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Take a look at our Syllabus

PART ONE – Chordal State Lecture

  • Chordal States – constantly change based on harmony, melody, and film emotion
    • Grounded state versus Ungrounded state.
      • Grounded states and examples
      • Ungrounded states examples including altered tone degrees or dissonance.
    • Tools to use in between Grounded and Ungrounded, when you don’t know what the emotion will be:
      • Lydian Mode “chord” – Root + Major Third + Flatted 5th
      • Augmented triad example
      • Suspended triad
      • Intervallic triad
    • Spotify Listening – Film Score Intensive 1 playlist.
    • Homework Session – Thor Love & Thunder cue

PART TWO – Spotting, Dialog, Scoring Devices

  • Questions to ask at a Spotting Session
  • Writing around dialogue
  • Musical Devices – Key, Mode, Register, Tempo, Density, etc
  • Review Michael’s Thor cue – introduction to the review process

PART ONE – Animated Scoring and intro to Harmonic textures

  • Review of students’ Thor cue
  • Monophonic Orchestration Style (#1) from George Frederick McKay’s Creative Orchestration – 8 Orchestra Textures
    • Can be a solo instrument, doubled in octaves, or unison at same register with different instruments.

Homework – Sonic the Hedgehog cue

PART TWO

  • Review of students’ Thor cue

PART ONE – Expanded Harmony and intro to comedy writing

  • Chordal Harmony (#2) and Onomatopoeia (#8) Orchestration Style
    • Chordal Harmony – melody is supported by chords, without countermelody or conter-rhythm, in its entirety.
    • Onomatopoeia – music sounds like its subject – any musical device you can think of.
  • Review of students’ Sonic cue
  • Kids’ Music and Comedy – Types of writing – bumper-based shows, rock/pop, cheesy and sparse, short stings or reactionary scoring, electronic/EDM, classic lo-fi, instrumentation, etc.

Homework – Little Margo cue

PART TWO – THURSDAY-SCI FI Music, Chromatic Expansion and Hans Zimmer Music

  • Review of students’ Sonic cue
  • “How DUNE Composer Hans Zimmer created the Oscar-winning score l Vanity Fair” YouTube video
  • Review of students’ Little Margo cue

PART ONE – Chromatic expansion, polyphonic texture, Sound design drones

  • Polyphonic Writing, Orchestration Style – consists of two or more simultaneous melodic lines. Similar to fugues or counterpoint. Maybe side by side to start, then together.
  • Spotify listening playlist – Polyphonic Harmony
  • Chromatic Expansion – Take the top voice and go up chromatically while chords change underneath.
  • Review students’ Little Margo cue
  • Making a Drone using a Synth Plugin
  • Homework – Mandalorian cue

PART TWO – Live Scoring “star Wars” Speed Writing

  • LIVE Scoring session – Star Wars Carbonite – spotting and scoring
  • Loopback sample setup

PART ONE – Modulations, secondary harmonic dominants, James Bond Music(SPY)

  • “Kobe Bryant’s Greatest Speech – BEST Motivation Ever” YouTube video
  • Review of students’ Mandalorian cue
  • Secondary Harmonic Dominants (teoria.com) – method of prolongation of the chordal structure and movement to another chord or key, including false cadences.
  • Spotting session – Golden Eye cue
  • Spotify playlist – Bond Music – Spy music – review instrument palette and playing styles.

WEEK 5 PART TWO – Templates Intro including libraries, MIDI CC

  • “John Barry and David Arnold – The Music of James Bond” YouTube video – music review
  • MIDI CC’s – 1, 7, & 11 – how to get a quick and dynamic response from brass and strings.
  • Michael shares a look at his Template and favorite Libraries.

PART ONE – James Newton Howard, Trailer music,

  • “The Pretty Woman soundtrack changed my career / James Howard Newton on Composing” YouTube review.
  • Review of students’ Golden Eye cue
  • Trailer & Promo Music – both part of music library music
    • Promo – Station promotes a new show or episode coming up
    • Trailer – written in shorter sections, not a lot of modulation or melody, with editable hit points, ostinato, swells, etc.
    • Spotting session – Joker Trailer cue

PART TWO – Guest in depth dive of Vienna Ensemble and Midi mapping/articulations

Guest teacher Steve Steele – Creating Articulation Maps, Vienna Ensemble Pro, Babylon Waves Art Conductor, MIDI CC’s, creating a workflow and Aux’s in your Template in detail.

