“I wanna learn music composition, do you have any advice?”
“Sure: start with music theory, and the rest gets much simpler.”
I’ve heard that countless times. Tutorials, Reddit threads, YouTube comments…they all say the same thing: learn the rules first, then break them. But I never really started that way. I’d argue real music composition isn’t about any of that; I believe music composition doesn’t rely on fixed tracks to decide how long any element should stay in a bar. It depends on one thing: QUALIA (the pure feeling of sound).
After a long day at school, I head straight to my room, boot up my computer. In my quiet room, the only sound is the desktop fan. I load a piano plugin, click in a few notes, and play them once. If the tune sounds wrong, I change it until it feels right, a little better each time. Like a looping algorithm, breaking and rebuilding until it finally recognizes itself. Sometimes I don’t even want to wear headphones, because they make my ears feel really stuffy. I’ll keep it for now. And just like that, I sink into the world of music composition.
That feeling is where everything begins for me. When I compose, I don’t think in chords or keys first, I think in textures, in small pieces of sound that feel alive. My mind is full of all kinds of ideas. Today I might want to write something lyrical; tomorrow it might be something aggressive. Because of that constant unpredictability, I sometimes wonder how others turn chaos into harmony. So I tried imitating a composer to a ridiculous degree, playing their track to 0.75× speed and dissecting every sound that appears. Through this process of trial and error, I eventually found a stable way of working that lets me turn out music that sounds good. Others might inherit their teachers’ templates, but I’m self-taught, and apart from relying on the melodies I carry in my head, I have no “recipe” to inherit.
I like recording myself and pitching it into a female vocal. If I think of an interesting melody, I open “Voice Memos,” sing it, and save it. If my mix turns to mush, I delete the whole section and start again. Things like this have cost me plenty, sometimes I burn an entire afternoon chasing a single groove, skipping dinner. I know theory matters, but I’ve realized I learn best by doing. Still, while I grind away at certain spots, I’ve come to appreciate the beauty of letting things form naturally.
Take Sakuzyo, a composer I admire for that reason. Unlike the templated approach of many others, each of his pieces feels different, as if he resets himself every time. When I listen, I don’t think, “He can even do this style,” but rather, “How is this still Sakuzyo?” That question stays with me, because it reminds me that identity in art isn’t about consistency, it’s about evolution.
Inspired by that idea, I started experimenting in Artcore, a DnB offshoot that emerged in Japan in the 21st century. DnB drum parts are usually formulaic, but I never do it that way. Like Sakuzyo, I chop breaks into jagged pieces to find a different kind of beauty. I bring in basses that don’t belong to the style at all, or fuse it with other genres, and none of this shows up in tutorials—you have to figure it out yourself.
I like to improvise, not because I reject structure, but because it keeps creation alive. It doesn’t conflict with my urge for perfection; it grounds me in the process. I’ve learned to find rhythm in uncertainty, and maybe that’s all perfection really is a process that never stops. And I believe one day I’ll write the perfect piece.