Hello everyone, if anyone is reading this... Alright I was just wondering how to start composing. Like where do you begin, any tips or advice? I`m not amazing or child prodigy like everyone else on this forum but I am decent. Is it all about guessing and hitting the right notes? Haha no I know its not but I would appreciate any advice someone had for me.

I`m coming to the end of GCSE music. The advice we`ve been given is to start with finding a good chord sequence and then using the notes in the chords to form a melody. The melody should be balanced, have a direction (like a rollercoaster) and avoid big leaps. When making the chord sequence it`s best to take into account cadences to make the composition sound complete. Personally I prefer to start with a melody and then find interesting chords but the way I`ve just described is good for a start and gets you into understanding the relationship between the harmony and the melody. Hope this helps, just ask if I didn`t make sense.

The way I like to do it is first lay down the drums, then the chords, then the bass, then the melody. Try C, Eb, F, G; you can`t go wrong with that chord progression. Also always flatten the 7th note if you`re using a major scale.

In my opinion, if you are not compelled to compose you shouldn`t do it. I only compose when I have an idea; I do NOT S-E-A-R-C-H for ideas. My first compositions (in fifth grade) were experiments in certain music theory problems that interested me at the time. Many of my later compositions in the many years that followed were attempts to answer questions posed (usually inadvertantly) by compositions that preceded them--one thing leads to another.

If you do nevertheless compose, it`s always best to compose for instrumentalists you know personally. Write for them what you think they`d like to play. If you find you are in err about what they`d like to play, revise accordingly.

It seems to me that there is no shortage of good music. That isn`t the problem. There is, rather, a surfeit of bad and mediocre music. Or, more to the point, there is simply, on this over-populated planet, in this Age of Information, too much music altogether. You will find very soon that the world at large behaves as if doesn`t need composers--you will be little valued or appreciated--, and although composers often complain bitterly and vociferously about this lack of regard, it actually makes perfect sense, because the world at large--or even at small--does NOT in fact need composers.

In short, the answer is, "If you have to ask how, don`t even attempt it; if, on the other hand, nothing can dissuade you, then nothing can dissuade you, and you don`t need our help."

Yea, but composers get the chicks.

Like Beethoven, for example--NOT.

Ravel used prostitutes.

I`m talking more like Nick Rhodes actually. Anyways, if you want a spacy chord progression, try a minor going to a major one half step down. The bridge of a song usually modulates to the subdominate, and it could go back and fourth from the subdominate to 1 step below that and then use the domant 7th of the domant to get back to the chorus. A good thing to do is to look as sheet music and study the methods.

Re: "I`m talking more like Nick Rhodes actually. Anyways, if you want a spacy chord progression, try a minor going to a major one half step down. The bridge of a song usually modulates to the subdominate, and it could go back and fourth from the subdominate to 1 step below that and then use the domant 7th of the domant to get back to the chorus. A good thing to do is to look as sheet music and study the methods."

As Nigel of Spinal Tap might say, "There`s such a thin line between a composer and a rock star". I should think a word such as "subdominate" should cancel itself out. (Presumably you mean "subdominant"--and presumably by "domant" you mean "dominant")