# Is there a standard or established Syllabus or Curriculum for Composition?



## JimDiGritz (Dec 8, 2022)

I'm on a journey to develop my compositional skills, and am keen to focus on classic composition (especially 20th century late romantic)

I've started a few courses and they all approach the subject from different starting points and cover areas in different order. I've also got some specific courses like "Composing in Sonata form". Plus, obviously I have 100's of YouTube videos covering almost every possible subject.

Option 1 is to complete each book and course in their order and then move on to the next, this is the simplest but feels a little disjointed.

Option 2 is to follow a simple curriculum and visit each relevant course/book section until I feel comfortable with it. For example Alan Belkin spends a lot of time on his YT channel discussing Functional Harmony. There are many detailed resources specifically covering Counterpoint etc.

I would also want to include orchestration in this list.

*Is there a standard or established Syllabus or Curriculum for Composition? *I've looked on the traditional music schools website like Berklee but they don't seem to publish a detailed course structure. I'm thinking of creating a Google Sheet with links to free and paid content.

Finally, of course a big percentage of my time is also being spent actively listening to and reading scores that I love - but I'd really like to progress in a more structured manner.

Thanks

**EDIT

For what it's worth here is my first attempt at a simple structure:

*Melody*
Rhythmic
Tonal
Non-Chord Tones (Passing, Neighbour, Appoggiatura, Escape etc)
Melodic Forms
Period, Sentence & Ternery

*Harmony*
Functions
Cadences
Implied Harmony
Voicing & Inversions

*Counterpoint*
Species

*Structure & Form*
Sonata
Rondo
Minuet

*Orchestration*


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## Wensleydale (Dec 8, 2022)

I‘ve been wondering much the same thing. I did think of asking Gareth Green at mmcourses.co.uk if he would recommend taking his courses in any particular order. But I didn’t get round to it, because taking several of his courses would work out quite expensive.


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## JimDiGritz (Dec 8, 2022)

In lieu of any smart ideas I've started down the rabbit hole of finding and tagging music resources in a free tool I found called Zotero.

I decided to use a semi-structured Tagging system/taxonomy only because I felt that so many topics could be covered from multiple angles... And a rigid hierarchical structure would get very complex very quickly. You can see some of the Tags on the bottom left.

The tool is actually very impressive - there's even a Chrome extension which allows me to instantly add a page (ie a YouTube video) to the Collection and start adding tags. It does quite a lot automatically which is impressive - eg feed it a YouTube link from the Chrome extension and it auto-populates the Title and Creator!

I've even started to add tagged links to my paid/enrolled course content (so when looking for resources covering say Period form, I not only get YT content eg some of Ryan Leach's excellent free videos, but also a link to the section in his Pillars of Composition which covers Period form... etc)

Zotero seems to be actually designed for academic research so it has some cite/reference/index features I'm not using yet which might be really powerful when adding local documents (eg pdfs) or articles online.

I'm hoping to build a long term learning framework and reference guide. Clearly the online content could be removed at any time, but I think that this is the best way forward.







You can see here that I've also added links to local documents on my PC (like the Spectratone Reference Chart I bought) - you just drag 'n tag!


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## DavidRubenstein (Dec 8, 2022)

The most comprehensive online course that I have found is scoreclub.net 
It is a subscription service. The courses that I have taken there are all excellent.


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## JimDiGritz (Dec 8, 2022)

DavidRubenstein said:


> The most comprehensive online course that I have found is scoreclub.net
> It is a subscription service. The courses that I have taken there are all excellent.


Thanks, I did start SC previously but at the time I wasn't confident enough in my basic theory or sightreading to make use of the subscription.

That wasn't really the question though, I was actually looking for a detailed music education curriculum that I could use as a basis to structure all of the content and resources that I already have access to...


