# Online Film Scoring & Orchestration Training (free sample units available)



## ThinkSpace Education (Sep 30, 2013)

Hi all,

Dan here from ThinkSpace Education. In case you haven't heard of us before, we're a team of professional composers who have been mentoring upcoming musicians to make a full time living composing music for film, tv, games, commercials, trailers... anything and everything really (we have specialists in all these areas and more). 

We've been doing this for over 15 years now, having originally been founded by film composer Guy Michelmore in 1997, sending materials and student projects / feedback to-and-fro by post. Since then, we have collaborated with hundreds of the top composers, orchestrators, session players, agents, publishers and producers in the world. This includes the likes of David Arnold, Michael Nyman, George Fenton, Debbie Wiseman, Tommy Tallarico, Jim Latham and many more.

From our humble beginnings, we've now trained over 2,500 composers, mainly through word of mouth, and have many graduates working full time in the industry. For a small sample, see this page: http://www.thinkspaceonline.co.uk/our-students/.

For more information about our courses, see these links (you can download free sample units for each of them on the pages)-


MUSIC FOR THE MEDIA- Our flagship course, now in it's 3rd edition. Hands-on training from professional composers in scoring for all types of media, and how to make a living writing music.
http://www.thinkspaceonline.co.uk/courses/music-for-the-media/ (http://www.thinkspaceonline.co.uk/cours ... the-media/)

CINEMATIC ORCHESTRATION- The complete guide to Hollywood style orchestration (both live and sampled), taught by orchestrators and session players behind many of the world’s biggest blockbusters including The Dark Knight, Lord Of The Rings, Pirates Of The Carribean, Harry Potter and literally hundreds more.
http://www.thinkspaceonline.co.uk/courses/cinematic-orchestration/ (http://www.thinkspaceonline.co.uk/cours ... estration/)

HARMONY- Beginner's guide to four-part harmony taught by harmony expert and film composer, Rachel James.
http://www.thinkspaceonline.co.uk/courses/harmony/

DIGITAL MUSIC- Our foundational course to music technology and theory for composers, to help fill any gaps in your knowledge holding you back from our more advanced programmes.
http://www.thinkspaceonline.co.uk/courses/digital-music/ (http://www.thinkspaceonline.co.uk/cours ... tal-music/)

Anyway, we really just wanted to introduce ourselves and say hi. If you have any questions at all, we'd love to hear them.

-Dan

P.S. We provide free weekly training articles and videos on our facebook page. Like us to keep up to date: http://www.facebook.com/ThinkSpaceEducation


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## G.R. Baumann (Sep 30, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Cinematic Orchestration Training*

Hello Dan,

You say:



> I know you might have a music degree.
> 
> And I know you probably work a full time job already.
> 
> Either way, you’re still going to have to start from the bottom, and that means putting yourself out there to film schools, mobile app designers and local companies (to score corporate videos)* and volunteering your services*.


 
Here I would disagree with you wholeheartedly. Someone who has a degree in music should never volunteer his/her services but have a realistic price for the services on offer instead.

If the people expect you to work for nothing, dangling the proverbial carrott in front of you, I'd say walk away from them, regardless what name and weight they carry. 

Students and beginners should stand up to such an ill practice and teachers should refrain from teaching this. 

No one should work for free.

x x x x 

At a glance it looks like a comprehensive offer your school brings to the table. I found it very interesting to read in your requirements that:



> You do not need to read or write music. About half our students can and the rest can’t. It doesn’t appear to make any significant difference to the success rate.



I would not have expected that to be honest and it made me wonder how you would teach orchestration or harmony to someone who can not read or write music, I assume you don't. Can you talk a little bit more about that phenomenon?

I was also wondering what is your position in the school? I did not find you listed as a tutor.

Best wishes
Georg


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## Martin K (Sep 30, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Cinematic Orchestration Training*



G.R. Baumann @ Mon Sep 30 said:


> Students and beginners should stand up to such an ill practice and teachers should refrain from teaching this.
> 
> No one should work for free.



