# Udemy or Mike Verta?



## jaketanner (Jan 2, 2019)

Hi and happy New year,

Looking to further my knowledge. I have Virtuosity and Template Balancing from Mike. I also have string orchestration and trailer music courses from Udemy.

Any recommendations? I can get 3 from udemy with their current sale, or 1 from Mike...I am interested in Film/TV scoring work. Don't need any mixing classes...mostly orchestration, composing, creating mockups...etc...and the business side of things. 

Thanks for the suggestions.


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## Yowakeem (Jan 2, 2019)

I have not taken any class from Udemy so cant say anything about that. But I have taken many of Verta classes and I really do enjoy his classes. Also Verta will be doing a new year sale soon.


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## R. Soul (Jan 2, 2019)

Sounds like we've signed up to 2 of the same courses. 
I've done a bit of the Trailer course and it's great so far. Haven't had time for the string one yet.

Another course I really liked is How to write music. It's pretty basic, but I learned to do things differently that I've done them before and make me think of other ways of writing music, so would definitely recommend it.


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## d.healey (Jan 2, 2019)

Mike and scoreclub


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## jaketanner (Jan 2, 2019)

Yowakeem said:


> I have not taken any class from Udemy so cant say anything about that. But I have taken many of Verta classes and I really do enjoy his classes. Also Verta will be doing a new year sale soon.



Good to know, I will wait then.


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## jaketanner (Jan 2, 2019)

R. Soul said:


> Sounds like we've signed up to 2 of the same courses.
> I've done a bit of the Trailer course and it's great so far. Haven't had time for the string one yet.
> 
> Another course I really liked is How to write music. It's pretty basic, but I learned to do things differently that I've done them before and make me think of other ways of writing music, so would definitely recommend it.



I thought of that one. I do some actual music writing, but not enough I think. And I also have not finished the strings one...very long. lol


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## jaketanner (Jan 2, 2019)

d.healey said:


> Mike and scoreclub



What is scoreclub?


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## jaketanner (Jan 2, 2019)

jaketanner said:


> What is scoreclub?



just looked it up actually.. out of budget though. But will keep it in mind for the future, thanks.


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## ism (Jan 2, 2019)

Mike. Every time.

Then progress to scoreclub and/or Ludwin (https://www.musicnewapproach.com)

Udemy courses - some are ok bits and pieces, but to me they always feel like the instructor is summarizing the bullet points from the chapter summaries from a much better textbook. Occasionally useful for an overview, not much more.


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## teraslasch (Jan 2, 2019)

jaketanner said:


> just looked it up actually.. out of budget though. But will keep it in mind for the future, thanks.



Hi Jake! Apologies for the shameless plug (as I am helping Penka manage her masterclass distribution) but you might wanna check out Penka's new Career Cultivation Masterclass! She's a working Hollywood composer / orchestrator veteran with tremendous amount of credits / experience. There's a special discount for VI-control members (till 10th Jan) using the coupon vicontrol35 - it'll cost about $32 after the discount (r.p at $49) - You will definitely obtain invaluable nuggets of information and for such a price it definitely is a steal  

https://penkamasterclass.com/item/5c04dc38f9ba2c12186326c8 (click here for the link to the masterclass site)

link to previews of her class on youtube


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## jaketanner (Jan 2, 2019)

teraslasch said:


> Hi Jake! Apologies for the shameless plug (as I am helping Penka manage her masterclass distribution) but you might wanna check out Penka's new Career Cultivation Masterclass! She's a working Hollywood composer / orchestrator veteran with tremendous amount of credits / experience. There's a special discount for VI-control members (till 10th Jan) using the coupon vicontrol35 - it'll cost about $32 after the discount (r.p at $49) - You will definitely obtain invaluable nuggets of information and for such a price it definitely is a steal
> 
> https://penkamasterclass.com/item/5c04dc38f9ba2c12186326c8 (click here for the link to the masterclass site)
> 
> link to previews of her class on youtube




Cool, I will check it out and thanks for the suggestion


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## jaketanner (Jan 2, 2019)

ism said:


> Mike. Every time.
> 
> Then progress to scoreclub and/or Ludwin (https://www.musicnewapproach.com)
> 
> Udemy courses - some are ok bits and pieces, but to me they always feel like the instructor is summarizing the bullet points from the chapter summaries from a much better textbook. Occasionally useful for an overview, not much more.