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## Wensleydale (Dec 8, 2022)

Aldwell and Schachter's _Harmony and Voice Leading, _as you would expect, deals with melody and counterpoint as well as harmony; so that offers one approach (certainly not the only one) to the question of how to interweave one's study of those topics. Perhaps you could find a book on Amazon that covers _all_ the topics you list, and has the Look Inside feature, so you can see how the various topics are ordered?


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 8, 2022)

The problem with composition as a curriculum is that it requires music theory as a prerequisite. Everyone wants to fly before they crawl. Freshman theory should be a yearlong course with rigorous training in partwriting and harmonic analysis. The second year should advance to counterpoint and extended tertian harmony. In the third year, form and analysis, jazz harmony (in other words, more extended tertian harmony), and basic orchestration.

This is the way I both learned and taught it at university. These things need not necessarily take a year to complete, but I can’t begin to convey to you the importance of harmonic analysis and partwriting. You should get yourself a copy of the Bach Riemenschneider 371 chorales and analyze every one of them thoroughly. You should then do partwriting exercises until you are completely fluid with Bach’s four part style. This is the foundation of all tertian harmony in the western world.

Most won’t heed this advice because they think they can take a shortcut, but I assure you, this is the road to Rome.


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## JimDiGritz (Dec 8, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> The problem with composition as a curriculum is that it requires music theory as a prerequisite. Everyone wants to fly before they crawl. Freshman theory should be a yearlong course with rigorous training in partwriting and harmonic analysis. The second year should advance to counterpoint and extended tertian harmony. In the third year, form and analysis, jazz harmony (in other words, more extended tertian harmony), and basic orchestration.
> 
> This is the way I both learned and taught it at university. These thing need not necessarily take a year to complete, but I can’t begin to convey to you the importance of harmonic analysis and partwriting. You should get yourself a copy of the Bach Riemenschneider 371 chorales and analyze every one of them thoroughly. You should then do partwriting exercises until you are completely fluid with Bach’s four part style. This is the foundation of all tertian harmony in the western world.
> 
> Most won’t heed this advice because *they think they can take a shortcut*, but I assure you, this is the road to Rome.


I fully appreciate this approach. Not sure if this was a barb aimed at me. I'm not looking for a 'shortcut', merely trying to organise around 23,000 hours of learning material into a meaningful structure.

Perhaps you could share your freshman curriculum?

My approach has been to look at a concept from multiple angles and multiple teachers. There's been several instances where a lecture lost me, but a 5 min video brought the concept to life.. and of course there are the summary videos that need a 3 hour lecture to properly understand.

In fact I've spent the last 6 hours purely getting to know the Period Form and am spending the next few days simply looking through scores and identifying phrases, cadences and periods. To get me started I've got around 20 scores from Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Bach to analyse.

I'm also simultaneously writing some Period form to try to solidify the concept. Does that mean I'm prematurely playing at being a composer??



Jett Hitt said:


> The problem with composition as a curriculum is that it requires music theory as a prerequisite. Everyone wants to fly before they crawl. [...]



BTW I'm 46 now, so perhaps I'll be able to fly before I die!


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 8, 2022)

JimDiGritz said:


> I fully appreciate this approach. Not sure if this was a barb aimed at me. I'm not looking for a 'shortcut', merely trying to organise around 23,000 hours of learning material into a meaningful structure.
> 
> Perhaps you could share your freshman curriculum?


This was not intended as a barb toward you at all. This forum frequently entertains questions of this nature, which are often fraught with "I can't learn theory" or "I don't read music, but I wanna write like JW." Your attitude seems much hungrier, otherwise I wouldn't have even posted.

46 is extremely late to start on this journey. Note that I did not say that it was impossible, though I assure you that you will never write like JW. Before I direct you to a path, however, let me begin with this quote from my first counterpoint book, a quote taken from a 16th-century counterpoint treatise:

"Drops wear away the stone not by strength, but by constant falling."

My curriculum for a freshman student would have simply been to work through the Bruce Benward theory text with the workbook. That was 20 years ago, so I am going to let @jbuhler give you his current recommendation. (As I recall, my undergraduate text was the Benjamin/Horvit/Nelson.)

