# Composition/Film Music lessons



## fido94 (Oct 18, 2009)

Hello everyone,

For those of you who are film music composers and give also private lessons (online using skype or in person (location: Boston)), would you please let me know and I can send a resume.

I am keeping my eyes on www.thinkspaceonline.com and www.filmmusicinstitute.com who seem to be offering in the near future online classes on film music. But studying with someone is always better as it can be customized to the student skills/needs etc...

Thank you.


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## mf (Oct 18, 2009)

What do you want to know, Dmitri?


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## fido94 (Oct 18, 2009)

I want to learn it all! 8) haha ... 

I envision something like: pc setup, film score writing, midi-mockups.
I know each of these is a huge topic but there's no end to learning right? :D


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## Hal (Oct 18, 2009)

I wont be exaggerating if i tell you
you can learn most of this here.


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## gsilbers (Oct 18, 2009)

http://www.leonwillett.com/leonwillett. ... /Blog.html


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## gsilbers (Oct 18, 2009)

Hal @ Sun Oct 18 said:


> I wont be exaggerating if i tell you
> you can learn most of this here.



at least the tech part, yes. 

not only film score tech, but imo the most current and up to date system setups for working composers. 

as for film scoring in general maybe you should check out also

composing for film by jack smalley 
http://www.jacksmalley.com/

a little pricey but worth it imo.


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## _taylor (Oct 19, 2009)

gsilbers @ Sun Oct 18 said:


> as for film scoring in general maybe you should check out also
> 
> composing for film by jack smalley
> http://www.jacksmalley.com/
> ...



Anyone had a chance to listen to this?

http://filmmusic.myshopify.com/products/film-scoring-master-class-with-composer-jack-smalley (http://filmmusic.myshopify.com/products ... ck-smalley)


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## bluejay (Oct 19, 2009)

I think I'm fairly well-positioned to give advice here: -

- I've taken the Scott Smalley course
- I've downloaded the Smalley audio file mentioned above
- I own the Jack Smalley book
- I've taken lessons with Leon Willett

The Scott Smalley stuff is purely about orchestration. You won't really learn a lot about composition or MIDI mockups.

The Jack Smalley book gives good advice about one approach to film score composition (primarily working with motifs).

Leon is fantastic and will pretty much adapt to how you want to work although he has an excellent set of structured lessons as well. He doesn't like to focus on mockups but he does have good advice in that area as well.

I agree with the others that VI-control itself is awesome for learning mockup skills.

Incidentally I highly recommend this new Cinematic Orchestration course ... http://www.thinkspaceonline.com/ftp/CO_BrochureV1.pdf ... I was a beta tester and I think it's very, very good value for money and includes an amazing amount of information!

Hope that helps!

cheers

James


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## fido94 (Oct 19, 2009)

Thanks everyone for the information.

I had doubts about the Jack Smalley book once I took a look at the sample excerpt. I wasn't very encouraged.

Leon is a great composer indeed. It's unfortunate for me that the time between the US and the UK makes it a bit challenging. If anyone had a chance, you should definitely take the opportunity to study with him.

James, great to know that you were part of the Cinematic Orchestration pilot. I keep waiting to see when it is going to be available to the public. Did you find it to be a purely orchestration course or does it involve composition techniques as well? I'd be curious to hear more about your experience with it.


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## bluejay (Oct 19, 2009)

The Cinematic Orchestration course is really just about orchestration. There's no doubt that you could pick up composition techniques from the study scores (including Star Wars) but it is mostly aimed at arrangement and orchestration.

My favourite aspect of the course is when they write a piece and then orchestrate it in Sibelius and then mock it up and finally take it to a full orchestra and have it performed live. I particularly enjoyed it because I went along to that recording session and it was a huge amount of fun.

The course includes hours and hours of video footage discussing instrumentation and orchestration. I found it to be very thorough.


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## bryla (Oct 19, 2009)

Get the Smalley book! Then go to Berklee and see if you can talk to Ruth Mendelson. She's an amazing teacher, and can teach you a lot about film scoring


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## billval3 (Dec 8, 2009)

Anybody want to sell their copy of Smalley's book? :D


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