I feel that way about the string course. It’s a bit boring. The trailer course was all hands on and I got a lot out of it. But I know what you mean.


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## teraslasch (Jan 2, 2019)

jaketanner said:


> Cool, I will check it out and thanks for the suggestion



You're welcome 
Penka is also available here if you post a question for her on our original forum thread


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## leon chevalier (Jan 2, 2019)

Don't choose ! Pick Uderta


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## Chr!s (Jan 2, 2019)

I bought a Udemy course that was apparently worth like 200 bucks for 12.99 on one of their recent sales.

Absolutely not worth 200 lol


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## MartinH. (Jan 2, 2019)

Chr!s said:


> I bought a Udemy course that was apparently worth like 200 bucks for 12.99 on one of their recent sales.
> 
> Absolutely not worth 200 lol



Iirc if you sign up for their newsletter or something like that, you'll get a ~90% off offer at some point. I never took one of their courses but from forum discussions in other places it sounded like no one really pays full price for them.


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## ed buller (Jan 2, 2019)

in all honesty save and get Scoreclub. You will learn so much more. Mike is great too.

there is also tons of free stuff on you tube:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJquYOG5EL82sKTfH9aMA9Q

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdB6JoL4tb8WnqPYoZigXQA

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8R8FRt1KcPiR-rtAflXmeg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4ihNhN8iN9QPg2XTxiiPJw

https://www.youtube.com/user/jawg22/videos

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTUtqcDkzw7bisadh6AOx5w

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpK9mUzY6wP2M7V0QSBy5wQ

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUQ0TcIbY_VEk_KC406pRpg

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUyeh8X37t_xJ77M6gHb1PQ

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxToazvAKNCPrPurvLLCAuw

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSt_ZRe_mla4tRgYC_GNElQ

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnkp4xDOwqqJD7sSM3xdUiQ


Best Ed


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## Crowe (Jan 3, 2019)

The udemy orchestration course is very useful while you are studying Korsakov's Principles of Orchestration. The 'composing for strings' course is very useful for exactly that, although I disagree with how it is structured. The trailer-music course is awesome.

I like udemy for what it is, which is mostly an auditory and visual aid while studying theory. Quality varies wildly between courses and I'm pretty sure that, aside from the very basic stuff, you're better off taking more in-depth courses elsewhere.


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## Morning Coffee (Jan 3, 2019)

I bought about 8 Udemy courses on the subjects of music and computer language studies during the black Friday sale for about $12.99 each, and have returned half of them already. Apparently their usual price was around $199, which is what attracted me in the first place, but I find the full price a bit hard to believe and I'm guessing they are on sale, perpetually. I prefer Lynda.com for online short courses, although I'm not sure how much they have on orchestration. Each to their own.


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## Chr!s (Jan 3, 2019)

Morning Coffee said:


> I bought about 8 Udemy courses on the subjects of music and computer language studies during the black Friday sale for about $12.99 each, and have returned half of them already.



The one I'd bought was some course about orchestration that they kinda branded as being one of their most popular.

Utter garbage.

It was basically this woman explaining things I already knew, and was nothing that you couldn't find for free on random music sites, forum posts, YouTube, or cheap ebooks. It was just so basic from start to finish, and catered to the lowest-common-denominator of music. How they felt this is worth 200 bucks is beyond me.

Though, as I explained in a thread a couple months back when someone was asking what courses people have purchased, I find "low-quality, high price" is kinda the status quo on online courses.

Which is why I mostly avoid them now and just learn face-to-face with qualified teachers.


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## Montisquirrel (Jan 3, 2019)

I have watched and read a lot of different tutorials. Never done any Udemy but some Verta-Classes (love it), Evenant and many stuff on Youtube.

Just wanna to tell you the 3 biggest things that I have learnt, no matter which tutorial I have watched. 

1) Write it down.
I write down all the important information into a small book. Your brain can better save new things if you use more than just one of your five sense (e.g. watch and write, read and write). I write it with a pen and not on the computer. This way, I can also easy repeat the information, which is helpfull (maybe needed) to remember it.