What you would have gotten from my class that you can never get from a video is feedback. You need a tutor to proof your work and point out when you've gone astray--someone to keep you on the straight and narrow. I would recommend reaching out to someone like @A.Heppelmann for private lessons.

Music theory is really nothing more than 6th grade math. It is not that complicated, but you need the foundation I talked about above to advance.


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## jbuhler (Dec 8, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> As I recall, my undergraduate text was the Benjamin/Horvit/Nelson.


This is what I learned on as well. I think it is considered too schematic today, though I prefer it because it was easy to consult in the days I needed that. We used Kostka Paine for most of my time at UT but changed to Laitz several years ago. They are both solid, with advantages and disadvantages like all textbooks. They are all designed for instructional use so are not the best for self study. In fact I’m not sure what I’d recommend for self study. I used a Piston third edition to teach myself harmony when I was in high school. It wasn’t a bad framework for later, course based harmony. 

I think harmony, form, and orchestration are easier to teach to oneself than counterpoint and basics of composition. There is so much implicit knowledge that is conveyed in the feedback, pointing out where you are boxing yourself in, the difference between a correct solution and a good one, etc.


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 8, 2022)

As @jbuhler points out, these texts aren't great for self study. That's why I recommended a tutor. In fact, I didn't even require my students to buy the Benward textbook but rather just the workbook. (I had one on reserve in the library.) My theory classes were mostly just a lab where everyone put their partwriting examples on the board, and then the entire class tore them apart. This provided some serious incentive to come to class and do the homework. It was very effective, though the students did call me "Dr. Evil."


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## JimDiGritz (Dec 9, 2022)

@Jett Hitt - I appreciate that you're not here to offer free music lessons, however as a newcomer to the Bach Chorales (which I've moved up to the top of my list!) I'm encountering some unusual chord functions and after a bit of research I read that this is in part due to these Chorales being Baroque period interpretations of earlier religious pieces and essentially represent a transition between the Renaissance and Classical periods. My limited understanding of Harmonic functions is probably from the Classical era onwards.

So may I ask why are the Bach Chorales considered to be a good starting point if they eschew many of the more established Harmonic functions? This is a genuine question, I'm sure there's a good answer!


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## Wensleydale (Dec 9, 2022)

The scholar Derek Remeš, if I‘ve understood him correctly, argues that Bach himself would not expect his students to attempt the style of his well-known chorales until they had progressed through figured bass and relatively simple, homophonic four-part writing; and that this is a good path for modern students too. I’m not qualified to express an opinion. But, despite having studied harmony at university level and learned to do passable four-part writing, I would still have difficulty analysing the 371. Many (most?) of them are too harmonically advanced for me. So I find Remeš’s approach quite appealing.

I’m not sure how to adapt this approach for self-study, though. I’m currently working through Clough and Conley’s programmed text _Basic Harmonic Progressions_, which obviously is no substitute for a teacher but proceeds in a step-by-step fashion which I find less daunting than the standard textbooks. Maybe that just proves that I’m not hungry enough. But I can barely remember being 46, so there’s clearly no hope for me anyway.


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## JimDiGritz (Dec 9, 2022)

Wensleydale said:


> The scholar Derek Remeš, if I‘ve understood him correctly, argues that Bach himself would not expect his students to attempt the style of his well-known chorales until they had progressed through figured bass and relatively simple, homophonic four-part writing; and that this is a good path for modern students too. I’m not qualified to express an opinion. But, despite having studied harmony at university level and learned to do passable four-part writing, I would still have difficulty analysing the 371. Many (most?) of them are too harmonically advanced for me. So I find Remeš’s approach quite appealing.
> 
> I’m not sure how to adapt this approach for self-study, though. I’m currently working through Clough and Conley’s programmed text _Basic Harmonic Progressions_, which obviously is no substitute for a teacher but proceeds in a step-by-step fashion which I find less daunting than the standard textbooks. Maybe that just proves that I’m not hungry enough. But I can barely remember being 46, so there’s clearly no hope for me anyway.