@Georg: I can understand your concern based on the text you quoted.

However, I've done the Music for the Media course and as far as I can remember from the course, they do not encourage students to work for free. In fact, quite the opposite - they teach a good deal about how you can make a living from your music. Lots of info about copyrights, royalties, how to price your work, negotiations, what to watch out for, what kind of deals are common and which ones to run away from etc.

best,
Martin


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## ThinkSpace Education (Sep 30, 2013)

Hi Georg,

Thanks for your message.

As well as being a music school, we are also a music production company for TV, lead by Guy Michelmore. We operate under the name "Deep Water Blue" for all our composing work (www.deepwaterblue.net/&#8206;).

As such, our job roles are quite varied- primarily I'm employed as an in house composer and music editor currently working on Disney's Hulk And The Agents Of S.M.A.S.H. with Guy, although I'm also involved in the courses as one of the composers who offers in house support to our students. As I studied Cinematic Orchestration before working here, I am able to answer most of the questions prospective students may have about the programmes too.

To clarify from the first quote, we do not necessarily advocate pitching for free (I can see how this is not clear from that extract), and maybe volunteering was the wrong choice word there. I suppose it should have been clearer, but we really mean getting in front of these people and letting them know you're available. 

That post was also intended for people at the very start of their careers with no previous experience, and whilst in general we don't recommend working for free and I agree with most of your comments, in some situations the experience, contacts and credits you gain by doing a few of these gigs at the very beginning stages make it worth it, especially when you have no existing network or contact base in place.

As Martin mentioned though, our focus is on training students to find paying work in the industry.

As for your other question, it is correct that you don't need to read or write music in Music For The Media from which that quote was attributed to, as this focusses on taking what you already know and applying it to writing for picture and building a career as a composer. 

You are right, however, that you need to know at least the fundamentals to study Cinematic Orchestration and Harmony. 

You can still benefit from the sampled side of CO 
without knowledge of music notation (plus most of the demonstrations, tutorials and interviews with the session players, composers and orchestrators featured in the course), although yes, to get the most out of CO you do need to know how to read and write.

I hope that answers your questions.

-Dan


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## G.R. Baumann (Sep 30, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Cinematic Orchestration Training*

Thanks a lot for clarifying that Dan and Martin.

I think it was easy enough to misunderstand, then again, I am not a native or fluent english speaker and perhaps this was sorta "cultural translation" that triggered a red flag waving in front of my face. LOL

I was involved many years ago, at the turn of the millenium, in "evangelizing" e-learning on the highest levels such as UNO, World Bank etc.

It is great to see more such offers available for musicians.

A last question that was on my mind is about the challenging task of supporting students. Sorry if this may be answered already on your site somewhere, I do not have the time right now to read everything. 

Do you have a dedicated online time for students to communicate with tutors via Skype, or how do you handle one-on-one contact requirements? How often will students be able to have that contact if they struggle to transgress scriabiniesque elements of continuity to their assigned cartoon shortfilm? :lol: :wink: 

Seriously though, I came to learn that pure email contact is too costly timewise, and one-on-one direct contact is the most efficient.

Thanks again!

Best wishes
G


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## jensos (Sep 30, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Cinematic Orchestration Training*

I'm in the Cinematic Orchestration course and can absolutely recommend it. To me, the combination of the course text (and scores) with the large number of videos is absolutely great for learning. I'm only in the first quarter of the course but can already say that for me, having struggled a bit with learning orchestration from books, joining the course was a good decision. For those interested, here's the kind of material that I've seen so far:

For each unit of the course (e.g. on string writing etc.) there are videos in which well-known and obviously highly experienced composers and orchestrators (e.g. Nic Raine, Howard Blake, Chuck Fernandez, Nick Dodd) talk about the respective topics. Many, if not all, of these videos are in a sort of question-answer, interview-type format, led by Guy Michelmore. They contain loads of information I've never seen mentioned in books.
On the instrumentation side, there are videos in which session players talk about their respective instruments, playing techniques, and what they consider good practice in orchestration. Lots of things are demonstrated and there is sheet music that allows you to follow along. Btw, these videos are much longer and more detailed than what you'd find in the AV material that accompanies the Adler book ("Study of Orchestration"). It wouldn't be appropriate to compare the two in terms of magnitude. However, in the course they do encourage you to complement the individual course units with studying standard literature.
VI mockups are covered extensively in videos done by Guy and/or Rachel James.
All these videos are so full of information that I feel I have no choice but to take notes all the time. I'm not sure how many pages I have are already, but there are many.

