by Justin Webb

Created on: January 08, 2007   Last Updated: April 03, 2007

Your ability to compose music will remain contingent on a combination of things:

1. Your drive. You don't necessarily have to take lessons (although it can be incredibly helpful); I never took a piano lesson in my life, and I can play better than some of the piano majors enrolled in the school of music at my college. Granted, I practiced and taught myself through various pieces of sheet music and piano books, practicing some nights up to six of seven hours. I have successfully composed music for a video game company and received payment as well!

2. Take in as much theory as humanly possible. Throughout my high-school years, I studied basic, advanced, and college level music theory, almost as much as I taught my self and practiced the piano. You have to know what drives music, what things work, and the general rules to follow before starting off. Think of it this way, if you want to write a novel, you aren't going to do it without knowing the language in which you want to write. Writing music isn't any different; music, after all, is a language. Therefore, you should learn the language adequately enough so that you know what you're doing (for the most part; after all, art is made sometimes through mistake). When I entered college, I took a music theory proficiency exam, and was placed in a junior-level theory course without even enrolling in college yet!

3. Gain experience. Write and write and write; that is the best advice anyone can give an aspiring musician. Whether it be just doodling at the keyboard, or writing a two-part invention in the Bach style, or writing a dreamy romantic era piece of music, to even a contemporary Schoenberg 12-tone composition (for those abstract individuals), the only way you get better at anything for sure is to practice. Studying a topic isn't half as important or useful as implementing what you've learned into every day life; after all, what is knowledge good for if you can't use that knowledge to better something?

4. Don't give up. Every musician has a lot of bad beats-music is an incredibly hard field to get into. Once you have your eye on the prize, never look back. You'll never regret one decision you have made if you know it was always going to be worth it at the end of the road.

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