Music Theory/Necessary Tools

One of the wonderful aspects of composing music is that you can use as few or as many tools as you want and need.

The minimum you'll need is probably:

1. Some way of storing the music you write:

• • Staff Paper
  • Tape Recorder
  • Computer with composition software

2. Some way of listening to the music you write:

• • Musical Instrument (piano, guitar, drums, voice)
  • Tape Recorder
  • Computer

3. Some inspiration to help you write the music you write.

If you go with the simplest setup, some notes you sing to yourself written on lined paper (which works wonderfully if you have a good ear for pitch), it'll cost you the price of a pencil, a few sheets of paper, and a couple erasers.

However, if you'd like to invest thousands of dollars in a complex MIDI-enabled computer, keyboard, drum-set equipped, high-fidelity sound environment, well, you can do that too. Just don't expect to finish setting that up for a few weeks.

The rule of thumb is: the more complicated you want your composition environment to be, the longer it'll take you to actually start writing music.