Growing up, I mainly listened to musicians like Ralph Vaughan Williams, Johann Strauss and Ravel, later expanding into film and cinematic music by the likes of James Horner, Michael Giacchino and John Powell.

As a kid with an imagination run wild, one of my favorite pastimes was to go lay down somewhere with my trusty ol' MP3 player, close my eyes and see where the music takes me.
Whether it'd be a big, swirling and romantic string section, or thin and expressive soloist interpretation, every note always seemed to spurt forth a new location to explore, dragon to tame or mystery to unravel.

It wasn't until my 20's where i started to realise music wasn't just a way to escape from boring reality for a little while, but also a linguistic tool primed for telling my own stories.
"Writing" a composition is really just that, much like a book you're taking your audience to a reality that can't or hasn't yet happened, meaning it's a great medium to express yourself in.

With music though.. There's a twist. (And I'm aware i might be biased here) But i feel it's potentially even more freeing and engaging than a novel, painting, performance or film that's trying to tell you something.
Often times I've come to the conclusion our regular language falls flat. You can't tell a blind person what the color "red" looks like and have them see it, similarly you can't explain an emotion to someone and make them feel it.
Sound though, is so universally engrained in us it seems to go the extra mile and takes you along for the ride.

That said, instrumental music isn't specific. You can tell whether something feels happy or sad, hot or cold, whimsical or serious, but there's no context at all.
I see this as a strength, where every other form of storytelling forces you down the path of the creators ideals, music allows you to create your own adventure based on personal interests and beliefs.

It's both this creative freedom and flexibility in interpretation that led me to pursue learning the technicalities behind writing music. And boy was it harder than i so naively expected... xD

Back in 2013 i started with synthesis and have been slowly but surely transitioning to orchestration work, writing for 20+ hours every week and at least 2 hours per day.

There's so much to learn, from music theory to expressive details, articulations to tonal balance, melodies, harmonies, counterpoint, let alone sound quality and production...
It's quite overwhelming still, and even though practice makes perfect, one of the most important things I've learned to date is to take the time to stop and listen; "Did the thing i just added sound good?"

It's easy to get bogged down by the many rabbit holes of institutional knowledge and techniques that audio production seems to drag behind itself, and that any aspiring artist will eventually face plant into.
At this point, I like going full circle back to younger Utho that didn't care for writing but only for listening and dreaming up stories, as to not lose the greater picture of what we're actually trying to do.

Writing something enjoyable that speaks to your imagination.