Thanks, this makes sense.

I was personally looking into https://amzn.eu/d/6GWHIlg (Tonal Harmony by Kostka), but I'll need to find a second hand copy since £140 is a bit rich...


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## mikeh-375 (Dec 9, 2022)

in light of @Jett Hitt 's remarks above, William Lovelock wrote a 3 year structured classic text that did me the world of good...



There's also second and third year books. All come with exercises to do. He also wrote books on free counterpoint and the examination fugue. I went through the lot in my formative years and came out the other end with much technical know-how and as a result, much in the way of creative options when composing.


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## J-M (Dec 9, 2022)

mikeh-375 said:


> William Lovelock wrote a 3 year structured classic text that did me the world of good...There's also second and third year books. All come with exercises to do.


Would you recommend these for someone who knows (or thinks he knows) the basics of music theory? Sure, I can write a piece using my ears and the little knowledge I have, but I'd like to have a more solid bank of knowledge at my disposal when writing. A study book with exercises seems right up my alley...


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## JimDiGritz (Dec 9, 2022)

J-M said:


> Would you recommend these for someone who knows (or thinks he knows) the basics of music theory? Sure, I can write a piece using my ears and the little knowledge I have, but I'd like to have a more solid bank of knowledge at my disposal when writing. A study book with exercises seems right up my alley...


I haven't read it yet but apparently Tonal Harmony by Kostka uses some real examples to illustrate the theory.


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## Wensleydale (Dec 9, 2022)

Some textbooks (including Kostka & Payne) have accompanying workbooks. But they are mostly not intended for self-study.


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## agarner32 (Dec 9, 2022)

All great advice. I too have been teaching lower division theory for decades - still do. I know the Benward book is a bit dated, but it's still very accessible. You can find the instructor's manual with answers for the first volume online as a PDF. It's for and older version, but the book hasn't changed all that much. I haven't seen the second volume instructor's manual.

Here is a book that is self-paced - "Harmonic Materials In Tonal Music" by Greg Steinke. There are two volumes and all the answer are given. It's actually not half bad and it's very concise.

Another option is to check out WW Norton's theory books. "Musicians's Guide To Theory" is decent and with the eBook option you get their online resources which include tutorials and quizzes. It's actually not bad.

ThinkSpace also has a couple of music theory courses for fairly cheap.


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 9, 2022)

I am sorry if I made this sound like the Riemenschneider was the starting point. Analyzing the 371 and writing fluidly in Bach's four-part style is the goal for the completion of this level. This is why you need a tutor. I can't imagine tackling this on my own. A tutor will be able to hand you a piece of music and say, "Analyze this and skip the chords on beats x,y, and z because we'll cover those after you have learned them."

There used to be anthologies compiled by theorists that slowly introduced harmonies with real-life examples. I can't remember who compiled any of these, however. (Norton probably offers a lot.) I seem to recall that the Benward contained such examples in the text. Most theory books do. There is absolutely no reason to go buy a new college textbook. I didn't even require my students to buy these years ago. Here, for example, is the old counterpoint book that I used both as a student and a professor.



Amazon.com : kent kennan counterpoint



The textbook industry is one of the great scams ever. That's why the Piston books are still around because they can be a cheap alternative, though the language is a bit dense. (Used bookstores are your friend.) Look for old editions. The information has not changed.


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 9, 2022)

Another tip I will add from my experience is that all students who have trouble with music theory have trouble for the same reason: they can't spell their scales. Be able to verbally spell all of your scales. Start with major. Put them in a hat and draw them out randomly. You have ten seconds to be able to verbalize the scale aloud: A B C# D E F# G# A. After you can do that in ten seconds, do it faster. Then, spell them verbally (and I do mean out loud) up and down in under ten seconds: A B C# D E F# G# A G# F# E D C# B A.

