(08-21-2013, 10:43 AM)PatientZero Wrote: Let me give you the single most solid piece of advice I can think of for anyone just starting off writing original compositions, this is something I screwed up myself so trust me here: you do need to understand basic music theory.

Google is your friend here, there are a million sites that explain this stuff and some really good videos on youtube.
The basic elements you need to experiment with are chord progressions, scales (I recommend the blues scale, because it's cool as hell and really simple), and phrases. Progressions and scales are the most important since phrases you'll probably trip over as you're working anyway.
You won't instantly pick them up but there's nothing wrong with learning as you go, so don't feel like it's cheating to keep webpages open for reference, I've been doing this for like forever and I still watch tutorial videos and keep chord cheat-sheets open when I work.
(admittedly using reference material is also because my memory doesn't work right, I know the stuff but I just need help recalling it sometimes)

If you're working digitally focus on piano and keyboard theory, others don't always apply.

Oh, and listen to music from different genres (even country and rap), particularly older music that formed the basis for consecutive genres, you don't have to enjoy it but it's really helpful to work out what makes it work.
To put it another way, modern technical metal follows different rules and ideas than classical jazz, but you might be surprised that they have a lot more in common than you'd think.

I know that sounds like the most boring thing ever and way too academic, but think of it like you've got a bunch of tools on a table and you don't know what they do, you don't want to grab a screwdriver to hammer in a nail so it makes sense to learn that first.
That said, it's important to make some music while you learn, there's no gentle way to put this but at first it will suck.
I'm not saying people just won't like it or you'll make some mistakes, the music you write at first will just be straight up awful. And that is totally fine.

You have to suck before you can blow (peoples minds)