2) Do it! (and accept "hard" work)
I have watched hundrets of tutorials without doing the things talked about. This way, I forgot it very quick and in the end watching the tutorial was just a waste of time. If you watch/read something new and you come to the conclusion that it is good and helpfull, do it right away. While watching a tutorial by a wise composer I most times have the feelings like "Oh yeah...that is awesome" "Oh..I wish I have knewn about it before" or "Oh, that is really so easy". This ist fun and it feels like "Yea, I am also much wiser now". But sitting down and doing the things they talk about can be boring, hard work, and maybe not work with the first try.

3) First make music and after that watch/read a tutorial
I have spend much time watching tutorials and forgot making music. I still have to/want to learn a lot, but the first thing I do is make some music and than learn something new.

This is just my own point of view and no universal wisdom. Mybe it helps.


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## Morning Coffee (Jan 3, 2019)

Chr!s said:


> The one I'd bought was some course about orchestration that they kinda branded as being one of their most popular.
> 
> It was just so basic from start to finish, and catered to the lowest-common-denominator of music. How they felt this is worth 200 bucks is beyond me.



That was one course I dropped also. From memory, it was a bit average in presentation, in the sense that it had lots of power point style slides etc. I was expecting more real world examples. Every course I bought was a 'best seller'!

A negative for me was that you can't download most of the courses, so you need to stream. Also, some courses implied that little or no prerequisites were required, but then they did actually require you to have certain things if you wanted to participate in activities e.g like software for computer coding or design etc, which wasn't always free. A positive was that a lot of the courses I chose have had new or extra content added over the years.


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## R. Soul (Jan 3, 2019)

I've signed up to 5-ish courses from Udemy now, which includes a guitar and a Ukulele one. Forgetting about $200 price tag that never actually is on (is it?), I think they are great value at $12 or so. I mean you can't compare them to something like Scoreclub which costs a lot more.
The Trailer one for example is just as good as the Evenant one, which is about x 20 the cost.

I've done a handful of Mike's courses, and while they are great, I feel he's just too polar opposite of me musically that there's no point of me going further. 
But if you're an orchestral film composer I'd highly recommend his courses.


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## DivingInSpace (Jan 3, 2019)

R. Soul said:


> I've signed up to 5-ish courses from Udemy now, which includes a guitar and a Ukulele one. Forgetting about $200 price tag that never actually is on (is it?), I think they are great value at $12 or so. I mean you can't compare them to something like Scoreclub which costs a lot more.
> The Trailer one for example is just as good as the Evenant one, which is about x 20 the cost.
> 
> I've done a handful of Mike's courses, and while they are great, I feel he's just too polar opposite of me musically that there's no point of me going further.
> But if you're an orchestral film composer I'd highly recommend his courses.


The trailer course is really good yeah! I am so glad that i found it before i signed up for the evanente one, because with everything i've learned from it, i highly doubt i would get 20x its worth from evanente.


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## Crowe (Jan 3, 2019)

R. Soul said:


> I've signed up to 5-ish courses from Udemy now, which includes a guitar and a Ukulele one. Forgetting about $200 price tag that never actually is on (is it?), I think they are great value at $12 or so. I mean you can't compare them to something like Scoreclub which costs a lot more.
> The Trailer one for example is just as good as the Evenant one, which is about x 20 the cost.
> 
> I've done a handful of Mike's courses, and while they are great, I feel he's just too polar opposite of me musically that there's no point of me going further.
> But if you're an orchestral film composer I'd highly recommend his courses.



I have a bunch of Udemy courses from Game Design to Painting to Music theory. There's some really good content there, if you know where and how to look.

Of course more expensive courses on other sites will be better, but that's to be expected.


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## jaketanner (Jan 3, 2019)

ed buller said:


> in all honesty save and get Scoreclub. You will learn so much more. Mike is great too.
> 
> there is also tons of free stuff on you tube:
> 
> ...



Damn..LOL. Thanks for the links. I don't always check YT for in depth tutorials...I do like Mike's classes.


