How to Make Your own Music – a Starting Point for the Complete Beginner

So you've decided you want to make your own music and you just don't know where to start (apart from downloading our free ebook on home recording 101). You've heard that it can now be done affordably with a computer and the Internet and you want to know more.

By the end of this article you'll have a clearer perspective on the next practical steps to help along your journey to creating, producing and distributing your own music. Be it just for fun or to build up to that magic moment when you tell your boss you're quitting your job because your online music sales are now paying for your bills and lifestyle.

The Internet has taken a lot of the power away from the record companies to control our exposure to new music. More and more independent musicians and bands are reaching their target audience online. And those audiences are responding by downloading (and paying for) music they like the sound of.

Is This the Right Path for You?

Before embarking on learning how to make your own music you need to understand that there will be a considerable investment of time, effort and as you progress you'll need to invest in some equipment and software.

So just how long and hard is this journey from digital music production novice to online phenomenon?

They key quickly learning how to make your own music depends on a few factors:

	How good are you at understanding technical jargon?
	How patient are you?
	Do you have the will to keep going through some of the more challenging times?
	Will you give up if you slave long and hard over a track and no one downloads it or will you dust yourself off and keep going?

How to Break Through Technological Barriers

Probably the most daunting aspect of learning how to make your own music is the techno-babble and jargon. You needn't be afraid of words like routing, latency, MIDI, Overdubbing and phantom power (it's OK – there are no real phantoms involved!).

Like in any other technology the trick to understanding it is to see it for what it is and what it is not:

What music technology is not – A massive collection of scientific and engineering terms meshed together in a hugely overcomplicated nano-organism that you'll never understand

What music technology is – A set of tools designed to help you accomplish a task as quickly and easily as possible.

You Control the Machine Not the Other Way Round

To make a comparison:

You don't have to be a computer wiz or programmer to switch it on, open up a word processing program, write a document and email it to someone.

Let's say you want to share information with a group of people on a regular basis. You can start off using a simple word processor and email program to accomplish your task.

As you become more experienced and comfortable with the technology you might want to experiment with presentation software, maybe PDFs and then maybe put up a simple HTML website and publish to that instead of emailing it out.

Now if you'd been tasked with learning how to build a website when you were first learning how to turn the computer on it would have been a bit scary wouldn't it?

Focus on the Task not the Tools

Treat learning how to make your own music the same way – by focusing on the task you want to achieve, learning how to use the tools to make it happen will come much more easily and quickly.

What Next?

When you download the ebook, follow the tutorials, guides and recommendations on this site you will learn all the concepts you need to achieve musical tasks that will develop your confidence and ability.

Technical terms will be introduced to you gradually and in the context of how they get you closer to your goal of learning how to make your own music.  The key to achieving this dream is to keep your eye on the big picture – the big "Why".

Learn how to make your own music today.