Music composition involves creating a piece of music, usually instrumental and often written for an orchestra to perform live, movies, short films, and advertisements.

When people talk about music composition and composers, they’re usually referring to musicians who write and notate songs on staff paper (also called manuscript paper).

As you start your music-composing journey, you need to ask yourself: where do you see this going?

Do you want to turn composing into a career? Or do you want it to simply be a hobby?

It’s good to think about your answers to these questions before you start.

However, at its core and whether or not it will be your career, composing music is a great way to express yourself, create something beautiful, and make others feel good through your compositions.

It’s good to know basic music theory, but it’s also not necessary. Music theory is a helpful way to explain and analyze music, but, as Servati told us, you don’t need it as a beginner composer.

“I almost never approach composing from the standpoint of music theory,” he said.

“I always start at the most basic level with either a pen and paper or literally my phone at my piano recording a voice memo, just experimenting…trying to get a sonic environment started that points me in the right direction and then going from there.”

And Hans Zimmer, decorated film composer, said it all starts with just an idea.

“Ideas are not limited by budget,” he said. “Creative process takes place in your head.”

So let’s approach music composition that way – from the feel of it, from your seed of an idea.

Before we dive into the steps to compose a song, it would be helpful for you to know the three main elements of composing:

• Melody: the main sequence of notes that should be the most memorable
• Harmony: an alternate melody that’s a different sequence of notes than the original melody but goes along with it
• Form: the structure of your composition (ex. Forming sections like the beginning, middle, and end)

Here are four steps to get you started composing music. These are obviously not the only steps that can be involved, this is just a basic approach.

For this exercise, start by composing only a 3-note melody, just to keep things simple.

Oscar-winning producer and composer Ludwig Göransson said that sometimes it’s better to do less.

“I think a lot of times you get sort of up with what you’re doing, and you feel like you have to add things…to make it sound bigger, to make it sound grand and cinematic,” he said.

“But that’s not really what it’s about. Instead of adding too many sounds…just focus on the things that really [grab] you the most. And I think you can make the most out of that.”

The first step is to write your 3-note melody.

One of Servati’s music teachers told him: “Anyone who can whistle can compose.”

And he wholeheartedly agrees with that worldview.

“I think if you’re able to whistle a little tune, a little melody, or sing a short phrase – I think anyone can get started composing that way,” he said.

But for you to have anything to whistle in the first place, you need to be a consumer and lover of music, according to Servati’s creative approach.

“…I really feel like listening to music is like putting fuel in your car,” he said. “You have to have gas to drive your car. For me, listening to music…that is really helpful to me. It kind of just starts putting musical ideas in my ears, and then that’s really what I use as a jumping-off point to get my own ideas flowing.”

Obviously, he’s not copying or stealing melodies and you shouldn’t either. But any music you listen to will influence you, and you need influences in order to make something.

Now it’s time to record your 3-note melody so you don’t forget it.

Notating music basically means writing down the musical notes you came up with.

Servati said he’s “a little old school in the sense that I still sketch with pencil and paper.”

Fortunately, you don’t have to notate music like this if that sounds overwhelming. You definitely can, and if you’d like to learn how to notate music this way, start with our guide on music theory.

But Servati said that, when he’s writing, he may not notate things technically correctly. He may write it in a shorthand that he understands, and it could be a melody or a rhythm.

So you can come up with your own way of remembering melodies and other musical ideas, just as long as you can easily read your own notes so you can play what you wrote.

Many digital audio workstations have a built-in feature that will turn your MIDI notes into sheet music. You can also try a standalone sheet music maker, like Sibelius or MuseScore.

Once you’ve written your 3-note melody, you’ll need to decide on some basic music theory parameters, just to give your song some structure, some form.

To move toward a fully composed song, here are the details you need to hash out:

• Find the time signature: most songs are in a 4/4 time signature (four measures of four beats each) or a 3/4 time signature (four measures of three beats each)
• Decide on the tempo: this is measured in Beats Per Minute (BPM) and tells you how fast or slow your song moves
• Figure out what key you’re in: most songs are in a major or minor key and always correspond with the musical alphabet (A, A#, B, C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#)
• Imagine what instrument is playing the melody: think about what instrument would be best suited for the melody you wrote based on the genre you’re writing in

Now you need to find the chords to fit under your 3-note melody.

The easiest way to do that is to think about the chords that contain those notes. You could find one chord per note, one chord for all three notes, or use however many/few chords you feel fits.

Experiment with chords and chord progressions until you find something that makes you feel a strong emotion.

Try inverting the chords, which is when you use the same notes but position them in different places on your instrument.

And that’s it! Just take it three notes at a time and repeat these steps until you have what you feel is a complete music composition.

Servati prefers working with analog instrument as much as possible. He writes at his upright piano and records that piano in his songs when he can. He loves analog synths and said he hasn’t found a virtual synth that sounds as warm.

However, he still uses a lot of virtual instruments and said there are plenty of great plugins out there. Two plugins he recommends are Cinesamples and Omnisphere.

Cinesamples has a huge catalog of virtual instruments sampled from live players, like strings, orchestral sounds, keyboards, and percussion. He said Cinepiano is one that he especially loves.

Omnisphere has a library of dozens of synth sounds, including many that emulate analog synths. In the below video, you can see Göransson using Omnisphere for the music in Oppenheimer.

Servati has a bachelor’s degree in Music Composition and a master’s degree in Scoring for Film & Multimedia, so he’s had plenty of experience in music school. And now, he’s a full-time composer writing music for ads and films.

And he said going to school isn’t for everyone, it just depends on where you are as a composer and what your goals are.

​​“Those programs [in school] were essential for me,” he said. “…It’s not going to land me a job, unless maybe I’m applying for a job at a college. But it’s not going to land me a job scoring film or writing music for a commercial or working with another musical artist.”

He said school was crucial for him to develop as a musician but that if you’re someone who’s naturally gifted and comfortable with composing music, you may not need school.

The point is to never stop learning and improving, whether that’s in school or through self-education.