How to Stop Repeating Yourself - and my new favourite piano sample library 

Top Gear for musicians.

Guy's videos are literally my favorite thing on RU-vid.

A famous Brazilian composer once said that we usually compose only one piece in a lifetime. All the others are variations of this one.

The best teacher I’ve never had.

03:20 "I like stuff which I like". Words of wisdom.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has to consciously avoid doing everything in C.

Two buttons I always use in RU-vid. 1. Skip Ads button for all videos. 2. Like button for Guy's videos.

0:04 that's a good cinematic hit right there, could do a library like that)

That sound of your mug hitting the table at the beginning would make wonderful ambient/industrial/percussion sound IMHO.

What's good for writer's block.... GUY!!! More 7am videos please!

Video suggestion: Scoring just with Spitfire's free Labs instruments

When Guy uploads a new video,always the best day in the week for me.

Guy, you are terrific, always fun and enlightening to watch. Please don’t stop.

My goodness! I've been binge watching your videos all morning and wondering when you are going to post a new video!!!!!!!!!! Thank you for answering my prayers! (I've watched each videos of you atleast 4 times each) I even score music while watching your videos, always inspiring! Thank you Guy for sharing!

Guys energy is just wonderful. 😂🤗

That's a nice place. I can see the plants out the window.😄👍👍💙

As a guitar player, I write music on a keyboard (I'm hopeless on keys). It leads me to experiment a lot more than I would on guitar and opens up a whole new world for me :)

15:45 I would have loved him as a music teacher as a wee child X'D

Guy for the love of God please SAMPLE this table top !!! Brilliant low end

Dear Guy, my name is Paul, I'm writing you from Ecuador in south-America. I recently discovered your channel and I loved, also I had been learned a lot on it. Thank you so much for your efforts and job. Here in Ecuador, specially in my town Guayaquil, the pandemic issue is a problem no money, no gigs, no job... I hope some nearest day I could have money to enjoy of your courses... Hugs...

Guy the subject you picked for this video is timeless. Everything you said about your initial tendencies I could relate to. (I wasn’t quite as interested in hearing about the new library). BTW I really did like what you composed at 13:51. One thing that’s really helped me lately is carefully listening to at least one great piece of music that I admire before I start making my own tracks. It typically brings in a ton of ideas that I wouldn’t have normally considered.

Absolutely love the outdoor chat ! Would love to have more of that in the videos

You could try different things. You don't always have to start with a keyboard. Sometimes you could use a notation tool, or else "just write", or even use paper and ink. Another suggestion - use a wheel or rotating top, with a number of different starting actions: e.g Start in A flat, Write a poem then set it, Create a dreamy melody, Write a very dynamic drum beat, Work with a tone row and avoid any key centre, etc. You could make several such random selection devices - wheels, tops, dice and several outcome sheets. Then just do whatever comes up. I'm not very good, but sometimes I find starting with notation a better approach than working directly with a keyboard. Sometimes I use recorded fragments - sounds from the garden, birds, water etc. I think there are lots of ways to get started, and possibly avoid repetition that way.

Watching his videos is always so calming yet informative. Absolutely in love with this channel.

Wow, that opening boom! The table needs sampling, Guy. :)

First off, you've absolutely got to sample the sound of putting your coffee on that table. What a great sound! A contact mic would be perfect. Oh, and the video was very useful as well.

To sum up - variety is the spice of life

Precious advices! Thank you Guy!

Thanks for another great video. I've recently begun doing things entirely differently by not using my keyboard with Cubase, but just using manual entry in Dorico, with no keyboard at all. It's led to the creation of what I think is easily the best piece of music I've ever composed (and yes, I now feel like I am actually beginning to "compose" music, which has always been my dream).

I wish to have a grandpa like you and here I'm watching your videos everytime you post. Love the way you pass on your lifetime experience with everyone here!❤️

This videos are AWESOME!!!!! thanks for doing them!!!!!!🙌🙏

My piano composing was revolutionised by the Steely Dan Chordal Songbook.