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## jaketanner (Jan 3, 2019)

Chr!s said:


> The one I'd bought was some course about orchestration that they kinda branded as being one of their most popular.
> 
> Utter garbage.
> 
> ...



Well, the Udemy Orchestration 1...compose for strings is super boring, and the woman sounds like a robot. It's very long and having a hard time focusing on it..LOL The Trailer course was great, and was very hands-on, and informative for sure...


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## ed buller (Jan 3, 2019)

jaketanner said:


> Well, the Udemy Orchestration 1...compose for strings is super boring, and the woman sounds like a robot. It's very long and having a hard time focusing on it..LOL The Trailer course was great, and was very hands-on, and informative for sure...




These are great:

https://music.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-arrange-4-part-harmony-for-strings--audio-23215

https://music.tutsplus.com/tutorials/arranging-for-strings-part-2--cms-19809


all his stuff is good:

https://tutsplus.com/authors/ryan-leach

best

ed


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## jaketanner (Jan 3, 2019)

ed buller said:


> These are great:
> 
> https://music.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-arrange-4-part-harmony-for-strings--audio-23215
> 
> ...



Very cool...thanks for the links!


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## kitekrazy (Jan 3, 2019)

Shiirai said:


> I have a bunch of Udemy courses from Game Design to Painting to Music theory. There's some really good content there, if you know where and how to look.
> 
> *Of course more expensive courses on other sites will be better, but that's to be expected.*



I find is some instructors neglect the production quality of their videos. As for content I don't find much difference between the pricey ones.


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## whiskers (Jan 3, 2019)

R. Soul said:


> I've signed up to 5-ish courses from Udemy now, which includes a guitar and a Ukulele one. Forgetting about $200 price tag that never actually is on (is it?), I think they are great value at $12 or so. I mean you can't compare them to something like Scoreclub which costs a lot more.
> The Trailer one for example is just as good as the Evenant one, which is about x 20 the cost.
> 
> I've done a handful of Mike's courses, and while they are great, I feel he's just too polar opposite of me musically that there's no point of me going further.
> But if you're an orchestral film composer I'd highly recommend his courses.


yeah, Udemy is the same as a lot of merchants out there - greatly inflate the MSRP, but perpetually have sales so people think they're getting a great deal. Courses are frequently 10-25$. Don't think of them as worth more than 25$, IMO.

That being said, quality of courses vary by instructor. Udemy has been great for my technical learning aside from music.


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## Consona (Jan 3, 2019)

jaketanner said:


> Any recommendations?


Structure, Theminator, Mod Squad, Rhythm & Perc from Verta. Absolute must-haves, IMO.


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## ism (Jan 3, 2019)

jaketanner said:


> Well, the Udemy Orchestration 1...compose for strings is super boring, and the woman sounds like a robot. It's very long and having a hard time focusing on it..LOL The Trailer course was great, and was very hands-on, and informative for sure...



This is actually the one course from Udemy that I thought had real value. Not for the tedious and virtually pointless bullet point summaries of orchestration textbooks that make up 80% of the actual content, but for the handful of listening assignments, which I guess you could call hands on. And here I though the instructor was very good at guiding me through actual scores that in ways that would have been hard to do myself.

There’s s deeper problem though, inherent in the buisness model, I think.

Which I think comes down to the fact that pedagogy is hard, and it’s not always obvious just how valueable good pedagogy is. In fact, really good pedagogical structure and technique is often invisible, like a lot of designerly disciplines. And Udemy doesn’t incentivise depth in and crafting of pedagogical technique.

Instead, they make grand promises about the breadth of what you’ll learn, and the value proposition is in the grand promises of the chapter titles, corroborated by vacuous internet happy talk.Yet Udemy instructors, I’ll wager, are seldom paid enough, and certainly not incentivized to improve the underlying pedagogical depth of their course to my great degree. Even though some of them are no doubt very fine teachers in their own right. 


Score club costs more, because good pedagogy is expensive.

Mike Verta’s (anti-) theory of pedagogy is about the sharing of experience, so a very different thing again (and not commodifiably to a Udemy-like marketplace model, because how would you find even a second Mike Verta, never mind a sweatshop full of Mike Vertas).