PART 1 – Sound Design,Reharm progressions, Motifs and themes

  • Sound Design – anything non-orchestral or non-band oriented
    • Best chance of success in trailer music if you are good at sound design – more important than how good you are at orchestral music.
  • Spotify listening playlist – Sound Design
  • Incorporating Sound Design alongside Orchestral music in trailers, so you can hardly tell which is which. Strings and Synths made to sound like one thing – together.
  • Review of students’ Joker Trailer cue
  • Spotting session – Star Wars Return of the Jedi cue.

PART 2 – Reharm discussion including John Williams, Hybrid Brass

  • Reharmonization – cool chord progressions
    • vi-IV-II is a very powerful one, cinematic, gets you out of one key
    • vi-IV-VII keeps building and overcoming.
    • Variations: I-iv6-II Great for REVEALS with the last chord
  • Hybrid String-Synth and Brass-Synth creation
    • How to make a Hybrid Synth & Orchestral String instrument from scratch, including many FX plugins
  • Star Wars Theme Reharmonization ideas

PART 1 – SATB Scoring, Homophonic textures, Musicals

  • Homophonic Texture orchestration style – Melody with texture of chords underneath. SATB
  • Review of students’ Star Wars Return of the Jedi cue.
  • Homework – Lion King cue

PART 2 – Live Satb Scoring, Voice Leading In Film Scores

  • Review of students’ Star Wars Return of the Jedi cue.
  • LIVE Scoring – SATB
  • “How to Get From Chord to Chord – Voice Leading Music Theory by Odd Quartet” YouTube video review
  • “The Orchestration Method that ALWAYS Works by Ryan Leach” YouTube video review.

PART ONE – ADVENTURE MUSIC, Advanced Orchestral Devices

  • Flying and Adventure music – instrumentation and characteristics
  • Review of students’ Lion King cue
  • Homework – Jurassic Park cue
  • Orchestral Devices
    • Bi-tonal division – ability to superimpose other modes over/under your melody
    • Metric Modulation
    • Elongation
    • Melodic Counters
    • Register Division
  • Analysis of 1 minute of John Williams’ Jurassic Park Conductor’s score

PART 2 – Music Business Part 1, Music Libraries, Brand Development

  • Review of students’ Lion King cue
  • Analysis of Jurassic Journey to the Island
  • Music Business – Pitching to Music Libraries – What to Do
    • Creating your own catalog, brand and unique perspective.
    • Write a few paragraphs about your “Brand”.

PART ONE – Westerns And Their Traditional Orchestral Devices

  • Review of students’ Jurassic Park cue
  • Western Music review – instrumentation, characteristics, etc
    • Western Sub-Styles –
      • The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
      • Aaron Copland Heroic style, such as Billy the Kid
    • Spotify listening playlist – Westerns FSS
    • Spotting session – Butch Cassidy cue
  • Review of Western music sample libraries

PART TWO – Writing Transitions, Vertical And Horizontal Compositional Syles

  • Review students’ Jurassic Park cue
  • Transitions in compositional scoring
    • Trumpet Transition sample
    • Displaced Entry Transition
    • Major 7 on the V chord Transition
    • Rhythmic Displacement Transition

PART ONE – Orchestral Reductions, Holst Analysis And Uses

  • Review students’ Butch Cassidy cue
  • 20th Century Orchestration Style –
    • Holst: The Planets listening and review instrumentation and characteristics
  • Analyze “Mercury, The Winged Messenger” section from The Planets, and do a Score Reduction.
    • Dovetailing – when you move the melody or something up and down in register and section of the orchestra.
    • Major Tetrachords
    • Staggered triads in the Harp
  • “The Planets: Mercury, the Winged Messenger Score Reduction and Analysis” YouTube video
  • HOMEWORK – Spiderman cue

PART TWO – Invervalic Writing,in Class Score

  • Review students’ Butch Cassidy cue
  • Intervalic writing style (from Paraschetti book on 20th Century writing) – can be used under dialogue and can also be a way to transition between tension and release. The point is to create tension under the score without key and mode. Move by chord or by single notes. Every interval in a melody has an emotion. Review each one.
    • Two levels to Intervallic writing – Melody and Harmonization

LIVE scoring – write a melody with 2 woodwinds, with 4 changes in the melody, 4 intervals. Harmonize with another instrument underneath. Note change in emotion.

PART ONE – Hybrid Scoring Intro

  • Review students’ Spiderman cue
  • Hybrid Sound Design Music inspired by Songs
  • How to make a Pulse from scratch, including FX plugins
    • Favorite plugins and libraries
  • Spotting session – The Matrix lobby shootout cue
  • Spotify listening playlist – Hybrid Scoring

PART TWO – Advanced Sound Design And Project Pitch Creation

  • Review students’ Spiderman cue
  • Stylus RMX and REX files
  • Audio Mangling tools and favorite plugins
  • LIVE scoring – Record something audio, chip it up, reverse, delays, distortion, glitches, etc. Make an instrument out of it.