Brilliant to watch... and very entertaining.

i absolutely love the way you bring music to life... please keep on filling my musical life with happiness and fun

Guy, your videos just keep getting more and more creative! I’m loving the direction TSE is going and I’m so proud to have taken part as a student! Love it!

Your videos something of the most precious you can find on RU-vid... inspiring and instructive. Thank you so much for your work.👍

You are the coolest person on the internet, period.

I love your energy, I really needed some of that, thanks!

Awesome video thank you Guy ! Really interesting :)

Great video. Very useful. Thanks.

I ended up getting the Embertone Concert D. Has a nice big bunch of optional mic positions and sound options and sounds dreamy. And I've had Emotional Piano for ages. But I haven't touched the Emotional Piano since I got Concert D.

Food for thought!

Thank you. This was very inspiring. Always enjoy your videos.

Wonderful stuff Guy. I get coming back to see all your videos again and again and I get so much ideas and inspiration from you! Thank you a lot!!

I watch RU-vid channels about a lot of subjects, and when it comes to music it's usually 1980s rock bands. However, I have to say that Guy is without doubt the best, most engaging and most entertaining presenter I've seen anywhere in years. Even if I wasn't interested in the subject to start with I would be after a couple of minutes. I remember his dad on the tv years ago, and he was brilliant too.

Guy, I discovered your wonderful channel just over a week ago. The whole range of guides, advice, projects you share with us all are just incredible. I’m going to purchase some of the short courses as they look really interesting. All the best to you.

Love you videos guy! You're such a huge motivator!

I love your videos they make me smile and cheer me up every time, also give me great ideas 👍

This is the perfect video for me right now because i am currently getting out of my own headspace by trying to remake different pieces of Zelda music. Just to learn new methods of writing and how to set up instrument combinations can be indeed really challenging, but the more i get into it, the more i am surprised of the possibilities. A few weeks back i would always start my songs in the A/D major scale and with this video is just am like.....HOLD ON...!!! I got to mix some stuff up for future projects~ Also i know i can be very chaotic in typing comments, but i just wanted to say thank you for this lesson...!!!

Hey Guy, firstly thanks for all the amazing video. I have been bung watching them for the last month and have learnt so much about how to score music to movie clips! So, I’m a guitar player first so my approach even when doing orchestral or soundtrack is from a guitarist mindset - in fact I wrote some music for a Spitfire audio competition last week and then realised yesterday that I had used chord sequences that I usually play on guitar - five chord to flat fifth, etc! Lol! When I am writing music on guitar, I often approach from the perspective of drawing inspiration from a different guitar player or other musician as this helps me to write something different each time. I also try and learn a new riff or lick pretty much every week and then build a track around it. Again helps me to write in different style and keep things fresh. I also tend to draw a lot of influence from eastern music - Indian, Middle Eastern, etc - again, takes me to a different place and keeps it all interesting. Anyways, just some ideas a thoughts. Thanks again and have an amazing day!

Thank you for the great tutorial

Great videos at the right time,,thanks man.

always love the way you deliver your video. i always hope i can do scoring like you.. pray pray pray

Completely relatable.

Top class!

Very interesting as always....

🙏 Thanks .. there’s always a different idea....

Just logged off the computer, made a cup of tea and then though.. what shall I watch whilst I decompress? And as if by magic.. perfect timing. 👍

the nicest man on the internet

You're such an inspiration! Keep up doing god's work

STICK THAT IN YOUR TEMPLATE! Nice!

Can someone who disliked this video help me understand why you disliked it? This man is charming, educational, and is doing what he loves! Love the energy Guy!

Really got the message across today with your reflection and introspection. I've really been challenging myself lately and interestingly enough feel like these questions you're proposing I've been asking myself as I'm going through this time and taking the time to A : Understand piano better ( I'm a guitar player ) B: working on my comps to be more aware of listening to what I'm doing and being more present opposed to falling into an autopilot routine as it's less then moving me. viewing things from a different perspective and considering the music more existentially. So right on!! seeing this today was right on time to what I needed to hear thank you. You're literally my favourite person in this crazy world right now I so look forward to your videos :)

It sounds amazing, I've recently got the Noire for Kontakt, and it sounds incredible! I got to try this one.

im a simple man. I see Guy make a video, i click it.