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## ism (Jan 3, 2019)

Actually, I think it’s more than that. For Udemy to shift product in volume, they need to promise that learning all of this is easy.

In this sense scoreclub is probably more expensive also because it doesn’t make absurd promises that what it’s teaching easy. And will probably never sell as many copies as as result.


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## R. Soul (Jan 3, 2019)

I'm still going through the list, but just wanted to add that I think you guys should check out Ed Buller's list. First and last link in particular: Rick Beato and Adam Neely are must-see's. 
I really like Adam Neely - he's like the Vsauce of music. You never know what he's going to talk about, and it might not always be relevant to composers, but it's super interesting IMO.


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## ChristianM (Jan 3, 2019)

tag


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## jaketanner (Jan 3, 2019)

Consona said:


> Structure, Theminator, Mod Squad, Rhythm & Perc from Verta. Absolute must-haves, IMO.



Thanks


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## JeffvR (Jan 3, 2019)

jaketanner said:


> Hi and happy New year,
> 
> Looking to further my knowledge. I have Virtuosity and Template Balancing from Mike. I also have string orchestration and trailer music courses from Udemy.
> 
> ...


I have most of Mike's classes. If you're into TV and film scoring definitely get "How to score a film in 7 days" and "Scoring 1". They where the most useful and practical for me.


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## Consona (Jan 4, 2019)

jaketanner said:


> Thanks


I wanted to say, I hope you'll find them useful, but that would be rather stupid since there's so much great information in each one of those that there's no way anybody couldn't chance upon something eye-opening and immediately worthy. 

I was rewatching Mod Squad some week ago and there was so much great stuff even in the first hour of it, and these classes are between 3 to over 6 hours long. it's good to refresh one's memory by watching those classes again from time to time.

I think it's a good thing to have more of these classes, so you slowly absorb the information and put together the bigger picture. Those four I mentioned were most useful for me to understand what those composers like Steiner, Korngold, Herrmann, Goldsmith, Horner or Williams were doing in there pieces, but then you, of course, need to practise those things yourself. It's not like you watch these videos and become Williams.  But without these videos and in the world we are living now, that's a near certaintly you'll never get even close to what Williams is doing.

Just out of curiosity, I bought Cartoons and Comedy class, I was so surprised when Mike said scoring a comedy is like the most difficult job (since you must know how to compose in every style (action, romantic, western, jazz, world music, what have you) so you can use those styles in a parodic manner or even seriously, etc.), I really wasn't expecting something like that, just little things like this put everything else into another perspective. And when he was talking about how were Spielberg and Williams using music in comedic moments present in Indiana Jones, when they went quite full on, when there were only some rather hidden hints of sillyness in the music, where they left the picture completely without any music, etc., so interesting.


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## Øivind (Jan 4, 2019)

40% off Mike Verta classes now 
*COUPON CODE: levelup2019*


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## KallumS (Jan 4, 2019)

oivind_rosvold said:


> 40% off Mike Verta classes now
> *COUPON CODE: levelup2019*



Thanks, how long is this code live for?


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## Consona (Jan 4, 2019)

KallumS said:


> Thanks, how long is this code live for?


"Valid until February 1, 2019"


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## Crowe (Jan 4, 2019)

R. Soul said:


> I'm still going through the list, but just wanted to add that I think you guys should check out Ed Buller's list. First and last link in particular: Rick Beato and Adam Neely are must-see's.
> I really like Adam Neely - he's like the Vsauce of music. You never know what he's going to talk about, and it might not always be relevant to composers, but it's super interesting IMO.



Seconding this, Neely is a hero and Rick Beato has the best name for a Youtubing Musician in the history of ever.

And his stuff is really good too.


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## jaketanner (Jan 4, 2019)

JeffvR said:


> I have most of Mike's classes. If you're into TV and film scoring definitely get "How to score a film in 7 days" and "Scoring 1". They where the most useful and practical for me.



Gonna check them out. Been seeing the How to Score in 7 Days for a while. Just wasn’t sure it had the info about orchestrating and mock-ups that I was interested in. But will give it a second look. 

Scoring 1 is already in my cart.


