Originally Posted by Derek

Hi Pip,

I think you should just keep doing what you're doing. And don't have any shame at being self-taught. Nobody can teach you how to compose, after all. Someone can teach you chords and technique, but nobody can teach you how to write a good melody. You just have to do it a lot. My advice is to compose as often as possible, without a care in the world for how "good" it sounds right off the bat. It might be frustrating early on, but try to just enjoy the act of creating your own sounds. Piano improvisation is a great aid to this end, partially because a piano sounds so much better than MIDI (unless you have a really amazing sound card/sound fonts). And try never to get bogged down with rules. too many improvisers and composers get in a quagmire of symbols, theory, and neurosis.

*addition* a sense for form and structure will come with time. I think that is when one starts to gain real depth in their musical output. I don't mean mastery of "sonata form" or "song form" necessarily, but just the ability to use previous ideas in your music in a new way later in a piece or improvisation and make it sound different or climactic or what have you.