Thanks for the great video! I'm learning to try different things but it's not easy to change my pattern and the keys I like to play in. Learning to score has really helped pull me out of the same everyday thing. I really enjoy the process, but sometimes I get caught up in the software going through a gazillion sounds, and playing with the synths trying to create something unique, and I just burn the time away. Then I realize I haven't even recorded one track. Take Care!

12:28 couldn't agree more. For my #westworldscoringcompetition2020 I went for 150 ish BPM in 11/4 with a rock band and mandolin. So glad I avoided the staccato strings in 4/4 that would have been my my go to choice.

SO informative and so interesting Guy! Love the odd time-sigs! That's out of the comfort zone for most people ;) Myself, I find the best way it to capture a spontaneous vocal sequence built on emotional state I'm in, usually in the studio, then loop it and work around it. Build the lead-in later, there's always a back-story in the moment! Trick is transpose vocals to nearest comfortable key or just any natural before recording (simple hit of a piano key) so it sounds in tune to build upon happily. Of course everything I do is vocal so...

Such a good suggestion -- being a pianist I find more creativity starting with anything BUT a piano :)-- Thanks for the great incite, Guy

Great video Guy, the situation has forced us to reflect on how and why we did things and this does translate to the music. important to try and learn from every situation, especially a major world event. As people who write music, we're here to inspire listeners and its really important to be aware of the world outside it can make us much more relevant and potent communicators ( musicans). Cheers

I love your attitude : )

I think guy is absolutely brilliant. I laughed out loud. How are people disliking these videos!?

I'm lost, I'm already subscribed.

Best Channel on YT!

I just spotted this several years on. This is one of the few videos I've seen which even hints at the use of different microphone positions and spatial layouts in sound libraries. Clearly the different mics give different ambience and timbre, but maybe few people are aware of the spatial localisation in the libraries. I have been aware of the different possibilities for sound due to mics in libraries for some time, but what I hadn't realised is that some of them "bake in" spatial locations and directions. For example, the sounds in Spitfire's BBC SO libraries were recorded in space with the players in the locations shown on the diagrams which come with the package. So that's OK if you happen to want the same layout as that for an orchestra, but if you want a different layout then there will be some - possibly slight - conflicts between the library sounds and what the positioning is in the final mix. Consider this, using the BBC SO library as an example, the flutes are roughly about 30-40 degrees to the left of the centre line. If I wanted them at the far right I'd probably just pan them right over - but that will result in a slight disconnect if there really is spatial information built in to the libraries. Getting instruments reflected about the central line - for example moving the flutes to approx 30-40 degrees to the right of the centre line could be achieved by swapping the left and right stereo channels. This is less of an issue if mono mics are used for the library recordings, as the spatial locations can be fixed in the mix by panning and/or introducing time delays, or even changing the sound characterisitcs of the left and right channels [for stereo recordings] - though surround sound might require other treatments as well. What does this mean for composers and arrangers using sound libraries? Well - they are generally producing mock-ups, maybe for use as demos, but some people are using them to produce the final version of songs and pieces, as they don't have the luxury of being able to use a full orchestra, or hire virtuoso musicians to play their works. In this video you discuss the sound of a piano libary, but if that piano were to be incorporated in an orchestral work, then some tricks might be needed to locate that piano sound in the "correct" position within a full orchestral library. Often "just" panning the instruments gives a good enough result for mock-ups, but it would be great if you could address the issue of spatial locations in a future video, and also whether it is really worth the extra effort of trying to "do it better" re spatial localisation.

Love your videos, Guy! Could you try something with modes? Like composing an orchestral piece using Lydian or something like that? I always found modes a bit tricky to grasp.

