If you are serious, go to the best school you can afford. Blackbird Studio has one in Nashville.
I studied composition, electronic music, and recording studio techniques in college and was hired right out of school into a career as a recording engineer/producer. My title is sound designer for film and video, or technically,
Audio Post Production Design Engineer. Part of that is engineering and producing music for film and video, which includes writing and composing score music.
What I discovered is that a microscopic minority of folks fall into a career in music and get hired for their looks at 19 years of age. People reach their stale date for getting into performing at about 25 these days. Most others involved in the field study it and then practice the craft for years before they experience success.
I started in 1981 at the height of the music biz's first recession when a guitarist or music recording engineer couldn't get a-rrested, much less a job. Unbelievably, I was hired as the junior-most onto a team of eleven audio engineers at a TV network. I got every schlock assignment and odd shift on the planet for ten years while I honed my craft and grabbed every music assignment I could get. I transitioned into multi-track post production in about 1984. Within about ten years, though attrition in a field full of stress, sturm, and drang, I found myself the senior engineer in the house. Being hired away to school and onto that crew seems to have been the only "lucky" break I got - the rest was a slow slog up a muddy path with a heavy pack.
Has it been worth it? Yeah. I looked around me in 1980 and realized that I couldn't see a single professional guitarist who had been able to keep a family together or stay off drugs. I chose this path so I could have a family and the love of a wife. I wake up in the same bed every morning with my college sweetheart by my side. My dogs love me and I get to do enough music that I don't get tired of it.
Life is good. Best of luck to you.
Bob