Then there are the assignments that are graded by professional orchestrators, and they offer quite high-quality feedback. Allocation of students to tutors is not random, btw but decided by the Thinkspace guys based on your own work that you submit as a first assignment.

There is also detailed score study, but I can't say much about that as I'm not quite there yet. But I guess I can say something about Georg's question regarding reading or not reading music: I suppose the idea is that those who do not read music fluently will - if they participate in a serious way - inevitably become much better at it along the way. There is plenty of sheet music to be analyzed, but no time constraints. I guess this electronic course is as close I'll ever get to an orchestration course in the music department of a school/university in the traditional sense.

If there's a more seasoned student here who wants to add something - I'd love to hear other people's thoughts as well...

Jens
--


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## ThinkSpace Education (Sep 30, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Cinematic Orchestration Training*

Jens, thank you for your post/recommendation, much appreciated!

Georg, students are supported in multiple ways throughout our courses. To start with, all students get unlimited telephone and email support (through our support ticket system) at any time during the course. This is provided primarily by our in house composers.

Our team are here to support you through all stages of your career. We can offer help looking over contracts, advising on finding work and setting rates, assisting new purchases (ThinkSpace students also are eligible to receive student discounts on many pieces of music software, samples & hardware), assisting with technical problems & studio setup, and pretty much anything else you can think of.

We have helped students with contracts and setting rates, booking orchestras and much more, although we are also obviously here to answer any questions you may have as you progress through the course.

In addition to this, you will also be assigned to your own private tutor, matched to your writing style and goals. All of our tutors are extremely experienced and have many high profile credits to their names. They all work or have worked full time in the industry and primarily teach because they want to give something back and help other aspiring composers. Your tutor is the person who will provide professional feedback on all of the projects you submit in the course. 

All projects are taken from real world briefs and delivered in the same way the original composer received them. There are many different projects to choose from at the end of each unit which will give you the opportunity to get hands on practical experience writing for all of the different avenues available to composers, with feedback from real working professionals.

More information about some of our tutors (for MFTM) can be found here: http://www.thinkspaceonline.co.uk/courses/music-for-the-media/tutors/ (http://www.thinkspaceonline.co.uk/cours ... ia/tutors/)

More information about the projects (for MFTM) can be found here: http://www.thinkspaceonline.co.uk/courses/music-for-the-media/projects/ (http://www.thinkspaceonline.co.uk/cours ... /projects/)

Best,
Dan


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## G.R. Baumann (Sep 30, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Orchestration Training*

Thank you Dan for answering in such detail, much appreciated.

Best wishes
G


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## korgscrew (Sep 30, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Orchestration Training*

This looks very tempting as I feel im at a dead end with using a DAW to compose.

I have all top notch libraries at my finger tips, but feel limited in my knowledge to prgress and make the most of them.

It seems quite daunting reading the course info as I work full time during the week (editing audio) 9-5.30.

Could you tell me how much time a week I will need to put into the course? I say this not from a lazy point of view, more of, if I will be able to make the most of the course!

Thanks in advance!

Danny


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## 5Lives (Sep 30, 2013)

I recently started the Harmony course (and have also signed up for Music for the Media and Cinematic Orchestration). It is self-study - that is, you can take as much time as you need to complete the course (within the allotted time which is much more than you should need from my perspective).

Even though I've only just started, so far I really like their approach. The material is very good and practical (rather than being academic). I had done a fair amount of research before signing up and all of the former students I spoke with had great things to say as well.