Great ideas! Very hard to move away from the usual musical tendencies, but got to give it a go? Nothing to lose really.

I thought abt what you said and I feel you are into something... I have been playing basically the same thing and same scale etc... Thanks for the insight...

I really Liked the first melodyline you wrote in the 7/4 at 13:41. I was one of those people that went: ohhh! OOHH!! :) Really got some Hayao Miyazaki movie vibes!

I'm not sure how you do everything you do (surely, at least, someone else on your team edits the videos), nor how you maintain an almost hyper energy level (that almost put me off your videos initially ─ but I recognized the musical intelligence/knowledge/experience that lies behind every word you say and quickly learned to love your enthusiastic (to say the least!!!) style. So thank you Guy, and yes, I have enrolled in your music theory course (always hated theory and did as little as I could) and your introductory composition course, so thank you.

Thanks for the reminder Guy. So important to re-evaluate ones creative approach and sometimes free oneself from the tyranny of formal learning. I curse the day the circle of 5ths was introduced to me and as for those bloody Bach Chorales and their musical ‘commandments’ - very happy to shove ‘em where the ‘sun dont shine’. I’m a new subscriber btw and loving your video content. Thank you and keep up the great work 👍

This is a great topic; so glad you addressed this Guy. Personally I think that this time, strange as it's been, has been very useful. I've had a good look at the stuff I come out with and come to the conclusion that everything does end up sounding like "me". Recently I've been experimenting with loops which typically I don't like to use but it has helped me to get out of my typical patterns and write out of my predictable box. You're right though; it can be EXHAUSTING. Good though!

I have the same coffee cup as you do! That's awesome. I'm off to write something now.

Always my “ go to” choice too.

I start with pads and different sounds. This helps guide different chords and sounds.

I love the library. Takes forever to load the samples, but the sound(s) are well worth the wait. (Nice shirt, btw!)

Thankyou Guy. Your amazing. Your videos inspire me so so much and help me so so much with my career. I have just received my first job ti compose for a musical. Could you please make a video that will help?

Thanks for the ideas.. I think i will go make some new rubbish lol.. Stay Safe

Love this. I also really hope one thing everyone takes away is an understanding of what many disabled and chronically ill artists deal with every day, pandemic or no. That we aren't forgotten again or made to feel invisible by a lack of empathy. Also, I don't think there's a more affordable, effective, and fun way to get out of the box than transcription! I always come away with a fuller, more diverse toolbox, and the benefits cannot be overstated, in my opinion!

at 9:58 sounds like Carter Burwell in "Twilight" soundtrack

This is coincidental. I set myself a challenge in June to write a new piece of music every day in all different genres, deliberately avoiding my favourite samples and template. This is specifically to avoid getting into a rut and repeating myself.

My thing to get away from sounding like me is expanding my harmony- I tend to think in a way like, I hear a chord, and then settle on a tone I want to be in the next chord, and then I kind of go to the easiest chord with that one.

Really enjoyed the 7 4 playing and layering. And have to give that VSL piano a go. I want quality and dynamics.

I quite enjoyed the bit of music at 13:45 😁

Lovely place that you live

Sticking a capo on a 'geetar' is a good one and literally forces you into another space. Anything arresting/unsettling/unfamiliar is helpful. I bet we all have fresh ideas after a day away in new surroundings. Misery is generally quite inspiring. It seems some of the best ideas are happy accidents. It's that old photographer's trick. Sticking a subject in front of a camera and shouting 'smile' invariably results in cheesy wooden shots. The canny snapper captures those fleeting moments 'in between' when the subject is momentarily 'off guard'. Tapping the unconscious, it seems, is the name of the game. I would be interested to hear how everyone else approaches this one.

You played F Ab Bb Eb A Ab Gb D then Bb and C together in your 3rd 'atonal' phrase which I really liked

Great philosophy on creativity...this seems to be an aspect that's missing in most training exercises.

Loving the channel - just discovered it - I’m really into the Ravenscroft 275 piano sample library - wondered if you’d heard of it?

VSL sounds like great package!