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http://chipmusic.org/forums/topic/6059/ … xperience/
Here's a similar thread, and my answer there is still valid, but I've skimmed some books here and there. Apparently this website's ebook is pretty good, at least the free chapter which is freely available taught me a thing or two. Haven't purchased it yet, though.
took a couple years lessons on the electric bass, after that-it was self taught for various keys, wind instruments and string things, via playing with lots and lots of people for hours and hours. i really really recommend learning an instrument from someone. self exploration is great but having someone to hold you accountable for lessons/progress can take you places and answers questions you may have much easier than trying to reinvent the wheel on your own. the key is to balance your own voice with those musical "rules/tools" that everyone uses.
I started playing drums at a young age, then went through a guitar and very lately I've been playing mostly ukulele, but I try to keep up with everything I've done before too. My always pending subject is learning armony... I only know that several chords go well with each other and how to make a major and minor chord... but that's pretty poor : P So I'm still learning!
I suck at playing cello but it helped me develop a better ear that monst of my guitarist friends. Plus ladies love cellos.
Knowing how to play a instrument would help alot. But, if you dont know any instruments. I would take some time and read some music theory books or watch some videos. You dont have to dive too hard into it, but knowing the differences between major and minor scales and modes will provide alot help. Ive a self taught musician. Your own brain is your limit into creativity, so knowledge is power! remember to have fun more than anything 
remember to have money is more fun than anything
'fixed
It's all about the money.
Kubbi wrote:You learn music by listening to music
well said
I concur as well! When I was very little, my parents never bought me "children's music" for which I am so grateful! They just played me their records and I think that more than anything fostered an early love and appreciation for music. I've always been into music and listened to it daily as far back as I can remember. Being exposed to a wide variety of music from many different generations; my parents, grandparents, friends, friends' older siblings, etc.... help further this. I am entirely self-taught, with a little bit of help from wikipedia, MIDI files, etc.... but having been ingesting music my whole I think helped me internalize, on an instinctive level things like melody, harmony, progression, rhythm, etc.... There are things I knew but didn't completely understand until I read about them!
ways i learned music, from most useful/influential to least:
1) opening tracker module files and looking at pattern data to glean the artists' techniques
2) tracking tracker files of my own to put #1 into practice
3) listening to music purposefully and picking apart the melodies/harmonies/rhythm
4) music theory class for one year
5) about 9 years of piano (still sucked afterward with not much development in the way of improvisation or sightreading)
the most important part, i think, is to identify the components in the music which evoke an emotional response. it could be a specific encapsulated riff, or it could be a more holistic combination of those components that achieves the overall effect. most of my musical development over the last few years is to attain a deep understanding of the latter.
Played drums at school since 4th grade, drumline thru high school, still can't music
I'd been fucking about with guitar (but couldn't progress because my fingers are mutated or something), drums and casio keyboards... just took it into my head one day fo try and find a way to use a Game Boy as a drum machine, Discovered chip music and got into electronic production from there really. Still learning.
i've tried to learn music theory but i've found that comprehend how music and notes works is better.
it's important to comprehend:
- what make a note sound good is not the note itself but the interval (distance in semitones) between the notes around
- the feeling of a scale is given by the sequence of distances between notes
- not every but many scales could be played only whit white keys on a piano, depending on which root note you are starting. modal scales are done in this way.
- A minor scale is the relative minor of C major scale, which means that they share the same notes. this is true for evry modal scale, phrygian G is relative to C magior and so on...
- black keys are scales too, yeah, pentatonic.
- trackers have a fabolous function that not evry intrument have: transpose
- rhythm affects the feeling of the music
- silence is good
- if it sounds good you could break all the rules.
i've tried to learn music theory but i've found that comprehend how music and notes works is better.
it's important to comprehend:
Excellent points and I think this is true too..learn too much theory and you feel like you have a list of rules to follow. I remember reading in an interview with Radiohead like forever ago, that the other more musically trained members of the band used to try to "protect" Thom Yorke from learning too much about the "rules" of music, since he always brought a unqiue perspective to song writing. I've always tried to hear something in my head and then create it, instead of thinking, I'm gonna use this scale or this type of progression..