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## jensos (Sep 30, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Orchestration Training*



korgscrew @ Mon Sep 30 said:


> It seems quite daunting reading the course info as I work full time during the week (editing audio) 9-5.30.
> 
> Could you tell me how much time a week I will need to put into the course? I say this not from a lazy point of view, more of, if I will be able to make the most of the course!
> 
> ...



Same here: a time-consuming dayjob and two little kids. I can invest around 6-8 hours per week on average.Other people probably have more time available. But I plunged in nevertheless and don't regret it one bit. However, it is possible that I might want to extend the course at the end of the year. I'm ok with that and as a result I don't feel pressured. In the Thinkspace store you can see what they offer (extending the course time or an option of submitting more assignments).

Jens
--


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## korgscrew (Sep 30, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Orchestration Training*



jensos @ Mon Sep 30 said:


> korgscrew @ Mon Sep 30 said:
> 
> 
> > It seems quite daunting reading the course info as I work full time during the week (editing audio) 9-5.30.
> ...



How are you finding it Jens?

How up are you on theory? I have knowledge and can read it. I know my clefs, (more so treble) note values, time signatures etc. I just hope it's enough for cinematic orchestration. I'm wondering if harmony may be more useful on the flip side of the coin!


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## jensos (Sep 30, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Orchestration Training*



korgscrew @ Mon Sep 30 said:


> How are you finding it Jens?
> 
> How up are you on theory? I have knowledge and can read it. I know my clefs, (more so treble) note values, time signatures etc. I just hope it's enough for cinematic orchestration. I'm wondering if harmony may be more useful on the flip side of the coin!



I should probably be careful giving you a definitive judgement on this, and I can only recommend you to give the Thinkspace guys a phone call. They're very approachable and helpful. 
What I can say, though, is that my skill set isn't dramatically different from what you wrote above. In addition I've been practicing harmony, but in my case it's more basic studying (intervals, scales, chord types etc.) and practical experience (from improvizing on the piano) than anything else. No formal training unfortunately. So far I don't have the slightest problem following the course.

Jens
--


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## korgscrew (Sep 30, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Orchestration Training*



jensos @ Mon Sep 30 said:


> korgscrew @ Mon Sep 30 said:
> 
> 
> > How are you finding it Jens?
> ...



Which course are you doing Jens? Harmony or Cinematic?


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## jensos (Sep 30, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Orchestration Training*

I'm in Cinematic Orchestration. I will also do Harmony if it turns out to be necessary, but so far it's not.


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## korgscrew (Sep 30, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Orchestration Training*



jensos @ Mon Sep 30 said:


> I'm in Cinematic Orchestration. I will also do Harmony if it turns out to be necessary, but so far it's not.



Great, Thanks Bud!

Appreciated!

I have a full time job, other half and a dog. The other half spends most of the weekend with the horse. I spend it with the dog, so, i think ill be ok for time 

Appreciate your help!

Danny


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## snattack (Sep 30, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Orchestration Training*

Hi!

Does any of the courses include tutoring, or is it "only" video/text based?

Best,
Andreas


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## 5Lives (Sep 30, 2013)

It is video and text based primarily. However, you submit your assignments to a tutor, who responds to you with quite detailed feedback (which was one of the reasons I went with ThinkSpace). Additionally, you can always ask questions and somebody at ThinkSpace will get back to you within a day.


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## wlotz (Oct 1, 2013)

*Re: Online Film Scoring & Orchestration Training*

hey guys,

I'm in the middle of the CO course with Milton Nelson (also took the MFTM but have decided to put it on hold until I'm done with CO  - REALLY GOOD STUFF. I really like the way the whole thing has been prepared for us - all the documents, video and sound files, interviews with great composers and musicians. It's great because you can learn things you usually read about in books by listening to these guys - it's more fun 

The whole Thinkspace team is really nice, always very helpful and it's just a pleasure to work with these guys. I truly recommend it!

