Bryan Thanh Nguyen: Music composer and sound mixer in Canoga Park, Los Angeles County, California.

A pleasure to meet you as well Bryan.

You did not specifically say you wanted to create film music, if that is your goal, there is something of extreme importance that no one commented on. SYNC. Even the great Sony Rollins had trouble with this when he scored Alfie - and he never scored another film even after his awards. (Because it nearly killed him). The human brain processes sound faster than sight. Because of our natural instinct to recognize rhythm we are lured into thinking it is easy. For our brains to be fooled that many pictures going by quickly is actual movement; results from seeing frames move at around 1/23rd of a second (frame rate) for our brains to be fools that audio is happening along with the picture (Synchronization) the sound matching the picture needs to be within one MILLISECOND! It takes an amazing amount of work and study to accomplish this needed math joined at the hip with music. It's why the Auricle time processor recieved an academy award back in the '70's, and before that huge set of gold guided books full of formulas were used. No matter what your goal - music lessons benefit you on many levels. Those who studied a wind instrument when they were around the age of ten increased their I.Q's by ten points higher than those who didn't. Stroke victims recover better if they already knew how to play a musical instrument. It is the constancy of chipping away each day that is key (consistent practice) There are a lot of software out there that can be a lot of fun, and it can bring you joy. Today's culture is all about praising. I would rather find out from a teacher if I am on the right track. Your Mom and friends will always thinK you are wonderful. If you have the talent and want to get the songs out of your head - a good teacher will put you on a real path and not a platitude. I Agee with Joel, there are many genres and and degrees of sophistication in music that are all legitimate. What I'm trying to say is - the hard work is totally worth it! Becoming musically "literate" (knowing how to read and write) is totally worth it! If you have an iPad "Notateme" it is a great way to hear what you have written, and perhaps a great way to get you started.

And there is nothing like professional feedback. I have now been going to Houston Community College for 12 years now (that's a 2 year college :) ). Obviously not for a degree. I am being mentored by not only arguably the top jazz pianist in Houston but he is a wonderful and very talented orchestral and chamber composer. In composition class he will review my works artistically, not just my jazz and classical pieces but also all my film scores. This past Monday I brought the popcorn (last class of the spring semester) and we watched the whole 35 minute film I just finished scoring (about 30 minutes of cues). I came with 27 pages of scores for 14 cues covering 584 bars of multi-instrument music (slow music or it would have been more bars :) ) - and all of it was reviewed and critiqued. Sometimes I had really great suggestions for improvement and others times, he just liked what he heard.

Yes agreed with everything Joel said. If you haven't yet, start listening to NPR and baroque/classical/romantic composers and find somebody that inspires you. Start listening to the chord progressions of the greatest composers and figure out the small bits that they have in common.

That's really cool man I like your style, good work.:) checkout my short film Abduction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecX9eHs1-58

Awesome, let's connect soon for a project