PART ONE – Music Of Jerry Goldsmith, Sci Fi, Horror Music

  • Review students’ The Matrix cue
  • Horror music – instrumentation and characteristics, sample libraries
  • Alien soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith analysis
  • Spotify listening playlist – Week 4 FSS Horror
  • Spotting session – Prey (Predator 7) Final Battle Predator vs Naru Fight Scene cue

PART TWO – Mixing Part One

  • Review students’ The Matrix cue
  • Mixing – Thing in Frequency Ranges. Group tracks by frequency
    • How to treat Tracks and Stems
      • EQ can be built into your Template. Every project may be different, though.
      • Make a Bus/Aux Track for each plugin effect.
    • Compression, Reverb, EQ etc. concepts and products
    • How to Set Up a Master Bus

PART ONE – Atonal Music

  • Review students’ Prey cue
  • Atonal music style – instruments, characteristics, sample libraries
    • Uses shapes and colors outside key and mode.
    • Doesn’t have to be dissonant all the time.
    • Nebulous emotional center
      • Two ways to increase emotional intensity – speeding up or down, crescendo/decrescendo
      • Homogenous instruments or Non-Homogenous instruments
    • Spotting session – Mizimono cue (Hannibal season finale)
    • Spotify listening playlist – Atonal Class Music
    • Ideas for Scoring Atonal Music
      • 12-tone system of writing
      • Use Intervals in dissonant shapes
      • Alternate mild consonant interval to a more dissonant interval in succession
      • Clusters

PART TWO – Switching States And Emotions Rapidly, Midi Mockup

  • Review students’ Prey cue
  • LIVE Scoring – Atonal to Tonal – Grounded to Ungrounded
  • How to Record Initial Volumes into MIDI Instrument Tracks (and Gainstaging)
    • Adjusting CC’s on instruments, stems, leaving headroom on the master bus

PART ONE – Team Scoring Week, Bernard Hermann

  • Spotify listening playlist – Film Score History – Bernhard Herman, Vertigo & Psycho film scores
  • Review students’ Mizimono cue
  • Working with a Team – Work in pairs remotely to write Great Wolf Lodge cue.
    • Some of the best film score composers today have teams – Hans Zimmer, Harry Gregson-Williams, etc.
    • Who will write what? Style? Tempo? Key? Who will do the Deliverables to submit to Producer?
  • HOMEWORK – Great Wolf Lodge cue

PART TWO – Stacks And Ensemble Writing, Master Business Planning

  • Review students’ Mizimono cue
  • LIVE Scoring – Make an Instrument by Stacking instruments – Omnisphere is great for this. Trailer music and music library work, and Pop – these will require that you bring something new to the table. Can turn them into Risers, resample them, add FX plugins, etc.
  • Write a Master Plan – Don’t be on the No Plan Plan. Make a list of people, organizations, events, etc that you can access to promote yourself and make connections and relationships.

PART ONE – Computer Technology, Romantic Comedies

  • Computer configuration – Tech spec discussion regarding requirements for a good computer or network – size, speed, etc.
  • Review students’ Great Wolf Lodge TEAM cue
  • Romantic & Romantic Comedy music –
    • Instruments, writing styles, sample libraries
    • Woodwinds feature heavily, Pizzicato, Lydian mode, mallets, not super heavily orchestrated, etc
  • Write a Romantic Theme for violin. Deliver a chart for just the violin part. Send audio of orchestration or accompaniment with separate click track. Next week, we’ll have a live violinist in the studio to play and record your theme.
  • Spotify listening playlist – Romantic Comedy Score review
  • HOMEWORK – Titanic cue

THURSDAY – LIVE RECORDING IN CLASS WITH STRING PLAYER

PART ONE – Sync Music,promo Music, Hits Slams, Drums

  • Review students’ Titanic cue
  • Sync Music – Different styles, musical beds, used before TV shows, announcing new series/episodes, in movie trailers.
    • Definite format to this style
    • Big drum sounds
    • Editable hit points
    • Original music or Soundalikes
  • How to get your music in front of the right people. Who are the right people? How does the business of Sync music work?
  • Spotify listening playlist – PROMO Music/Sync playlist.
  • HOMEWORK – Back to the Future cue

PART TWO – Trailer Music<,music Pitch Part Two

  • Review students’ Titanic cue
  • LIVE Scoring – Trailer ending sample (last 15 seconds)
    • BIG ending, fast and frantic
    • Rise, Post Hit, then a sparkly thing at the end
  • Samples Libraries good for Trailer sounds

