# Berklee Course: Music Composition for Film and TV 1



## wsimpson (Jul 23, 2021)

Has anyone taken the Berklee Course Music Composition for Film and TV1 by Ben Newhouse? I just found his book Creative Strategies in Film Scoring and while I really like the approach, I wish it was deeper., especially around specifics in musical elements to convey style and emotion. I am hoping the full Berklee course it the deeper version so I would love to chat with anyone who has taken the course.

Berklee Course








Music Composition for Film and TV 1


Learn to write music in the style of big budget Hollywood productions and gain a recipe book for writing for film and TV.




online.berklee.edu





Creative Strategies in FIlm Scoring Book


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## borisb2 (Jul 23, 2021)

Didn’t take any Berklee courses - but I really like that they usually put the whole curriculum online/public, meaning you know exactly what to expect - at least all topics/bullet points.

If you then work your way through each topic, searching the internet and even YT you usually get tons of useful information (sometimes even from their own Berklee-blog/website) that covers that topic. At least for music theory that’s the way I went (and still are going) doing my self-studies (incl books and ear training software of course)

For practice and feedback then I would invest in a tutor and the composition sub-forum here.


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## RSK (Jul 23, 2021)

I took the Orchestration 1 course and thought it was solid, even though I later decided to pursue a degree with Thinkspace rather than Berklee.

Music Comp for Film and TV is all about learning to compose in specific situations (romance, action, horror, etc.) so the material is about what has worked historically in those genres. It's one course in a 5-course certificate program, so you might consider that.


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## borisb2 (Jul 23, 2021)

RSK said:


> Music Comp for Film and TV is all about learning to compose in specific situations (romance, action, horror, etc.) so the material is about what has worked historically in those genres.


aren't there many (cheaper) in depth courses that cover the same topics? Thinking of the "Composer Blueprint Training" at ThinkSpace or "Composition for Film: a Study of Styles" with CinematicComposing .. guess there are more


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## RSK (Jul 23, 2021)

borisb2 said:


> aren't there many (cheaper) in depth courses that cover the same topics? Thinking of the "Composer Blueprint Training" at ThinkSpace or "Composition for Film: a Study of Styles" with CinematicComposing .. guess there are more


Yes, and there are thousands of books on making music. What's your point?


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## borisb2 (Jul 23, 2021)

RSK said:


> Yes, and there are thousands of books on making music. What's your point?


my point was the high price of Berklee-Online .. $1400.- for each course ..

maybe its justified - havent taken one as mentioned


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## Brian Cho (Jul 24, 2021)

I took the course a few years ago and thought it was pretty good. It teaches you to write in different styles/genres of music for film and tv. Nothing groundbreaking in terms of material but the course is well organized and the feedback from Ben Newhouse was helpful for me. Berklee courses are too expensive for me that looking back, I would otherwise have invested in other courses like Evenant, Scoreclub, Mike Verta’s masterclasses, etc.


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## GNP (Jul 24, 2021)

I graduated from the actual Filmscoring Major in Berklee, and during that time, what I found appalling was that they were still using clips from TV shows from the 90s, for students to score to! Like...whaaaaaaat. Learnt alot besides that, but come on.


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## nik (Jul 24, 2021)

Hey ,

i took the course this year and i liked it a lot. i waited til it was on sale for quite some time tough. They always put a few courses at lower price for early enrollment.

The course was very cool imo. Every week there is a different genre presented. They talk about orchestration and harmony and cool thing is to put it into practice for the assgnment. 

It would obv be cooler to go deeper in every genre, since on or two weeks are not enough. 
But its basically like a crash course and thats a great starting point. i especially liked the horror and action style weeks which i was always curious about. 

I also liked a lot that most of the assigment are scoring to picture.

Things i did not like that much :
I feel that the feedback is too generous and there are some annoying excercises in between (which i know they have to include for beginners tough). For example exporting something from your DAW or sequencing a melody and so on. 

All in all i really loved it and imo its way better then the Blueprint Thinkspace stuff which i was very dissapointed from.

Obv just ny two cents but i hope it helps


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## Markrs (Jul 24, 2021)

nik said:


> i took the course this year and i liked it a lot. i waited til it was on sale for quite some time tough. They always put a few courses at lower price for early enrollment.


How much of a reduction did you get and did you buy at a particular time of the year to get the discount?