You might think this is silly, but it forces you to internalize these scales and know them like your name. After you can do major, add minor, then harmonic minor, then melodic minor. Then do the modes. Every freshman class I taught did this. We had live competitions in front of everyone. This is what earned me the moniker "Dr. Evil," but I never had a student fail music theory.


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## DoubleTap (Dec 9, 2022)

You could do worse than looking at the syllabuses for GCSE and A Level Music as a starting point:









Specification at a glance







www.aqa.org.uk













Specification at a glance







www.aqa.org.uk





In the A level syllabus, you'll find the Appraising Music section which has a list of various types of elements of music, and elements of seven different types of music. Composition Assessment Grids will give you a sense of what examiners are looking for, which is a fairly decent pointer to what's important.


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## mikeh-375 (Dec 10, 2022)

J-M said:


> Would you recommend these for someone who knows (or thinks he knows) the basics of music theory? Sure, I can write a piece using my ears and the little knowledge I have, but I'd like to have a more solid bank of knowledge at my disposal when writing. A study book with exercises seems right up my alley...


If you can read the basics (rhythm and notes) then I fully recommend the course. Work at the exercises dilligently and regularly and you'll soon see improvement. I'm autodidactic and could find my way through the books fine but perhaps you might need someone to look over the exercises to check you are on the right path. Here's the first and third year books online, check the intro and contents in this preview....
https://archive.org/details/firstyearharmony00love/page/n1/mode/2up

https://archive.org/details/thirdyearharmony0000will

here's an exercise book, very useful to go through as supplementary work and it's free....

https://archive.org/details/Harmony108Excercices/mode/2up

Links to the other 2 books in the course..
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31196726072&searchurl=sortby=17&tn=second+year+harmony&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image2

https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31196720697&searchurl=sortby=17&tn=third+year+harmony&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image2

In the end you should be grounded in chromatic harmony, voice leading and counterpoint, although I also recommend his book 'Free Counterpoint' later on in the course. Here it is for free, but don't start it yet as you need a solid grounding first..



Take your time, these courses demand slow and consistent work and practice, just the way it should be. If you don't absorb and master the chapters carefully and thoroughly before moving on, the study will be less effective for you.
The trick as always is to make this study relevant to your own voice so think of this as the composer's equivalent of the scales and arpeggios an instrumentalist has to master.


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## Sean (Dec 19, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> My theory classes were mostly just a lab where everyone put their partwriting examples on the board, and then the entire class tore them apart. This provided some serious incentive to come to class and do the homework. It was very effective, though the students did call me "Dr. Evil."


Ha, this reminds me of my aural skills class freshman year of college when the professor would make each student go up and play an exercise on the piano and sing solfege. We had a similar nickname for him, but he was also one of the best teachers I've ever had and I got way better at aural skills from that class. The fear of god really made me practice those solfege exercises a lot harder!


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Dec 19, 2022)

Sean said:


> Ha, this reminds me of my aural skills class freshman year of college when the professor would make each student go up and play an exercise on the piano and sing solfege. We had a similar nickname for him, but he was also one of the best teachers I've ever had and I got way better at aural skills from that class. The fear of god really made me practice those solfege exercises a lot harder!


In Finance back when I was studying, our lecturer would always ask a question some time during the lecture; look up at us 300 students in the auditorium and then settle on a person at random who should answer. If that person couldn’t answer, he/she should then point at another student who should then try and answer.

It was very uncomfortable to attend his class


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 19, 2022)

Sean said:


> Ha, this reminds me of my aural skills class freshman year of college when the professor would make each student go up and play an exercise on the piano and sing solfege. We had a similar nickname for him, but he was also one of the best teachers I've ever had and I got way better at aural skills from that class. The fear of god really made me practice those solfege exercises a lot harder!


I figured out as an undergraduate from a few sadistic professors that nothing motivates like being on the hot seat. After my first semester of dealing with lackadaisical students, I reflected on my time in the hot seat and changed my approach. By the end of their fourth semester, they all composed passacaglias for string quartet, and we played them in a concert. It was great fun. Bwhahaha!!!


