The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Composition: Methods for Developing Simple Melodies and Longer Compositions

I'm an advanced right brained musician (I've been playing for 20 years but never really gave much thought to theory). This book was just the thing to connect that other side of the brain and now I can start forming some structure out of my playing. The book takes a complex subject and boils it down to the necessities. It's got to be tough to describe abstract concepts like musical phrasing but this book does a good job. Get it if you want to write songs, or even if you just like to jam.

This is a very useful and informative book. I already had a solid grounding and understanding of music theory, chords, scales and the like. But felt i needed help synthesizing the information into a more useable form when it came to composing music. So i looked into this book for help. I agree the first half of the book is sort of a rehash of information from the idiots guide to music theory but its still very helpful. The book does a great job of explaining the core concepts of music composition such as melodic phrasing, orchestration, setting a melody to a chord progression (and vice versa) ect. I would recommend you have a solid understanding of music theory and notation before diving into this book since the author assumes you do and the musical examples are presented using written notation. I feel the goal of this book was to present you with the essentional knowledge needed to become a good composer and feel it delivered. If you expect in-depth information on non-traditional topics (atonality, minimalism ect.)then you might want to look elsewhere. But if your looking for a book that'll help you grasp the essentials of writing or composing music...then this is the book to get.

It is an excellent guide for beginners and self-taught people. For those who start in the subject I recommend to buy it together with another book of the same author: 'The Complete Idiot's Guide to Music Theory'. The author writes in a concise language, and makes clear concepts that are difficult to understand in other books. It is a comprehensive guide.

This is undoubtedly the best book i've ever read on music composition. Be warned though, if you do not have a background in basic music theory the concepts in the book may be a little confusing. However, if you read Miller's other book the guide to music theory first you should have no problem picking up the concepts in this book. I cant say enough good things about Miller. This book is full of so many great things and yet he writes in such a way that even someone with just a basic background in music can understand him. If you follow what he says you will definately be able to write your own compositions