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## yiph2 (Jul 24, 2021)

I'm taking it right now and agree with nik, its great for me as there is a specific schedule of when assignments are due so I don't spend months making a short piece


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## wsimpson (Jul 24, 2021)

borisb2 said:


> aren't there many (cheaper) in depth courses that cover the same topics? Thinking of the "Composer Blueprint Training" at ThinkSpace or "Composition for Film: a Study of Styles" with CinematicComposing .. guess there are more


I have gone through about half of Thinkspace Composer Blueprints and I can't say I am impressed. Watching someone do it is different from understanding howand why the musical decisions are made regarding harmony, melody, etc. I am generally a big fan of Thinkspace, but not that particular course.


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## borisb2 (Jul 24, 2021)

wsimpson said:


> I have gone through about half of Thinkspace Composer Blueprints and I can't say I am impressed. Watching someone do it is different from understanding howand why the musical decisions are made regarding harmony, melody, etc. I am generally a big fan of Thinkspace, but not that particular course.


Interesting.. can you compare that CBT-course to the Berklee one?


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## wsimpson (Jul 24, 2021)

borisb2 said:


> Interesting.. can you compare that CBT-course to the Berklee one?


No as I have not taken the Berklee course - that's why I was asking about it. Based on the syllabus the Berklee course looks more complete, but that's just a guess.


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## borisb2 (Jul 24, 2021)

did you have a look at the Cinematic Composing one? .. I bought that when there was (another) discount .. actually that one was not too bad - togther with the CBT-course, which is a bit dated - I have to agree - I got all these "basic" styles covered .. more or less  .. from that point on its more trancsribing and staying up to date anyway in my opinion


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## yiph2 (Jul 24, 2021)

wsimpson said:


> I have gone through about half of Thinkspace Composer Blueprints and I can't say I am impressed. Watching someone do it is different from understanding howand why the musical decisions are made regarding harmony, melody, etc. I am generally a big fan of Thinkspace, but not that particular course.


This is exactly what this Berklee course explains to you


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## yiph2 (Jul 25, 2021)

Here’s one example of the music I wrote in this course for a trailer:


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## ALittleNightMusic (Jul 25, 2021)

I like Thinkspace, but I agree that Composer Blueprint was a bit too "watch me do this" without going in-depth into the style so you could replicate it on your own. Cinematic Composing's Composition for Film: a Study in Styles is _much, much, much_ deeper. In general, they have a lot of detailed course material on that site (I still need to go through a lot of it since I managed to get access to everything).

In the end, nothing beats writing a lot and practicing though.


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## borisb2 (Jul 25, 2021)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> I still need to go through a lot of it since I managed to get access to everything).


wait .. whaat? .. early christmas present?


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## wsimpson (Jul 25, 2021)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> I like Thinkspace, but I agree that Composer Blueprint was a bit too "watch me do this" without going in-depth into the style so you could replicate it on your own. Cinematic Composing's Composition for Film: a Study in Styles is _much, much, much_ deeper. In general, they have a lot of detailed course material on that site (I still need to go through a lot of it since I managed to get access to everything).
> 
> In the end, nothing beats writing a lot and practicing though.


Thanks! Is it this one? https://cinematiccomposing.com/courses/im-a-composer


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## ALittleNightMusic (Jul 25, 2021)

wsimpson said:


> Thanks! Is it this one? https://cinematiccomposing.com/courses/im-a-composer


That one also covers styles. He has a couple more that do as well (one that is particularly in depth in terms of analysis of actual film cues).

My only qualm with CC is sometimes he’s hard to understand (due to English not being his native language) - and the other instructors he’s hired also can have that issue.


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## borisb2 (Jul 25, 2021)

wsimpson said:


> Thanks! Is it this one? https://cinematiccomposing.com/courses/im-a-composer


no .. have a look here:





Cinematic Composing







cinematiccomposing.com





although it looks like they are shuffeling things around .. it used to be called:
"Composition for Film: a Study of Styles"


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## Markrs (Jul 26, 2021)

borisb2 said:


> no .. have a look here:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Those modules also seem to be in I'm a Composer Course


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## wsimpson (Jul 26, 2021)

Thanks, all.  Looks like I should try Cinematic Composing Composition for Film Lite. Did someone say they sometimes go on sale? I am not in a hurry so if it is significant it might be worth waiting.


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## RSK (Jul 28, 2021)

wsimpson said:


> Thanks, all. Looks like I should try Cinematic Composing Composition for Film Lite. Did someone say they sometimes go on sale? I am not in a hurry so if it is significant it might be worth waiting.