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## Houdini (Dec 27, 2022)

Thank you for making this thread and for everyone who posted a constructive reply.

I find myself in your shoes OP. I have some basic equipment and basic theory knowledge from playing guitar in bands for the past 15 years, what I don't have is money for courses.

I'm not looking for shortcuts, or a 5 page pdf telling me "how to become a Hollywood composer". I have a very demanding full-time job, but I would like to spend my free time composing, instead of struggling and thinking "what if I started all this when I was 6?".

I believe there is a mid point between miracle promising 5 page pdf files and master degrees in composition. A list of "must know" things would be great as a starting point. Again, I am not asking to be fed with information, I am asking to be pointed to the right direction. If the only right direction is to enrol at a BA for Composition and Orchestration, then maybe I missed my chance.


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## smellypants (Dec 27, 2022)

Houdini said:


> Thank you for making this thread and for everyone who posted a constructive reply.
> 
> I find myself in your shoes OP. I have some basic equipment and basic theory knowledge from playing guitar in bands for the past 15 years, what I don't have is money for courses.
> 
> ...


Pay 60 bucks a month and sign up for Score Club!


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## JimDiGritz (Dec 27, 2022)

smellypants said:


> Pay 60 bucks a month and sign up for Score Club!


Sure, it is incredibly well constructed however I would personally hold off until you have a really solid grasp of the fundamentals including sight reading and Music Theory 101. 

I started ScoreClub 6 months ago and got lost quite quickly and cancelled/paused the subscription. Since then I've spent maybe 100 hours on music theory including notation, harmony, counterpoint, solfège, interval ear training and score analysis. I'm getting closer to starting it again in the next few months. I can't spell all the scales, and whilst I've memorised the Circle of Fifths and understand the structure I still have to 'calculate' each scale by visualising the CoF.. work in progress. 

That's my personal experience.


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## JimDiGritz (Dec 27, 2022)

I've actually been indexing 100's of YouTube videos, enrolled training courses (like Pillars of Composition), purchased pdf books (like the Spectratone chart) in Zotera so that I can attack a specific topic (say 2nd Species Counterpoint) and get several different lectures and reference books on the subject.






You can see on the left hand panel all of the Tags I've added, so I could search for all information on 17th Century Counterpoint or John Williams Score Analysis etc

I'm collating a list covering Music Theory, Composition and Orchestration. I've got maybe 200 tagged and cross referenced items so far!!

Much easier to use than the 100's of YouTube Playlists and bookmarks... it works pretty well since each item is a hyperlink to the pdf or Youtube video. There's also a Chrome extension which makes adding Blogs, videos or webpages very quick to add to the database!


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## Houdini (Dec 27, 2022)

JimDiGritz said:


> Sure, it is incredibly well constructed however I would personally hold off until you have a really solid grasp of the fundamentals including sight reading and Music Theory 101.
> 
> I started ScoreClub 6 months ago and got lost quite quickly and cancelled/paused the subscription. Since then I've spent maybe 100 hours on music theory including notation, harmony, counterpoint, solfège, interval ear training and score analysis. I'm getting closer to starting it again in the next few months. I can't spell all the scales, and whilst I've memorised the Circle of Fifths and understand the structure I still have to 'calculate' each scale by visualising the CoF.. work in progress.
> 
> That's my personal experience.


Our experiences are similar. ScoreClub looks very very useful for someone who really has the basics down. I need 30 minutes to read one line of music notation in treble clef, there is no way I can follow that kind of structure yet.

Your tracking method through Zotero looks interesting, I'll see if I can do something like that for myself as well.


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## sundrowned (Dec 27, 2022)

Don't know if it was posted already but this free resource has a basic overview of the standard theory topics 

https://musictheory.pugetsound.edu/mt21c/MusicTheory.html 

Although personally I'd probably do voice leading before form.


