What a good way to compose your own music?

If I need to understand music and compose, what is the best way to start?

• PS: I am 21 years old.

• Answer:

  If you are starting from scratch completely, my advice would be to perform as much music as you can, and develop that skill. Perform with other musicians, in particular older professionals, and learn from them. Be a literate performer: learn by ear, but also understand what you are doing, and develop both depth and breadth in your knowledge of the repertoire in whatever genre(s) you are working in. Make sure you can notate anything you can play. Since there are no question details, it is hard for me to know what the asker's background is. For someone with performing experience or other musical background, I would say the best way to learn to compose is to just write a lot of music. For someone without experience performing, however, I don't think it is that helpful to start by composing. After all, nobody ever became a great novelist without first reading a great many books. Beware the popular notion that study of other artists tarnishes one's originality. In the real world, exactly the opposite is true: fluency with the work of other artists, especially those you admire, is the prerequisite to producing worthwhile creative work. The greater your knowledge of other artists, the more substantial will be the work you produce. Don't worry about "rules" or craft at first. If you are suitably ambitious in your creative projects, and you keep at it, you will eventually reach a point where you simply can't express what you want to express without learning formal technique. When you get there, it will feel awful, but that frustration is how you know that you have accomplished your first goal: to learn how to produce creative work. Next, all you need to do is direct the fullness of your artistic passion to excelling in the drudgery of technical study. Unless you are the sort of person who enjoys sudoku and reading manuals, you will probably feel that technical study is draining away your creative spirit. Don't give in to that feeling: keep writing, and keep studying. When you come out the other side, you will not merely have the desire to create, you will have the confidence that you can express anything you set your mind to. And that is when the real fun begins!