# Fantastic Course On How to Write Action Music in the Style of John Williams



## ed buller (Apr 5, 2021)

This has been brewing for a while. Mark Richards has uploaded his course for purchase on the harmony and techniques behind a lot of John Williams's ( and others ) Action music. I met Mark on line 8 years ago and have learned a lot from him . He is a Professor of Music and has taught in The US and Canada. He really is one of the few people (talking a handful) that thoroughly understands the 20th century tricks behind a lot of this music. This course is in three parts and will teach you how to write Action cues like those found in JAWS and STAR WARS. There is a lot of nonsense and miss information about John Williams Music. that is because it's NOT straightforward or easy to digest. In this course you'll learn in the first lesson what the "ALPHA " chord is and how it's used. Each lesson has ton's of examples by Mark on how the material gets used and how you can apply those techniques yourself. The course is six and a half hours long . It costs $120. 

If you want to write action music that isn't boring, repetitive and just like everyone else......if you think that the "Asteroid Chase" is the Sistine Chapel of Action Cues...then buy this course !




All Courses – Film Music Notes




Best

ed


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## jonathanparham (Apr 5, 2021)

Thanks, Ed I finished reading Hollywood Harmony last week and my head was spinning in a good way because of all the techniques and theories I'd love to apply. 
this could be right up my alley


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## DANIELE (Apr 6, 2021)

Interesting argument, I'll look at it for sure. Thank you for the advice.


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## Jdiggity1 (Apr 6, 2021)

Official thread: https://vi-control.net/community/threads/john-williams-course-lessons-1-3.108008


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## ALittleNightMusic (Apr 8, 2021)

Curious how this compares to Scoreclub's style of teaching / level? How much understanding of theoretical concepts is needed to take this course?


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## Ludwig (Apr 9, 2021)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Curious how this compares to Scoreclub's style of teaching / level? How much understanding of theoretical concepts is needed to take this course?


Hi @ALittleNightMusic, I'm the author of the course. What's required to take this course is an ability to read music and an understanding of musical intervals (perfect 5th, major 3rd, etc.). If you're ok with those, then in terms of theoretical concepts, I don't assume people know anything else beforehand, so I explain everything from first principles, in other words, what is a scale or chord I'm talking about and how you obtain it.

There's a preview of Lesson 1 on my site, where you can see the kind of thing I'm talking about: https://filmmusicnotes.com/action-music-harmony-1-3/

Hope that helps!


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## Eric G (Apr 9, 2021)

ALittleNightMusic said:


> Curious how this compares to Scoreclub's style of teaching / level? How much understanding of theoretical concepts is needed to take this course?


As a long time member of Scoreclub who has purchased all of Alain's courses (WHICH I LOVE), I can attest that this course is much more practical and specific? Why?

Scoreclub is all about the fundamentals and primarily draws from classical works that you really have to extrapolate the best way to use in writing modern film music. Ludwig (Mark)'s course zeroes in on John Williams and understanding how to write complex action music with many examples from Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Harry Potter etc... (You can't get more specific than that).

In addition, he provides clean, clear examples created in Staff Notation. He presents the example from a famous JW movie score that you can watch on youtube (No he doesn't have it embedded in his course due to copyright), explains the theory in detail, and then walks through a complete 8 bar example with a PDF worksheet to do it yourself. No guesswork. And of course, there is a forum for questions.

Do you need to know some music theory? If you want to know how to write like JW I don't see how you can avoid that. But if you can read sheet music you are way ahead. He explains all the theory you need because he is focused on JW action music.


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## GNP (Apr 9, 2021)

Hopefully they'll also start teaching JW's action cues from War Of The Worlds. That is one score that really is JW's most "minimal" style effort to date. If you want to write action music in the style of JW without sounding outdated and overly-bombastic, check out his War of the Worlds score!


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## Eric G (Apr 12, 2021)

For those of you wanting to have a further peek into the course. Mark just did an interview about the course:


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