If you give them your email address they'll immediately bombard you with discounts on the course, all of which say "Time is Limited!!! Act NOW!!!!"

Scarcity marketing is the worst.


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## darkogav (Jul 28, 2021)

Good thread. Lots of info on here. Perhaps there should be a pinned post for people to post and learning resources.


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## wsimpson (Jul 30, 2021)

RSK said:


> If you give them your email address they'll immediately bombard you with discounts on the course, all of which say "Time is Limited!!! Act NOW!!!!"
> 
> Scarcity marketing is the worst.


Oddly I can't find a place to give them my email address and get those annoying emails. Haha.


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## Markrs (Jul 30, 2021)

wsimpson said:


> Oddly I can't find a place to give them my email address and get those annoying emails. Haha.


You can sign up via the below free guide promotion

https://orchestralmockupbook.com/hollywood-sound-mixing-tips?el=mainsite
The page it is linked from is:






Organization Part I – Templates


A template is an important tool that will help the composer keep things organized. There are all sorts of templates. They range from small ones with a few tracks and buses,




cinematiccomposing.com


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## wsimpson (Jul 30, 2021)

Markrs said:


> You can sign up via the below free guide promotion
> 
> https://orchestralmockupbook.com/hollywood-sound-mixing-tips?el=mainsite
> The page it is linked from is:
> ...


Ah, thanks!!!!!


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## Markrs (Jul 30, 2021)

wsimpson said:


> Oddly I can't find a place to give them my email address and get those annoying emails. Haha.


If you want the https://imacomposer.com/iac837923h92312 (I'm a Composer Course), it might be cheaper to buy his Essential Compose course for $7. You are then offered the I'm a Composer Course for $397 which is still a lot of money but a lot less than you see on the website.

https://imacomposer.com/efc-webi-play-4637920?el=email


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## wsimpson (Jul 30, 2021)

Thanks, I will check that out.

Someone out to tell him using a single domain might make it easier for people like me to find his offerings. So far I have received messages with three comletely different domains. Sheesh.


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## Markrs (Jul 30, 2021)

wsimpson said:


> Thanks, I will check that out.
> 
> Someone out to tell him using a single domain might make it easier for people like me to find his offerings. So far I have received messages with three comletely different domains. Sheesh.


Yeah seems very odd, maybe it helps with marketing, but does make it quite confusing.


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## aeliron (Dec 18, 2021)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> That one also covers styles. He has a couple more that do as well (one that is particularly in depth in terms of analysis of actual film cues).
> 
> My only qualm with CC is sometimes he’s hard to understand (due to English not being his native language) - and the other instructors he’s hired also can have that issue.


I had no problems understanding him so far, but that's a benefit of having grown up in Malaysia, where you had to figure out a dozen different accents in school every day!


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## waveheavy (Jan 5, 2022)

Old thread, but...

I took Orchestration 1 and 2, and the first Film scoring course at Berklee online, and have a Specialist Certificate. I also took the Thinkspace course, and most of the Scoreclub courses. I also studied Peter Alexander's harmony books, and Fux 17th century Counterpoint translated by Peter. I studied Peter's books prior to taking any of the above courses. Before this I dabbled with Jazz composition from various books.

Orchestration 1 was an introduction, learn the instrument ranges and nuances, overtone series, etc.

Orchestration 2 went deeper into applying the orchestra to create movement and emotions, and also how to do professional score notation.

Film scoring instructor was Ben Newhouse, an LA composer; we learned the harmonic style, instrument combinations, melody style, rhythm, etc. that make up 12 styles used by modern LA composers for film and TV. Each style included several scores studies of popular film composers from modern movies (including scores by John Williams). We had to compose a short piece in each style from clips supplied from actual popular movie scenes.

None of that in those Berklee courses taught music theory. The student is supposed to already have understanding of harmony, scale, and melody basics. 

The Thinkspace courses reveals styles using the piano, and that then orchestrated using instruments. It does not teach you harmony. Instead it shows you composing examples in various styles. You do learn the orchestral instruments though and some combinations, etc.

In Scoreclub, you can learn quite a bit of music theory and harmony, and counterpoint, creating melody, etc. Then basic orchestration techniques. It just depends on which courses you take.

At present, I've been studying interval theory at _Musical Interval Theory Academy_ (M.I.T.A.). This has been an eye opener, and re-arrangement of my brain with how to think about music theory. My son who had studied music theory saw it, and said it looked easier than what he studied (because he likes math, and interval study seemed to him a lot like simple math).


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