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## robgb (Jan 4, 2019)

Chr!s said:


> Though, as I explained in a thread a couple months back when someone was asking what courses people have purchased, I find "low-quality, high price" is kinda the status quo on online courses.


I don't know. I've bought a view Udemy courses (in the design field) that I thought were very helpful. It really helps to watch the sample videos and look at the reviews to try and see what you're getting. Not all of it is junk. And the tutorial videos on other sites (Groove3, etc.) done by pros like Kenny Gioia, are excellent. As for prices, especially on Udemy, that high price is rarely charged. There always seems to be a sale on.


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## robgb (Jan 4, 2019)

jaketanner said:


> How to Score in 7 Days


Don't expect a traditional course like you'd see from Groove3 or whatever. It's basically just Verta going through the score, step by step, and his thought processes, etc. And it happens to be a very, very good video.


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## jaketanner (Jan 4, 2019)

robgb said:


> Don't expect a traditional course like you'd see from Groove3 or whatever. It's basically just Verta going through the score, step by step, and his thought processes, etc. And it happens to be a very, very good video.



Most likely will be a later purchase this month. I think I am gonna start on Scoring 1 and Theory, for the brush up. Then most likely How to Score in 7 Days, and orchestration 1.


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## jaketanner (Jan 4, 2019)

robgb said:


> I don't know. I've bought a view Udemy courses (in the design field) that I thought were very helpful. It really helps to watch the sample videos and look at the reviews to try and see what you're getting. Not all of it is junk. And the tutorial videos on other sites (Groove3, etc.) done by pros like Kenny Gioia, are excellent. As for prices, especially on Udemy, that high price is rarely charged. There always seems to be a sale on.



I got an orchestration course for strings on Groove 3...it's boring and so basic...Not what I expected at all. However, the videos with Al Schmidt look pretty good...I have it downloaded, but haven't watched it yet.


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## Montisquirrel (Jan 5, 2019)

ed buller said:


> These are great:
> 
> https://music.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-arrange-4-part-harmony-for-strings--audio-23215
> 
> ...



This is good stuff. And its free, Thanks for posting!


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## ism (Jan 5, 2019)

Alan Belkin's "Musical Composition Craft and Art" makes an excellent companion to all of this.

I really like Mike's approach of feeling his way through things experientially, but there's I think it's greatly enhanced and sharpened by texts that craft their pedagogy more finely. And Alan's book is really is a finely crafted, modern take. There's just no reason not to read something like this along side Mike's videos.


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## ism (Jan 5, 2019)

One More thought. In the way that I think Alan Belkin's book is a superb companion to Mike's Composition videos (and vice versa), Frank Lehman's "Hollywood Harmony" is a similarly superb companion to Mike's Williams, Horner and Goldsmith trilogy - or vice versa.

In fact I bought Mike's "On Horner" masterclass as a companion to Lehman, and together they're more than the sum of their parts.

Here's how I attempted to describe it over on this thread:

https://vi-control.net/community/th...-macro-and-the-neo-classical-manifesto.75476/


'Meanwhile, in Frank Lehman's (excellent) "Hollywood Harmony", we have this wonderfully useful demonstration of how simple Neo-Remannian analysis illuminates some very characteristic Hollywood gestures that resist conventional tonal analysis. The sort of gesture, for instance used to create a sense of awe or wonder, of the mystical or religious, functioning precisely by stepping outside of the preceding key structure. He thereby frames such gestures moment when an emphasis on the sonority of the chord (progression) overwhelms its conventional diatonic functioning.

Effectively restating this, in his (also excellent) "On Horner" masterclass, Mike Verta zeros in on the same sort of gesture in a Horner score, describing the effect as a

"F**k it, it's all about the moment"

kind of moment.

I find all of these to be very helpful, and rather eloquent in their own ways, approaches to expressing a dimension of music that I've long felt, but well, not found to be emphasized in traditional voice leading texts'


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## jbuhler (Jan 5, 2019)

ism said:


> Meanwhile, in Frank Lehman's (excellent) "Hollywood Harmony", we have this wonderfully useful demonstration of how simple Neo-Remannian analysis illuminates some very characteristic Hollywood gestures that resist conventional tonal analysis. The sort of gesture, for instance used to create a sense of awe or wonder, of the mystical or religious, functioning precisely by stepping outside of the preceding key structure. He thereby frames such gestures moment when an emphasis on the sonority of the chord (progression) overwhelms its conventional diatonic functioning.


