In praise of scoreclub

[ALittleNightMusic]

Can anyone give details on the exercises given for the lessons? The web site reference that exercises are given, but there are no details.
I find this area to be lacking in most courses. Thanks.

Not every "course" has exercises I've noticed, but you can come up with some for yourself to apply what he's been talking about. A lot of this is just practice, practice, practice - and unlike math, there's not going to be a set of "problems" to go solve. You have to just write and apply the concepts from the lesson.

 

[ism]

Not every "course" has exercises I've noticed, but you can come up with some for yourself to apply what he's been talking about. A lot of this is just practice, practice, practice - and unlike math, there's not going to be a set of "problems" to go solve. You have to just write and apply the concepts from the lesson.

I do think that there's genuine pedagogical value in more formal, conceptually targeted, and progressively designed excercises. At least for some students, not necessarily people on the more experienced working composers side of the spectrum. Especially those who struggle with the "terror of the blank page".

Scoreclub has some of this (Alain's teaching experience certainly shows up in lots of ways). But it's not formalized as tightly as, for instance, Alan Belkin's "Musical Composition"

 

[jonathanparham]

Can anyone give details on the exercises given for the lessons? The web site reference that exercises are given, but there are no details.
I find this area to be lacking in most courses. Thanks.

Depends on the course. In some of the classes, he has bullet points of things to do. But most of it, and I'm reviewing Orchestrating the Line again now, he says, go do this and this. He doesn't write it out.

 

[Arbee]

I was about to start a new thread with the same title when I came across this one, so I'm just going to heap some more praise on ScoreClub.

While I was immersed in classical piano as a child, in rock guitar as a teenager, and in jazz/art rock as a young adult, I've never gone to university to learn music theory. This is despite becoming a reasonably successful studio musician and arranger (by obsessively reading, analyzing and listening to mentors).

Each time I tried formal music theory, over many decades, my eyes immediately glazed over with total boredom and I would become comatose. Until now....

Covid lockdown has re-ignited my determination to conquer this mountain. So, armed with a number of printed and digital formal music composition and theory texts, I enrolled in ScoreClub as part of a multi-pronged attack. Well, ScoreClub has been an evangelical experience for me, it holds my interest at all times, and I am SO appreciative of Alain's approach.

If anyone is in doubt, just do it!

 

[borisb2]

I think scoreclub is great - learned a lot through OTL and melodic mastery.

What I did find missing was a course dealing with bigger structures, taking all the blocks he is teaching and bringing them to live in a longer form, dealing with contrast, transitions, development etc. I did suggest that to him once and he seemed very interested - but I don’t think there is a course dealing with that.. or is there?

Alain Belkins composition book has a lot of chapters dedicated to these concepts - but that’s more a theory book (less practical examples)

 

[mopsiflopsi]

I think scoreclub is great - learned a lot through OTL and melodic mastery.

What I did find missing was a course dealing with bigger structures, taking all the blocks he is teaching and bringing them to live in a longer form, dealing with contrast, transitions, development etc. I did suggest that to him once and he seemed very interested - but I don’t think there is a course dealing with that.. or is there?

Alain Belkins composition book has a lot of chapters dedicated to these concepts - but that’s more a theory book (less practical examples)

Counterpoint 2 has a bit of that: period form, contrast, repetition, etc. But yeah there is definitely room for a more comprehensive study of form and structure.