# A question or fifty about Thinkspace Training



## wst3 (Jan 25, 2014)

My first priority in 2014 is some training.

My goals:

1) improve the quality of my productions, mockups or finished pieces - this is my weak point, probably because it's not been necessary to create finished pieces.
2) improve the craft of composition. It's great when I get an idea, but I also need to learn to grind through the writer's block moments.
3) improve my arrangement/orchestration skills, with a focus on orchestral styles, but it'd be nice to work on big band and even small ensemble arranging too.
4) business. Ideally it would be cool if the school was a source of contacts, but more important is developing the networking and negotiating skills necessary to win work.
My background:

I've been a part time professional musician for about almost 40 years in a variety of capacities including player, teacher, composer, arranger, engineer, and even producer once or twice. These days the majority of my work is done with virtual instruments as a mockup, and then played by live players.

I have studied harmony and theory, formally at first, and recently using a variety of text books in self-study mode.

I have scored a couple of student films, but most of my sound design and composition has been for live theatre

I like a lot of what I write these days, but have no commercial yardstick yet. Not uncommon I suppose...
I'm just about to pull the trigger on CO and MFTM... it appears to offer the best balance of self study flexibility and guidance from tutors/mentors. I need the flexibility to maintain the rest of my responsibilities, but I'm tired of trying to do it all by myself. The combination of the two classes appears to address all my goals...

So I'm looking for comments on Thinkspace - or alternative suggestions.

Much appreciated


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## leafInTheWind (Jan 25, 2014)

May I suggest speaking to a working composer who takes on students? I am studying with Dave Connor for an hour a week, and I think he takes on students who do not want a weekly thing, but it's best you ask him. Dave teaches over skype, and it's simply amazing to see him rewrite my crappy stuff into something that flows. I spent over 2 years with Dave now, I started with basic harmony, then we studied counterpoint, and we are just getting into orchestration now. 

I am coming from a total newbie viewpoint (i.e. I had no idea what C7 is vs Cmaj7 2 years ago), but Dave does lots of arrangements, mockups and more professionally, so I'm sure he can help you out there. He's on the forums too.

I recently joined Thinkspace. Thinkspace has a set of credits, and you will need to pay in blocks of 4 (I think?) to get more. Also, I've only done the first 3 lessons of ThinkSpace/CO, it tutors do take from a week to two weeks to get back to you. The think space videos are pretty good, particularly enjoy the bits where they recorded pro session players, describing all the articulations etc.


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