Learn basic music keyboarding skills. Electronic music composition shares a number of similarities with piano and keyboard composition, so you can give yourself an advantage by starting with basic piano or keyboarding lessons. This will teach you about time signatures, chords, scales and other concepts important to the creation of electronic music.
Set up a basic home studio. As a beginner, you will probably not want to spend thousands of dollars on an advanced electronic music studio, but you can get started with very little money by simply purchasing a MIDI keyboard and hooking it up to your computer using a MIDI cable and a MIDI-to-USB converter cable. Just plug one end of your MIDI cable into the "MIDI Out" port on the keyboard and plug the other end into the "MIDI In" port on the converter cable. Plug the other end of the converter cable into your computer's USB port.
Purchase or download a digital audio program that will allow you to practice and explore electronic music concepts. For beginners, consider a program like GarageBand or Mixcraft, both of which offer a very simple, user-friendly interface with MIDI components, software synthesizers and digital editing capabilities. Whatever program you choose, make sure that it contains multitracking abilities and MIDI.
Begin exploring your software's MIDI capabilities. With your MIDI keyboard plugged into your computer, create a MIDI track on your digital audio program by choosing the "New Track" option, usually appearing on the menu bar under the "File" or "Track" menu, but sometimes appearing as an option directly on your software window. Choose the "MIDI track" or "Software track" option when asked to select the type of track you want to create, and begin playing notes on your MIDI keyboard after the track appears. The track will look like a long, horizontal recording space on your main window, which allows you to record and save electronic sequences.
Record music by pressing the "Record" button on your software window and playing sequences of notes on your MIDI keyboard. Press "Record" a second time to stop the recording. With your first music sequence recorded, you can begin exploring your digital editing options.
Assign an instrument to your recording. Double-click your track and begin exploring your list of built-in software instruments. By choosing an instrument setting for your MIDI recordings, you cause the recording to take on the sound of that instrument. For example, if you choose a bass setting, your recording will sound like a bass.
Manipulate the sound of your chosen instrument. Beneath each instrument option, you should see a series of sound adjustment settings, allowing you to manipulate the different aspects of the instrument preset, such as the cutoff, resonance, attack, decay, glide and other features. By adjusting these settings, you emulate the functions a real synthesizer and learn exactly how electronic synthesis works. For example, raising the cutoff of an instrument will make it sound brighter, and raising the attack setting will make it sound punchier. Explore all of the different options to learn how to precisely manipulate each sound.
Experiment with your effects options. Locate the effects options in your software browser and try adding reverb, echo, chorus, phaser and other effects to see how your recording changes. You will find that effects play a major role in giving electronic music its characteristic sound.