snowsinthedark asked:


Hi. I’ve always been mad about music; listening to a variety for hours daily, going to concerts, ect. sadly i have no formal education in music or anything of the sort. I taught myself electric guitar with books and dvds and love it. I’ve also read music theory books for beginners and love playing around with music software on my computer. Still I feel that i know very little about music and have no idea how to create my own. How can I learn to create melodies and match them with harmony and rythm? Any ideas on how to start?

TOMMIE

2 Responses to “Best way to learn to arrange and compose music?”

1. mamianka on November 21st, 2009 9:25 pm

   Well, you need to be able the HEAR what you have written, so my BEST advice is to get some good software. Lucky you - the Finale company gives away a great little brother program, called NOTEPAD. Do the. Download notepad. Anything you compose, you will be able to play back, change the instruments, do alternate versions, etc.

   With luck and skill, you will outgrow this, and want to upgrade. That is GOOD!! However, you still need some eduation, or what you enter is hit-and-miss - and much of lit likely to be trash. To learn to arrange, you need to know instrumentation - what each instrument can do, ranges, etc. You can fool around with already-composed works, just change the voices, etc., until you decide to branch out with different structure, etc.

   There are people who say that composition cannot be taught. Well, *creativity* cannot be taught - but the necessary skills sure can. The more you learn about music theory, the more your ideas will flow. It sounds to me like you need a good common-practice harmony course, for starters, and a class in form and sturcture of music. Good luck with your endeavors!

2. jillyd on November 23rd, 2009 11:31 am

   The best way would be to take a class. Or find someone who can teach you. I have taken many music theory classes, and I am now in an Electronic Music class where i learn how to compose songs.