Hello, this is going to be a very big post, so get ready. To be honest, I'm already ashamed of him, but I have to write this.
I am 21 years old, and I am writing here out of desperation. Now I am closer than ever to quitting music, and I need the advice of experienced people.
But first I will introduce myself: I am from Russia, from a rather poor family. From the "musical background" only singing in the church choir (7 years in a row) By education, information security, but I don't like this profession at all, so I got a diploma and forgot about it.
Around the age of 18, I suddenly realized that insanely much, I want to write music for video games and movies. I was absolutely amazed at how music can immerse you in a fictional universe, and what kind of context it can create. That was the first time I heard the orchestral soundtrack to Dark Souls 3 from the author Yuka Kitamura, and I thought I wanted the same. After that, I listened to the Frenchman Carpenter Brut, and realized that I also wanted to write electronic music, as a result of which I began to mix electronic and orchestral music, because I absolutely could not decide what I liked more. Also, then (and now) I really liked the music from the anime "Angel's Egg" by Yoshihiro Kanno. The main theme of this anime has an incredibly melancholic gamut, which has inspired me not once.
As a result, I started writing. A lot of writing. Sometimes, for 18 hours a day, just because nothing else interested me. At some point, it even became hard for me to listen to someone else's music, simply because it caused me an incredible desire to sit down and start writing. "I want to write the same way" - constantly sounds in my head. In general, almost everything I have, I wrote under great inspiration, inuitively, exclusively by ear. I've studied mixing, mastering, and I think I'm not bad at it, but there's another problem..
A HUGE problem. Unfortunately, I just hate music theory. At the age of 16, I dropped out of the first year of music school (which I miraculously entered) because solfeggio and piano playing were something completely counterintuitive for me. Yes, I don't know how to play any instrument at all, and I don't know 99% of music theory. No matter how much I try, I only have an aversion to studying these things. I've always just wanted to write music from the soul.
And you know, now I'm somewhere on the verge of giving it up, because I feel like an amateur. Since childhood, I have heard from everyone, and especially from my mother, that: without music theory, you are nobody, and you can't do anything. I watch interviews with composers I like, and they all graduated from the conservatory, and I don't even know how to read sheet music. Each of them masterfully plays the piano, violin, and 1000 other instruments, and I just... I'm just putting the bricks on the virtual panel. And unfortunately, I have absolutely no way to evaluate it. It sounds exactly the way I want it, but I do not know if I want it right. Besides, it probably sounds dead, because these are mostly not real instruments, but ordinary VST
To be honest, I do not know what I will do if I quit music. "Composing" (a big word) has always been a therapy, a goal and a dream for me. I solved every problem in my life with music. I remember when I was 20, my mother was dying in the hospital, my girlfriend left me after 5 years of a relationship, and they almost expelled me from college. That day I thought: well, that's it, it's time to die.
Of course, it was scary, so "before I died" I decided to launch a game that I had recently downloaded. It was called Ender Lilies. In the game menu there was a little girl in the rain, and "Ender Lilies - Main Theme" was playing. At that moment I started crying like a baby. I can say for sure that I have never cried like this in my life. As a result, I sat down and wrote 10 soundtracks in a day.
Naturally, I wrote it by ear. It was pretty simple music, because I didn't have any experience at all then, but I put everything I had into it, and probably that's the only reason I didn't jump off the roof that day. I'll attach this album here if anyone is interested, but in fact there is absolutely nothing special about it. The album tells the story of a child who walks through a country infected with the "magic plague" and looks at the horror that is happening in it.
Less than a year has passed since that moment. I've raised my level a lot, I've learned a lot of things, but not music theory. As soon as I plunge into the world of these "frets, steps, intervals", I immediately lose all interest in composing. As my last (and probably best) work, I will attach this one:
In my music, I try to mix the pathos and Gothic grandeur of Dark Souls music with the aggressive electronic style of Carpenter Brut, and partly metal.
However, what is the point of all this? Do you know the feeling when you think you don't know something that everyone else around knows? I will ask for a job somewhere, and they will say to me: no, my friend, you did not graduate from the conservatory. Does it work like this? Or maybe I have a chance? Or maybe my music is just completely hopeless?
To be honest, I'm desperate, because I'm almost 22 years old, and I have to decide exactly what to do next in this life, so as not to waste time in vain. I really like to write music, in any genre, for anything, as long as it has a plot or purpose. But maybe there's nothing waiting for me in this, with this approach? I doubt that I will ever master solfeggio
In general, I'm asking you for a simple piece of advice. It is clear that the final decision remains with me, and in fact I am almost sure that I will NEVER stop writing. However, I want to know your opinion, guys. To hear about it from someone who is just more experienced. Maybe find a teacher (?)I'm sure I'm not the first one, so there will be a solution for me too
Thank you, it's important to me. And sorry for the bad English, I don't know it very well yet
UPD: There are so many good people on this forum. Thank you guys, you gave me an invaluable opinion and dispelled my doubts. I am very glad that I came here
