“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; it doesn’t rely on fixed tracks to decide how elements should be arranged. It depends on one thing: QUALIA (the pure feeling of sound).
After a long day at school, I head straight to my room and 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 something in the tune sounds off, I change it until it feels right, a little better each time. Like a looping algorithm, I keep breaking and rebuilding until it finally fits. Sometimes I don’t even wear headphones, because they make my ears feel stuffy. 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 the overall feel, how those emotions surge, and how the arrangement carries them. My mind is full of all kinds of ideas. Today I might want to write something lyrical; tomorrow it might be something aggressive. Sometimes I don’t know how to express those emotions, so I listen to other people’s music to see how they do it. I even tried imitating a composer almost obsessively, 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 better music. Others might follow 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 follow.
I like recording my voice and turning it into a female vocal for my tracks. If I think of an interesting melody, I open “Voice Memos,” sing it, and record it. If my mix turns to mush, I delete the whole section and start again. Things like this ave cost me hours, 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.
One composer I admire for that very reason is Sakuzyo. 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 thought sticks with me. It reminds me that in art, identity isn’t a label, it’s a process.
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 cut up drum breaks with inventive rhythms instead of the usual DnB kick-and-snare grid. I bring in hard basses that don’t belong to the style at all, or even fuse it with other genres, and none of this shows up in tutorials, I have to figure it out on my own.
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. As a creator, I know that when I start noticing flaws in the works I once felt proud of, it means I’ve improved. I may never create perfect music, but one day I’ll create something that truly moves people.