so you're starting to learn music composition and you're wondering do I need to learn how to write music do I need to learn how to read scores do I need to learn how to write scores well it's kind of a complicated answer but yes I will tell you from my experience as a composer working with all different kinds of genas I will give you my tips on why you should go one way or the other if you should even bother out to write scores or not because it's kind of a good question right and you have the right to know so let's start with one question what type of music are you doing right now are you doing hybrid orchestral music only with like sound libraries and working along in your basement and then just having fun or maybe you don't need to learn how to write scores because you don't have to communicate with other musicians that way to communicate the what your ideas are and to have them record them in a studio but for you for this kind of specific person that I know a lot of my viewers are there's one thing that you're missing out on if you don't really consider to learn how to write music and you're doing this kind of orchestral music it's that you don't have access to the repertoire at all you don't know how Malo writes you don't know how Beethoven writes you unfortunately don't know how Shostakovich write a symphony all of this knowledge is kind of lost to you and you don't have access to it unfortunately really I mean there's probably people trying to put this these Symphonies into Medi files and trying to sell them I mean this might be a good way to make money right now but unfortunately right now if you're in this situation you're pretty much stuck with the knowledge there is online about how to orchestrate which is not necessarily what I mean is there like a great Master teaching uh YouTube channel or something or maybe it's me I'm the I'm this master I will be Yes actually that's the kind type of content that I try to give but yes you don't have access to this so kind of a missing out on this and I would suggest that uh you maybe start and slowly trying to understand nostal score how it's written what the notes are and actually who is playing that's the first question you don't have to be able to hear and see every every note and understand all the notes and sometimes these scores are even transposed so even I am like okay this is a horn in in F and this is this is a jet in B flat so and this is the clarinet in in base clarinet in B flat so that's anactive and the second below that it's what it's written so so sometimes it's quite complex to to understand to know exactly what note are playing but uh knowing who comes in at what time and following the Rhythm following the general rhythm of a score can really help you understand um and here also how a section sounds well the if if the whole would win section start at one point then you understand and you see it in the score and you see it coming also you anticipate it and you try to look for it in the sound then when you're composing by yourself even with only sample libraries you will have this knowledge that you will have developed so this is my suggestion for you but if you just want to have fun with sound libraries I mean along in your basement that's fine and will try to provide you for as much as much on my channel as I can for you but otherwise let's see another figure you're a cinematic composer you write for film you write for publicities you write for video games now a lot of this music of course is done only um with digital instruments some of these industries don't really have quite the budget that you need for a real live Orchestra only the Bigger Productions uh have these and it's only the projects that the bigger composers get but still I would say if you want to be different from the other composers in your field in this particular field then maybe learning how to work with real performers to give them some indications with on on a score this could help you to have a unique sound because of course working in the studio and I say it multiple times here on my channel it's really one of the most unique thing uh to to develop a unique sound the unique sound that you want because you can give verbal indications to your performer and if you have a score that gives most of the information there on the pitch on the Rhythm on the tempo and on the Dynamics then the performer really gets in one quick look what you want and you can give him or her more indications afterwards because I would say that if you hire a musician by the hour in your studio and you don't have any scores and you say well he or she's going to listen to some of the music and then he or she will reproduce it and take some time and will take an extra hour or two well it's going to cost you more and uh obviously less money in your pockets right because sometimes the producers unfortunately don't care they give you a certain budget and you have to do the music with this bu so if you write nice scores that are clear and concise it will save you a lot of time working with a real performer in that case and again working with a real performer in this industry can really help you stand out from the from the crowd because right now everybody has access to uh playing with sample libraries but not everybody has access and knowledge also to work with a real musician now another category of person if you if you were doing some rock music you don't necessarily have to learn how to write music it always depends how complex the music you're doing is cuz certainly for the guitar there's uh guitar tabs that are quite quite a nice way to communicate uh some information to other performers but still you don't always have such a clear way to communicate the Rhythm it's kind of a combination of using your ear and playing the right notes at the right time so certainly in that case it's kind of a it depends uh who you're working with as well but we're talking about rock but if you're working or you want to work in the pop industry a lot of times the performers working in this industry it's one of the most lucrative industry uh of all the music Industries so they often have some of the best performers and often these performers have a degree in music and quite a large knowledge on how to read scores so they will often expect uh a score in a lead sheet something that they can rely on uh to understand quickly what they have to play sometimes they arrive the same day they they site twet the music because it's it's very easy for them to do they do it every day and they just play your Arrangement like this but otherwise I'm saying this but there are so many more styles of music that destly use scores we can think of electronic music uh there's some World music that have different cultures that's really rely on uh the mouth-to-mouth communication so they're quite used to use their ears so in that regard if you're want to work in this field it might be less important to learn how to write uh music for these but otherwise I think it's there's quite a lot of arguments to say that it's important to at least understand the basic of music writing it can give you access to a lot of knowledge it can give you access to working with real performers in the studio even if you don't expect to be doing this any time soon you might want to prepare for this if you want to do a career in music or if you want to get serious about this or at least if you want to have a few experience with music uh during your lifetime now thank you for listening and I hope this helped see you soon