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## GuitarGeck (Dec 27, 2022)

JimDiGritz said:


> I'm on a journey to develop my compositional skills, and am keen to focus on classic composition (especially 20th century late romantic)
> 
> I've started a few courses and they all approach the subject from different starting points and cover areas in different order. I've also got some specific courses like "Composing in Sonata form". Plus, obviously I have 100's of YouTube videos covering almost every possible subject.
> 
> ...





JimDiGritz said:


> I fully appreciate this approach. Not sure if this was a barb aimed at me. I'm not looking for a 'shortcut', merely trying to organise around 23,000 hours of learning material into a meaningful structure.
> 
> Perhaps you could share your freshman curriculum?
> 
> ...


@JimDiGritz I am 68 and am on a similar journey. I studied music when I was younger and left it behind for an academic career. Studying and playing music again has brought me so much joy and fulfillment. I appreciate your asking these questions and have benefitted from the many responses here. This is such a fantastic forum!! Thank you.


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## JimDiGritz (Dec 27, 2022)

sundrowned said:


> Don't know if it was posted already but this free resource has a basic overview of the standard theory topics
> 
> https://musictheory.pugetsound.edu/mt21c/MusicTheory.html
> 
> Although personally I'd probably do voice leading before form.








Just to clarify how straightforward I'm finding Zotera to organise all of this information above is the 2 step process I use to catalog information that I come accross.

Now when I want to dive into Sonata Form that page along with all of the YT videos and books I own that cover this are one click away!!


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## b_elliott (Dec 27, 2022)

An alternative method/approach (smarter or lazier) than the search-organize-shuffle resources is this rule of thumb: _When the student is ready the teacher will appear. _

For me, that usually occurs after completing a song project: someone posts a link to a resource I had never considered, a subject I had overlooked, a music matter that suddenly peaks my curiosity. 

It requires rolling with the magic that comes your way as it comes = less stress IMHO; but, it all depends on your "getting behavior". 

One could test it out to see if this mode tickles your fancy.
Cheers, Bill


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## Soundbed (Dec 27, 2022)

I frequently wish I could forget some music lessons because I never got good enough at them to get “past” the lesson.

For instance, I still check my counterpoint when posting videos because I’d rather share a boring example that uses mediocre counterpoint — at the level I stopped learning — than share a “good” piece of music that doesn’t have decent counterpoint (within my foggy recollection of ‘the rules’).

This is to say, musical education for composition gets sort of … endless.

It’s great that you’ve got a goal:



JimDiGritz said:


> 20th century late romantic



..because after that, I was introduced to dodecaphonic, chance, unusual notation styles, algorithmic computer compositional techniques, various world music, and so on until my head was swimming.

My greatest piece of advice to learn how to write music is to *write music* — or, just make music that is your own — whether it’s “written down” or simply practiced/improvised and maybe recorded.

All the theory and analysis I learned was less important than the pieces I wrote, in retrospect. Writing taught me what I liked to write. Writing taught me ear training. Writing taught me how others respond to my writing (when I let them hear). Those things were more important to me than an analysis or a “musical understanding”.



Jett Hitt said:


> feedback. You need a tutor to proof your work and point out when you've gone astray--someone to keep you on the straight and narrow. I would recommend reaching out to someone like @A.Heppelmann for private lessons.



Feedback is incredibly important. Esp counterpoint. 



jbuhler said:


> I think harmony, form, and orchestration are easier to teach to oneself than counterpoint and basics of composition. There is so much implicit knowledge that is conveyed in the feedback, pointing out where you are boxing yourself in, the difference between a correct solution and a good one, etc.



This is where I would have liked my education to have progressed further. I took classes and private lessons with some good and maybe great composers from some great “lineages” but I did not get as much music education out of a couple of them as I wanted. I learned more about what I call the culture of “the concert world” and stopped writing for six years. :(



Jett Hitt said:


> My theory classes were mostly just a lab where everyone put their partwriting examples on the board, and then the entire class tore them apart.



