MI7®

Where to begin?

Okay, so I've decided to start writing some music. First of all, I needed inspiration. My brother is an author of adventures for RPG's (Role-playing Games) so I thought it would be great to write "inspirational music" for his game adventures. I don't know anything about these games so my brother gave me some information. I seemed perfect! A chance to write big adventurous music, mysterious music, love themes, exotic places, evil themes, heroes & dragons, epic scenery, great battles... Fantastic!!! The music just kept spinning in my head!

Then what?

I have no musical training what so ever, no experience in performing music, no experience in recording music, I can hardly read (or write!!!) notes and I can't play any instruments. So, where to begin? That was the point I easily could give up the hole thing... But I didn't want the themes in my head to disappear. So I bought a keyboard/synthesizer. An instrument on which I only have to press buttons and at the same time can make a lot of different sounds.

Then what?

I started to experiment with the keyboard, identifying the different instruments suited for my music, playing my themes and ideas. I learned how to record, in the keyboard, up to six layers of music on top of each other. Now I was getting somewhere! I was actually able to put some pieces together!

Then another problem came along... How to remember in detail what I was playing? Well, I had to learn how to write basic notes and put them down on paper so I could play my music (approximately) the same tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that... Now I know what button on my keyboard that represents C sharp!

Then what?

I can put pieces together that sounds a bit "plastic", but okay. Then I wanted to record my music. How do I do that? I had (and while writing this, hardly still have) no idea how to do it! Suddenly, an idea! I plugged my rather lousy mp3-player to my keyboard and was able to record the music. Then I could plug the mp3 to my computer, and...  ...I had my music as mp3-files! But the sound quality (as you can hear on the soundclips) was really, really bad...

The next step is to get some kind of "desktop recording studio" equipment so I can make proper recordings and also mix my music. How do I do that? What equipment should I get? Where to begin? Sigh... The future will tell how that goes!