I find Lehman's book to be the best introduction to neo-Riemannian theory that we have. (The theory was developed to makes sense of the chromatic music of late 19th music, but is in many respects better suited to recent film music.) Highly recommended for anyone interested in the "logic" of harmony based around chromatic mediants (among other things). Scott Murphy has an excellent article that catalogues common Neo-Reimannian moves in film music. This appears in The Oxford Handbook to Film Music Studies, edited by David Neumeyer.


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## ism (Jan 5, 2019)

jbuhler said:


> I find Lehman's book to be the best introduction to neo-Riemannian theory that we have. (The theory was developed to makes sense of the chromatic music of late 19th music, but is in many respects better suited to recent film music.) Highly recommended for anyone interested in the "logic" of harmony based around chromatic mediants (among other things). Scott Murphy has an excellent article that catalogues common Neo-Reimannian moves in film music. This appears in The Oxford Handbook to Film Music Studies, edited by David Neumeyer.





Also - shockingly readable, and fun.

Partly because it comes with a lot of really well chosen examples, that give it, maybe not quite the instant gratification and experiential qualities of masterclass by Mike, but it feels a lot closer to sharing those Verta-eque qualities than you'd think a 'theory' book has any right to.


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## jaketanner (Jan 5, 2019)

So I got Orchestration 1 and Theory 1...so far so good. I plan on getting either Composition or Scoring course as well as possibly by the end of the month.


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## midiman (Jan 24, 2019)

Mike is one of the best teachers of composition. I don't know the Udemy course in composition. But I cannot believe they would be better than Verta's. Mike Verta is a straight shooter. Listen what he says and you'll be on the way to becoming a better composer. And a better musician.


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## jaketanner (Jan 24, 2019)

midiman said:


> Mike is one of the best teachers of composition. I don't know the Udemy course in composition. But I cannot believe they would be better than Verta's. Mike Verta is a straight shooter. Listen what he says and you'll be on the way to becoming a better composer. And a better musician.



Still need to get the composition class. Hopefully the sale is still on. Maybe I'll pick it up


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## Chr!s (Jan 24, 2019)

ism said:


> Alan Belkin's "Musical Composition Craft and Art" makes an excellent companion to all of this.
> 
> I really like Mike's approach of feeling his way through things experientially, but there's I think it's greatly enhanced and sharpened by texts that craft their pedagogy more finely. And Alan's book is really is a finely crafted, modern take. There's just no reason not to read something like this along side Mike's videos.



This is a good call. I've been reading a lot of Belkin's stuff lately. Is good.


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## jaketanner (Jan 25, 2019)

Can anyone tell me what the code is for the 40% off on Mike's courses? I lost my email. Thanks.


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## KallumS (Jan 25, 2019)

jaketanner said:


> Can anyone tell me what the code is for the 40% off on Mike's courses? I lost my email. Thanks.



levelup2019 IIRC


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## jaketanner (Jan 25, 2019)

KallumS said:


> levelup2019 IIRC



Thank you!


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## SimonViklund (Feb 27, 2019)

R. Soul said:


> I've signed up to 5-ish courses from Udemy now (...) The Trailer one for example is just as good as the Evenant one, which is about x 20 the cost.


Which one is that? Are you talking about this one? https://www.udemy.com/the-trailer-music-course/


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## R. Soul (Feb 27, 2019)

SimonViklund said:


> Which one is that? Are you talking about this one? https://www.udemy.com/the-trailer-music-course/


Yes. 
I still haven't finished it, but what I've seen is good.


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## 5Lives (Feb 28, 2019)

I would recommend Evenant’s cinematic course depending on your level. I’m about 30% of the way through it and it is the best course I’ve taken for my level. I plan to write a full review when I’m done with it.


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## toomanynotes (Mar 1, 2019)

Personally Mike verta I can vouch for. You keep wanting more! 
His videos last 4+ hrs plenty of insights and helpful case studies. Great value for money.


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