Is It Too Late To Consider A Career As A Composer?

How much money you make tends to scale up with how unpleasant your job is; if you wanted to be rich, you should have become a lawyer >.>

How come I'm not rich despite being one?

Ouch.

Perhaps he should have said become a good lawyer.

;)

Oxymoron?

There is a new class of composers coming up. One's who don't play instruments. They teach themselves or take classes on theory, harmony, counterpoint etc. And the learn the abilities of each instrument.. Then they buy  the 'classical orchestral libraries out there'.  Ones that use Kontakt scripts to do arpeggios and glissandos to run in Cubase, Logic, Nuendo, et.  

If you want to try being a compose go for it. Granted your style will be relative to the sample libraries you have.. Some of them are great and real expensive.. But you could start with something simple.. Some of them start by learning Sibelies or Finale, and begin composing using some of their specialized tools.  Learning an instrument is great and helpful for one to know positively what a certain instrument can and can't do.. And it will certainly impact your compositions, but who's to say a person who has no 'instrument' could be a more rounded musician..

I'm reading a book right now (in fact the theme is present in several books). That music came before language. Music is a very unique creature.  You don't need to know anything about a piece, and love it.  It is a language that transcends vocabulary,  The last dozen years have seen such radical change in just about everything in society.  I am not advocating buying some fancy machine and blindly pushing buttons.. 

I've played music for 50 years,, always wrote pop songs.. In the last several years, I took some online arranging and songwriting courses from Berklee School of music.. The courses are great but expensive..

I'm learning and improving my arranging, the main instrument I play are kbds and computers..  I'll never write a symphonic piece, I have no desire too.  My desire is to be able to write George Martin type arrangements that he did for the Beatles records. That's my goal. And that is not an impossible goal.

 We have some real 'dyed in the whole' composers here who are very talented and learnt the 'old school way'.

I'm saying explore for yourself, find your particular field of interest and go for it.. Be realistic, a lot of the most successful musicians started when they were six years old (explained by some as the cut off point to develop perfect pitch, a wonderful tool to have.. But anyone can learn relative pitch.  And there are  probably a lot of messed up people who were forced to take piano lessons when they were six and hate it.. I was ten and my brother was six when we got a Hammond chord organ, and then an A100..  I loved it.  After a few months my brother lost interest, and my parents let him be.. They didn't force it on either of us, they 'exposed' us to it.. I wish I was 6 when we started..

These days, I see 10 year old kids who are brilliant with computers. 

FInd you niche, and go for it (don't give up your day job though)

Good luck

I agree with most comments here. It depends on what you want to compose, but a true composer is more addicted to it...and life is 'lost' without it.

One should love music and feel a part of it in some way...I cannot imagine someone being happy who did not always have music in his life with an 

instrument or constant listening to great music...and then new music too.  He should have an ability to play an instrument. Usually one learns this

at an earlier age. However, if passionate, one can learn when older.  What nobody has spoken about is natural ability.  To be musical and reproduce music,

one must have an ear for it; harmony, rhythm, melody, and colors plus musical recall.  One can take a test for this, which would be helpful.  Very important is creativity.  Also, can one be disciplined enough to practice or work alone many hours a day?  This is not an easy profession, but if one measures up to it and loves music...it is a

great blessing.  Of course, do not expect to have regular vacations, for usually one does not.  I have never had one. Composing is a way of life.  However, if music 

is your master, you can be its grateful servant all your life long.

Bruh, it's been almost 10 years

Did she make it or no?

@AngelCityOutlaw Here is some music-related Arianna Bailey, that's perhaps her: https://programs.testradio.org/WVYC/pl/12716053/Arianna-Bailey

On 3/2/2021 at 8:08 AM, Bělásek said:

@AngelCityOutlaw Here is some music-related Arianna Bailey, that's perhaps her: https://programs.testradio.org/WVYC/pl/12716053/Arianna-Bailey

We'll never know

If you want something other than a lowsy job.

(I use that word to illustrate a point) 
You have to work 10-100x as hard.

I'm not sure how to quantify that, but everyone wants

to be an artist. You never quite make it, it's always

an uphill battle.