Creating a 1 year self-learning plan?

[toomanynotes]

The only advice you ever need is to 'develop your ears'! I think it takes alot of passion and roughly 10yrs to develop a craft in any job. Even Mozart's best memorable stuff was written at least 10 years after his first serious compositions. I doubt there's anyone who knows or cares of his early stuff written as a child.
It's all in the ears...it'll come.

 

[InLight-Tone]

I have the Scoreclub - Essential Composer Foundation Training Course. It seems excellent. I say "seems" because I'm still on the Study Guide and haven't even started the main course. This is why...



Trying to actually have all that sorted. "Without Hesitation". It's a lot of work if you didn't nail this stuff in earlier years. Wish I had time to not do anything else but everything else gets in the way at the best of times. It's my years mission to do this course (and many other other things).

Try to give it 30-60 minutes a day. I think working on developing your keyboard skills will ultimately help you write better music and far FASTER in this VI game. Watch Mike Verta run through ideas a mile a minute all under his fingertips. That's a good place to be!

 

[InLight-Tone]

The only advice you ever need is to 'develop your ears'! I think it takes alot of passion and roughly 10yrs to develop a craft in any job. Even Mozart's best memorable stuff was written at least 10 years after his first serious compositions. I doubt there's anyone who knows or cares of his early stuff written as a child.
It's all in the ears...it'll come.

Yes I agree, 1 year is NOT a realistic goal to obtain any kind of competency, more like at least 5 years...

 

[jonathanparham]

I have the Scoreclub - Essential Composer Foundation Training Course. It seems excellent. I say "seems" because I'm still on the Study Guide and haven't even started the main course. This is why...



Trying to actually have all that sorted. "Without Hesitation". It's a lot of work if you didn't nail this stuff in earlier years. Wish I had time to not do anything else but everything else gets in the way at the best of times. It's my years mission to do this course (and many other other things).

1) My apologies to the OP as I hope we haven't derailed folks looking for developing a one year plan
2) I agree with others about the piano, scales, and ear training.

Now, don't make this too hard and over think things. I think its about being comfortable at the keyboard so when you say D min, you can: spell it aloud AND find it on the keyboard. Having done a few of Alain's courses it's really about the 'line' as Alain puts it. It's about writing a melody, accompaniment, secondary melody, or ostinato and being able to support that.
You don't want to have a lack of harmony getting in the way of that. That's all. By the end of Essentials for composers you'll get into the harmony and voice-leading.
Don't beat yourself up. Just practice. I like how Mike Verta put it over the holidays, 'Take away the loops, rhythms, and layers. Can you FIND this on the piano?'

 

[jononotbono]

1) My apologies to the OP as I hope we haven't derailed folks looking for developing a one year plan
2) I agree with others about the piano, scales, and ear training.

Now, don't make this too hard and over think things. I think its about being comfortable at the keyboard so when you say D min, you can: spell it aloud AND find it on the keyboard. Having done a few of Alain's courses it's really about the 'line' as Alain puts it. It's about writing a melody, accompaniment, secondary melody, or ostinato and being able to support that.
You don't want to have a lack of harmony getting in the way of that. That's all. By the end of Essentials for composers you'll get into the harmony and voice-leading.
Don't beat yourself up. Just practice. I like how Mike Verta put it over the holidays, 'Take away the loops, rhythms, and layers. Can you FIND this on the piano?'

Yeah man. I appreciate your post. I also don’t think this is derailing anything. Everything being discussed is part of studying.

Also, I noticed you worked on Happy Death Day. Loved that film man!

 

[jonathanparham]

Also, I noticed you worked on Happy Death Day. Loved that film man!

Thank you. I really enjoyed mixing that one as the story really intrigued me. I have turned down horror projects before as early on in my career I remember being single in NYC, reading horror scripts in bed and honestly just having a hard time sleeping. I felt that particular project was an exception as it felt like a suspenseful murder mystery meets Ground Hog day. Also, that was my first Blumhouse produced gig.

 

[borisb2]

Any and all advice is welcome.

I was in a similar position last year (made a break from the electronic music industry and started again last year in orchestral writing). My approach was the following:
I had a closer look at various curriculums of music schools to categorize the topics and in what order I best approach it. It came down to to a sorted list with courses I linked to the topic:
- ear training - various apps
- melody - scoreclub memorable melodies, artofcomposing
- harmony - Piston Harmony, Aldwell Harmony books, Norman Ludwin modern harmony, Jazz theory book, Rick Beato videos
- counterpoint - scoreclub applied counterpoint
- composition and form - Alan Belkin Composition book, chaplin classical form book
- orchestration - scoreclub orchestrating the line, Norman Ludwin Orchestrating (15 lessions, focusing on the strings)

.. and of course always applying the content .. thats the tricky part if you have a fulltime job

Especially the combination of scoreclub (great way of practically teaching how to approach orchestrating the line) and Norman Ludwin (in all his books he uses score excerpts and analysis to explain his topics) has a great value
I found Mike Verta courses entertaining but the actual information (still mostly fairly general) too hidden in 4 hour videos of ranting about the modern film industry .. usually each course boiled down to only a couple of bullet points

good luck

 

[jonathanparham]

- melody - scoreclub memorable melodies, artofcomposing

How did you like this? I'm working through Practical Counterpoint 2 and the 2 line writing makes me wonder about the melody course. How did it impact your writing? Your Process?

 

[ProfoundSilence]

scoreclub's motivic mastery is a masterpiece, even for someone just reviewing it - that one really came together

 

[borisb2]

yes .. both the melody course from scoreclub (Memorable Melodies through Motivic Mastery) as well as ArtOfComposings "Fundamentals of musical composition" course teaches all the important aspects of creating good melody lines in a modern straightforward way: when to combine leaps from what direction, leading tones, good phrasing etc. ..

Interestingly, when comparing to Schoenbergs famous composition book - it really connects the same dots