Interested in making my own music?

Question

A friend and I would like to start making our own music. We're interested in creating something along the lines of ambient/drone/classical. Neither of us know where to even begin, and I've looked all over the internet for some help with software and such but I still don't know how to actually create the music. Any help or advice please?

Answer 1

depends what you mean by making music. Do you mean composing music or recording music or just using instruments to MAKE music in general.



well first of all... you would need to know how to play an instrument.. guitar, percussion, piano, singing etc - practice is your friend



2nd: you would need to compose some tunes or some beats to make your songs. this would include making a melody or setting the beat with percussion or just making ostinatis (several different rhythms) to create something



3rd: you can record all your jamming on a recorder or accessible programs such as audacity, garageband (if you have a mac) or sibelius.



have fun making music.

Answer 2

You'll get some good advice from the MacJams website. It's for anyone who is composing music, beginners, amateurs, professionals, anyone at all. It's a very friendly site. (Don't let the "Mac" bit in the name put you off. It's not just for the Apple Mac!) It's here:

http://www.macjams.com/



Do you have an instrument or do you want to do all your composing on the computer? A musical keyboard would be very helpful for composing ambient and other electronic music. If you do have an instrument and a midi connection to your computer you could try the sequencer software Cubase to edit your music. You can get a free demo version here:

http://free-loops.com/cubase-free-download.php

You can also use Cubase to create music using just the computer if you wish.



If you're wanting to do all your composing on the computer then there's a lot software around for this:

http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&source=hp&q=music+composing+software&meta=&aq=0&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=music+composing&gs_rfai=&fp=7af73507029f3956



If the software doesn't come with instructions on how to use it to create music then google it and you're sure to find something.

Answer 3

,.Hi Char.

Sometimes you don't look in the right place, no offense,it happened to me a lot when I started doing it myself years ago. I searched the net for at least 5 months, every day and every night looking for something decent in software to do my music. I used to get so tired from lack of sleep,my eyes would water from looking at the monitor day in and day out. I was about to just give up. I wasn't going to pay that thieving company Sony 8/9 hundred Dollars (then) for their so called Sound Forge just to make some songs.

As I said I was about to give up when suddenly, I came across this obscure name company called NCH. Google is best to use. Absolutely clean,no viruses. I don't know what Instrument's you might be using. I use a Yamaha 16 channel multi track Sequencer. If you give it a go trust me when I say you will die of old age before you try them all, haha. If your interested, here is the address of Yamaha, YAMAHAPKCLUB. Have a browse and see what you think. I wish you luck in your music Char. Cheers, Eric.

Answer 4

ok here we go, if you play instruments you can record straight into audacity (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/) it is a free piece of recording and editing software which will help you with your unique ideas!



to change this to an mp3 format you will need the lame encoder (http://www.guidesandtutorials.com/audacity-lame.html)



thats recording done, as for creating the music, sibelius is a great piece of software but very expensive, the new version coming in at almost £600 i believe, student or lesser models are available for less.



there are lots of other pieces of slimier software out there that allow you to input music on the stave and you get the notation and a recording giving you and idea of how it would sound. hope that helps

Answer 5

Get a music tutor and learn some basic music theory. That's the first thing you should do before even trying to find software.

Answer 6

Try out FL Studio (PC only). Here's a free demo: http://www.brothersoft.com/fl-studio-66439.html



Check out this video of an example of how music is made with FL Studio: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg3FUZSdgj8



If you need help getting started with it, press F1 while it's open or visit a site like youtube and watch tutorials like this:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqZgBVx2w_Y



If you decide to purchase one of the full editions, here's an instant 10% Discount you can use when you buy directly from the developers of FL Studio, Image-Line:

https://support.image-line.com/jshop/shop.php?offer=Default&promo=BFHEHAH486



You get free lifetime updates for the products you purchase, so you'll get FL 10, 11, 12, ect.. free once they are released. You also get official forum access at http://forum.image-line.com/



enjoy and have fun with making ambient music!

Answer 7

If by making your own music you mean writing music, then you could give the music notation program Overture 4.0 a go. Here's a link to download it for free:

http://www.4shared.com/file/166389196/94ae8a40/GeniesoftOverture_41019-DOA.html?s=1

Answer 8

Hey,

Check here http://bit.ly/1k3GZdy if you want to get Sibelius for free

Check it out

Best

Answer 9

I started by writing on paper(cant believe how hard that is)



try finale, i use it..