Okey, I've been trying to become a music composer for about a year now (not just game music, really.) I've found a lot of books for teaching, Complete Idiots Guide to Music Theory, Jewels to Musical Composition, and some others, but, none of those books tell me what to do after I've learned what the notes and chords and other basics were. Where do I begin writing real music, getting the feel for the, you know what I mean. But here is my next question, When you think of something good, just out of no where, how do you know someone else hasn't already used this melody, and your just remembering it again. [Edited by - Ronenriku on April 20, 2005 8:15:31 PM]

I highly recommend getting a teacher if at all possible. You would not believe how much time you would save getting a teacher to help you.

Well, I'm afraid thats not possible for me. Anything, like, in making music, that may be helpful?

If you want to write music, you must play music! So you can begin by picking an instrument and start learning that. From there, when you get ungodly good with it, then you can start to write stuff based on what you have learned from playing. I mean writing music is not intuitive and for everyone, you really do have to either be naturally capable of it, or spend a lot of time learning music.

Playing with a group can help you as well pick up 'what's good'. From there you can pickup what parts need to be at what dynamics, temps, and all taht good stuff. I mean I guess you could get a digital synth and just mess with that until you come up with something that sounds good, but then again, is that 'real music'?

It also depends on what type of music you want to write. If you are going for something like Hans Zimmer, then you'd better start getting a whole bunch of sheet music and studying that [wink]. Whatever genre and type you are after, start listening to it. See what trends are repeated and what is not. Part of writing music is having something unique to your style, which unfortunantly takes a lifetime worth of work to develop. Best of luck!

If you're serious about composing music, I would suggest first picking up an instrument, so you can get the basics down, and then get a MIDI program that lets you write stuff, print it out, etc. By using this, you can not only write the music but you can hear sort of how it's going to sound.

If you're going to go that route, I would suggest Magix or Cakewalk for your MIDI program.

Just to present a different viewpoint - it's not absolutely necessary to play an instrument in order to write music. I write all mine digitally, and I have given up all hope of ever playing an instrument.

I'd say another important step is to listen to music. Duh, we all do that already, right? But what I mean is really *listen* to it, not as a consumer, but as a composer. Check out music in the genre you want to start working with, if any, and notice things like structure, layers and usage of the involved instruments. It won't educate you as well as a teacher or a book, but it's something you can do here and now, and which will give you some insights for free.

And just to open the door a bit more,

You don't even have to listen to music in order to compose it, if you want just to work on paper. I've done it a few times, and supposedly so have some famous composers.

Sometimes it helps to think of music as a vehicle for something else needing to be expressed. Othertimes it's productive to believe that "the medium is the message" (M. McLuhen), and to make music for music's sake by experimenting with theory or performance. In the end, though, you'll need an audience, who can be an inspiration as well.

Why not put an add in the paper, saying "new composer looking for musicians" just to see who will respond, to get an idea of what kind of instruments are out there for you to use. I guess what I'm saying is that music is usually written with a particular instrument's limitations in mind.

Ah, I am enlightenned (no sarcasm their.) Well, I play the Euphonium right now, but, have you ever heard a song with a Euphonium in it?! *rips hair out*

I am now going to summarize what I am hearing.

Learn an instrument
Listen to Music as a composer
Get a MIDI Maker, prefferably Cakewalk or Magix

But here is my next question, When you think of something good, just out of no where, how do you know someone else hasn't already used this melody, and your just remembering it again.

Here's what I would do.

Get yourself a cheap midi keyboard (they go for $50-100 USD.
Find yourself and old ver of Cakewalk 9 pro or buy it off someone *cough cough bearshare/kazaa* Then just bang on the keys when something sounds good stick with it. just keep at it. Then once you start to get better and want to try your hand at writing music go out and buy Sonar 4 from www.cakewalk.com and either buy a nice keyboard/rack mount or just add a good sampler program to your computer.

PLEASE do yourself a favor. When you buy a keyboard make sure you buy a Pedal with it "it holds down the notes when you push it" and also make sure its touch sensation, meaning if you push the key harder it sounds louder.

oh and last thing, make sure it has full size keys. Doesnt have to be weighted it can also be 61 keys long just make sure the keys are full size.

Learning how to play on anything else will just hurt you in the long run!

last but not least HAVE FUN!

So just bang on a keyboard? Okey!