User:Rohanns - IMSLP: Free Sheet Music PDF Download

Hey there! Yes, you! The one that's browsing through IMSLP, looking for random users to...kind of stalk, I guess. Or you could be a do-gooder samaritan who wants to get to know the vast community better. In which case, I say "hi." Welcome to my user page.

Introduction

I'm Rohan, an extreme classical music-lover and amateur composer. I help around IMSLP primarily by making worklists for various composers' pages. I've finished or contributed worklists to the following composers:

Josef Rheinberger
Carl Nielsen
Louis Vierne
Joaquín Turina
Cyril Scott
Marin Marais

Yeah yeah, I know it's not the biggest list of contributions you've ever seen, but, to my defense, I'm relatively new to helping around IMSLP. I've used Petrucci for many years now, but it only came across my mind about a year ago to start helping around the music library that I've used for so long. I'm gradually learning the functions of how to make pages, templates, and such, and I'll get better soon! Currently my main goal is to get worklists up for the French organ composers (Widor, Vierne, Tournemire, etc.).

As for the composing part of my musical passion. It is my outlet, whereas other people play instruments, I compose. I do play the cello and drums, but nothing super fundamental like the piano or...the piano....I am also a self-taught composer; I know little to no music theory (other than key signatures, of course), and not knowing how to play the piano doesn't help. I don't mean to keep rambling on in this self-pity train because there are many composers who never learned any instrument proficiently at all (e.g. Berlioz, Schoenberg, Carter, etc.).

With the rise of atonality, I believe it has become increasingly easy to thrive as a self-taught composer. My music is inherently atonal because I have little information on chords, harmonies, and such. I think I follow closely in the footprint of Schnittke, but not as...brash, I suppose. I don't intend that to sound in any way offensive. In fact, Schnittke is one of my favorite composers; his music is very emotionally-charged and energetic. That's his style, I'm my own style!

Some more food for thought with Schnittke. Hearing Schnittke, I sometimes wonder if my music is looking to the past. In other words, has what I am doing as a composer already been accomplished 20+ years ago? I say this because I consider myself to be somewhat like a mix of late Myaskovsky and Schnittke. One angle is to keep in mind that my style can change drastically and become unique as I mature. Great examples are Myaskovsky and Schnittke themselves. Myaskovsky started atonal and shifted to a style that is much mellower and somewhat looking to the past. Schnittke started with a great deal of Shostakovich's influence in his music and became, well, Schnittke. Another way of thinking about this ―Who cares if my style isn't what they say is modern? There's Françaix and Bozza (also two of my favorites), who did not compose what their atonal contemporaries where composing in any way, shape, or form. Q.E.D.

The rest of this page consists of my thoughts on favorite composers, time periods, and whatnot.