---
title: Music Composition
description: Music composition is the process of creating original musical works. Learners will understand how to develop melodic themes, structure musical forms, apply harmonic progressions, and write for various instruments to express specific emotions or narratives.
category: music-audio
subcategory: music-theory
difficulty: beginner, intermediate, advanced
url: /subject/music-composition
---

# Music Composition

Music composition is the process of creating original musical works. Learners will understand how to develop melodic themes, structure musical forms, apply harmonic progressions, and write for various instruments to express specific emotions or narratives.

## Available Resources

3 Books • 1 Courses • 2 Websites

## Courses

### 1. Open Music Theory

Learn music theory and analysis with Open Music Theory, a comprehensive and accessible online course. Explore harmony, form, and more!

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://viva.pressbooks.pub/openmusictheory/

**Tags:** music-theory, free, open-access, textbook

## Books

### 1. Fundamentals of Musical Composition

**Author:** Arnold Schoenberg

Schoenberg's teaching text on tonal construction, working from phrase and motive through sentence, period, small ternary form, rondo, and sonata, with annotated examples from Beethoven. Prepares you to build coherent movements rather than isolated ideas.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0571196586?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, music-performing-arts, music-theory

### 2. The Study of Orchestration

**Author:** Samuel Adler

Standard conservatory text on orchestral writing: the ranges, registers, and idiomatic techniques of each instrument family, then scoring for strings, winds, brass, percussion, and full orchestra, with score excerpts and transcription exercises.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0393958086?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** orchestration, instrumentation, scoring, music-composition

### 3. Composing Music: A New Approach

**Author:** William Russo, Jeffrey Ainis, David Stevenson

A workbook built on constraint exercises: write melodies under deliberate restrictions, then relax them one at a time. Russo's method gets beginners producing actual music early instead of waiting until harmony theory is finished.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Paid

**Link:** https://www.amazon.com/dp/0226732169?tag=edmonddante07-20

**Tags:** books, music-performing-arts, music-theory

## Websites

### 1. hooktheory.com

Hooktheory is an interactive music-theory platform for learning chords and harmony. It offers theory lessons, chord-function explanations, and an extensive library of pop-song progressions with interactive diagrams to analyze and create progressions.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://hooktheory.com

**Tags:** websites, music-performing-arts, music-theory

### 2. musictheory.net

Musictheory.net is a free, interactive platform for learning music theory, offering concise lessons on intervals, chords, scales, rhythm, and notation. It also provides hands-on practice with ear training and theory tools to test and reinforce your understanding.

**Difficulty:** Intermediate | **Language:** English | **Price:** Free

**Link:** https://musictheory.net

**Tags:** websites, arts-design, creative-arts

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