensions). I’d say half or more do some writing. The quantity of the output varies–some people crank out songs amazingly fast, others do a few a year. Call us Group G. Geriatric.
The observations above are about people who play popular music, primarily in commercial venues like bars. I’m less familiar with trained musicians who play in community orchestras and the like (Group C, for classically trained). But IME they seem to be a lot less likely to write original material. I’m not sure why this is. It may be that composing the music they are trained to play requires more additional specialized skills (beyond playing skills) than is the case with rock, country, etc. If you can play Mozart, you won’t think that “three chords and the truth” is enough to compete with him.
Do you mean “hasn’t”?
I find it hard to imagine a musician who wouldn’t, at some point, have fiddled around developing their own tune. Maybe it could happen with someone who hated music but who had been forced to learn songs and perform? I just think that if you like or love music then you would play your own stuff sometimes, even if it was just improvising / noodling.
Personally I find it very easy to come up with something “original” (as original as a lot of pop music anyway), coming up with something that people will buy is another thing altogether.
Music can be very simple. Throw some notes together in some kind of harmonic order, repeat the sequence a few times, call it a “verse”. Play the verse three times and you’ve got a song. Bonus points for a key change at the end. Chorus and bridge optional.
Yes, “has not.” Thanks for catching that.
This is the nub of the question really. Where does noodling end and composing begin? I have countless musical ideas that I have never fleshed out into a song. Sometimes I get excited and record something only to subsequently lose interest for some reason.
There must be millions of musical ideas, good and bad, that no one, other than some socially awkward kid in a basement, will ever hear.
Right, it’s a murky difference. But I had gotten the impression - at least in classical music, or the more casual “took a few years of lessons but stopped” instrumentalists - that the majority of pianists or instrumentalists were pure players, in that they could only play music by sight-reading or music that someone else had made, but they couldn’t concoct up something new and original of their own.
I’m just gonna say it. 100% of people who consider themselves musicians have composed something.
I haven’t had formal music training but I would assume that composition forms part of it so even the most play-by-numbers, soulless, robotic player would’ve composed something, if only to pass a unit at college.
Like the other posters, my own experience is that song writing of some sort is common among musicians.
It’s actually an interesting question IMHO. I quite like building official LEGO™ sets but don’t have much interest in creating my own designs. Are there people who like playing music but don’t like creating it? Of course, I can and have created my own LEGO™ things, but it’s not what I get enjoyment from. Perhaps there are people who have composed music but don’t particularly like it and would much rather play someone else’s composition.
What other artistic endeavours have a set of instructions that let you replicate another artist’s work? Paint by numbers? Would a painter even be called a “painter” if they literally painted by numbers?
How many musicians have composed something that was completed and played by someone else?
Does it count if it is being played by the composer and other people?
Yeah, I’ve written quite a few songs, but I can’t think of any that were released without at least some changes/additions by the rest of the band.