Yep, that is a great way to progress!



Jett Hitt said:


> You have ten seconds to be able to verbalize the scale aloud



Also memorize the orders of sharps and flats, which you might have done already if you learned circle of fifths. FCGDAEB, BEADGCF



Sean said:


> the professor would make each student go up and play an exercise on the piano and sing solfege



Yeah, this is another good one. Stand in front of a class and sight read a middle voice in 4 part harmony using solfège while the teacher plays the other three. Nerve wracking, but educational!

And this brings me to the other greatest lesson, which is ear training. I’ve started giving my kids impromptu ear training exercises, like identifying when I play major or minor chords on the guitar. I try to trick them by playing minor chords energetically and major chords softly and slowly.

Another way to develop ear training is to “transcribe” your favorite pieces by ear into your DAW. The last piece I did was a Lupin (tv show) theme/cue, and I know I missed some inner voices, but I learned a lot. Much more than if I’d started from the midi or the score. 

Anyhoo, once you develop the curriculum to write late romantic music, I’ll sign up for it. 

Developing a curriculum is challenging. I was offered a position to be a lead instructor for a local college’s _electronic_ music course (my main focus over the years), but I’d need to have developed the curriculum in two weeks time, and, I’d only applied to be the assistant at the time (I turned them down because it seemed like too much work for what they were paying)!


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## Jett Hitt (Dec 27, 2022)

Soundbed said:


> Developing a curriculum is challenging. I was offered a position to be a lead instructor for a local college’s _electronic_ music course (my main focus over the years), but I’d need to have developed the curriculum in two weeks time, and, I’d only applied to be the assistant at the time (I turned them down because it seemed like too much work for what they were paying)!


My local community college (about 30 miles away) heard that I was in the area and approached me about teaching music theory. The class met 45 times throughout the semester, and I would need to attend a couple of faculty meetings plus administer the final exam. So I’d have to drive that 30 miles (60 round trip) roughly 48 times. The pay was $1700. Then they got excited and announced that they could pay me $200 more because I had a doctorate. Can you imagine?


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## Soundbed (Dec 28, 2022)

Jett Hitt said:


> My local community college (about 30 miles away) heard that I was in the area and approached me about teaching music theory. The class met 45 times throughout the semester, and I would need to attend a couple of faculty meetings plus administer the final exam. So I’d have to drive that 30 miles (60 round trip) roughly 48 times. The pay was $1700. Then they got excited and announced that they could pay me $200 more because I had a doctorate. Can you imagine?


Sadly, I can imagine.


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## syrinx (Dec 28, 2022)

Houdini said:


> I need 30 minutes to read one line of music notation in treble clef


If that's the case, I'd advise focusing on getting faster at reading music. I'd mix exercises of reading random notes (I think there's some in Kostkas workbook, but you can also use Sibelius to generate worksheets) with writing down your music (by hand preferably). Writing music is effective for both some aspects of ear training and theory. 

Also, I read somewhere in _Teaching Approaches in Music Theory, _by Michael R. Rogers that they recommend focusing intervals really really well. The reasoning was that so much of the theoretical concepts build on intervals. It makes figuring out chords easy, for example. Just knowing what the perfect fifth and minor/major third above any note is very good. 

As for counterpoint, I would actually hold off until you feel the need. Most books are heavy reading. One has to be a very dedicated person, I'd say. Having a teacher to "ease into it" is very helpful, which I assume you won't have. There's surely some good book out there with a more conversational and relaxed style, but I haven't found one yet. Tonal Counterpoint for the 21st-Century Musician by Teresa Davidian is as close as I have gotten, so I would recommend that one, when you get around to it.

For a hobbyist self-learner, I'd say learn to read music and then look at scores of your favorite composers (and be curious and search for new "favorites"), maybe coupled with books on harmony (I'd personally recommend Persichetti's book for more "fun" stuff) and instrumentation.

Most of these ideas has probably all been said already in this thread.


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