Thanks,
W


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## ThinkSpace Education (Oct 1, 2013)

As Jens & 5Lives have pointed out, you can work through our courses at your own pace. Before joining ThinkSpace I was a Cinematic Orchestration student myself and I remember when I started the course I had to take a 6 month break in the middle of my studies. This obviously wasn't ideal, but I found it great that I could pick it up where I left off and go on to complete the programme, despite unexpected time issues along the way.

@korgscrew: If you can read treble and bass clef you will have no trouble with CO. Some basic 4-part harmony knowledge can be useful when working on your string writing, but by and large all of our courses are very practical and therefore less about the "theory" and more about the music itself. 

As Jens mentioned, everyone is more than welcome to give us a ring if you have any questions or just want to chat (number is: 01243 512730, and we're available weekdays at 9am-5pm GMT).

Alternatively, if this is inconvenient for you feel free to send us a PM or email me at dan[at]thinkspaceonline.com, where I'd be happy to take a listen to examples of your music if you'd like to send them through too.

- Dan


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## ThinkSpace Education (Oct 1, 2013)

Thanks Wojciech!

By the way, if you didn't realise, you can download free sample units to all our courses by clicking the links on the information pages I posted at the top of the thread... should have mentioned that at the start I guess!


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## wlotz (Oct 1, 2013)

thank YOU guys! :mrgreen:


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## Martin K (Oct 2, 2013)

I'm currently doing the Cinematic Orchestration course as well and can highly recommend it! 
The tutor feedback is pure gold and has exceeded all my expectations (both for the Music for the Media course and CO). It's great value for the money and Dan and the rest of the ThinkSpace team are extremely helpful.

As for knowing the basics - I know what note I'm looking at, but I can't sit down and play by notes to anyone's satisfaction and I have no problem following the course.

best,
Martin


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## wlotz (Oct 2, 2013)

Martin K @ Wed Oct 02 said:


> As for knowing the basics - I know what note I'm looking at, but I can't sit down and play by notes to anyone's satisfaction and I have no problem following the course.
> 
> best,
> Martin


Same here, I forgot to mention it in my post


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## ThinkSpace Education (Oct 3, 2013)

Martin K @ Wed Oct 02 said:


> I'm currently doing the Cinematic Orchestration course as well and can highly recommend it!
> The tutor feedback is pure gold and has exceeded all my expectations (both for the Music for the Media course and CO). It's great value for the money and Dan and the rest of the ThinkSpace team are extremely helpful.
> 
> As for knowing the basics - I know what note I'm looking at, but I can't sit down and play by notes to anyone's satisfaction and I have no problem following the course.
> ...



Thanks Martin!


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## ThinkSpace Education (Oct 8, 2013)

Guy Michelmore has just uploaded a new tour of his Digital Performer template. Feel free to give it a watch!


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## 5Lives (Oct 9, 2013)

For other folks in the courses, how long does it take for your tutor to get back to you? It's been over 2 weeks for me and it is just the first assignment...


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## Martin K (Oct 9, 2013)

5Lives @ Thu Oct 10 said:


> For other folks in the courses, how long does it take for your tutor to get back to you? It's been over 2 weeks for me and it is just the first assignment...


2 weeks is quite normal, sometimes shorter and on a rare occasion longer. If you send them a support ticket, I'm sure they will tell you where you are in the queue 

best,
Martin


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## ThinkSpace Education (Oct 14, 2013)

5Lives @ Wed Oct 09 said:


> For other folks in the courses, how long does it take for your tutor to get back to you? It's been over 2 weeks for me and it is just the first assignment...



Hi 5Lives,

Sorry for the delay- all our tutors work full time professionally in the industry so from time to time projects take a little longer to be marked when we are especially busy, although we do everything we can to stay on top of it.

If your project still hasn't been marked, please send us a support ticket and we'll get it looked at as quickly as possible. We're currently recruiting a set of new tutors (although as you can imagine, finding the "right" people is a difficult process) as we've recently had a lot of new students sign up. 

Sorry for the inconvenience and delay.

All the best,

Dan


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