PART ONE – Video Game Music And Industry

  • Video Game Music – Non-linear, think in “blocks” of music
    • Must loop right at the zero point and create a tiny fade at the front and the end. Snap to Zero Crossings.
    • Emotional Mapping
    • Vertical Resequencing, Horizontal Resequencing
    • Cross Fading
    • Transitions
    • Middleware – Game Audio Engine
  • Spotify listening playlist – Video Game Music Mix
  • Spotting session – Video game cue “sections”. Deliver loopable audio regions for selected parts of the game.
  • Review students’ Back to the Future cue

PART TWO – Advanced Chordal And Tectural Scoring Techniques

  • Review students’ Bank to the Future cue
  • LIVE Scoring – Leading Shapes, Whole Tone Scale – Go from Lydian shape to resolution, which needs to modulate somewhere else. Use Leading or Common Tone resolutions style.
  • Leading Shapes, Whole Tone Scale – very useful if someone comes to a new place, or if there are mixed emotions.
    • Two whole tone scales – one starting on C and one starting on C#. Triads are all Augmented triads. Lots of Lydian Shapes in the Whole Tone Scale.
    • Leading Resolution
    • Common Tone Resolution
    • Alternate Root Notes

PART ONE – Mixing And Mastering

  • How the Video Game music business works – special events, etc
  • Review students’ Video Game loops
  • Mixing & Mastering Considerations –
    • Think front to back – far to close
    • Where to put reverb plugin in the signal chain
    • Frequency Masking
    • Drum sample mixing
  • HOMEWORK – Toy Story cue
  • Students screenshare live and “show and tell” their mixing workflow for the Toy Story cue. Have DAW open to show us.

PART TWO – Guest Composer

  • Guest composer Gigi Meroni Animation music specialist.
    • References for music given by Producers.
    • Are most of your episodes shorter these days?
    • Do you get writer’s block?
    • What are some good ways to try to get work when you’re just starting out?
  • Mixing Drums – Split them out and mix separately – LOTS of detail regarding drum positioning, panning, bleed, overhead mics, EQ ranges for each drum type, etc.

PART ONE – Personal Plan, Business Development, Final Full Episode

  • Review students’ Toy Story cue and DAW Mixing/Mastering workflow
  • HOMEWORK – Wolf Lodge FINAL 24-minute episode cue
    • Theme for each character
  • ScoreCraft Academy Post Class Action Plan review
  • 20 questions to answer in detail about what concrete things you will do within different timeframes to get you further along in your composing career

PART TWO – Speed Write

  • Review students’ Toy Story cue and DAW Mixing/Mastering workflow
  • LIVE Scoring – Speed & Accuracy – How far have you come?
    • Section vs Section of Orchestra contrast. Write one complete section of the orchestra by itself, not across sections, and write it into another section of the orchestra.

PART ONE – Synthesis

  • “Analog Synths Explained” from Groove 3 video by Scott Dugan
    • Oscillators, Filters, Envelope Generator, Attack/Decay/Sustain/Release ADSR, Low Frequency Oscillator (LFO’s)
  • Favorite analog synth plugins and hardware.

PART TWO – Getting Paid, deliverables, Live Sound Design Session

  • Music Library Business format and payment process, royalties & publishing
  • LIVE Scoring – Sound Design Synthesis – Learn to use an LFO. Write a 20 second Intro to a trailer.
  • Omnisphere’s LFO – How to assign and use LFO’s

PART ONE – Brand Development, director Producer Interviews

  • What is your BRAND? It’s more than just music. It’s your journey. Document your journey, and share it! Do it in a way that will inspire people.
  • What will you bring to a project?
  • Why am I right for the project?
  • Michael interviews each student with the questions above.
  • Important concepts to convey to potential project managers –
    • I’m an expert, not a jerk about it.
    • I have a passion for music.
    • I have a passion for the project.

PART TWO – Personal Development, Score Reductions

  • Conductor’s Score Reductions review
    • Scherzo for Motorcycle and Orchestra score reduction and analysis Indiana Jones (NMK Music)
    • Finlandia score reduction and analysis (NMK Music)
  • Uncommon Sense for Creative People – Whitty-isms
  • Submit “My Strengths and Weaknesses” paragraphs to Michael. Notice how they may have changed since the beginning of the class.

Final Wrap

  • No Zoom – just hanging together.
  • “Alan Silvestri breaks down the composing workflow behind his blockbuster scores” (by Native Instruments) video
  • “Watch this every day and change your life – Denzel Washington Motivational Speech 2023” by AlexKaltsMotivation video
  • Final