[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by washy21

Does anyone have any good advice as to where I could lesrn how to write music.

I do read music to a level I’m happy with but what I’d like to do is write down my own melodies correctly and I struggle.

It maybe that what I’m asking involves significant knowledge which is long term study, but in essence I’d like to write my ideas down, so if I come up with an eight bar melody I can get it down.

Hi washy…
First of all I recommend you record things you write to your phone or a small digital recorder so you don't forget it. Recording is far faster than writing it out…writing it down can take place later.

I studied applied music theory in college, and I already knew how to read well and had been composing for a few years.

The course involved us learning to take live musical 'dictation' (listening to an 8 bar passage in 4 parts, and notating it in four passes), and we were also expected to compose and write out 8 and 16 bar exercises in four part notation a few times per week (which the teacher would play for the class).

I greatly benefited from the class.

It was certainly more comprehensive than the two things I listed above which we did weekly, and we had an amazing instructor who didn't just dispense information. He demonstrated on the piano what he was teaching during the class periods. If you want to thoroughly understand everything you are doing, then classroom is likely the best way to get there.

There is no quick path for what you want to do…even if you spend hundreds of dollars on recording software that can notate (the programs I've seen make plenty of mistakes).

Since you read music, you could create some staff paper on your own explore with writing out a melody line. You should be able to piece together the notes and values of what you are writing.