Understanding the art of film music
Write with nearly two dozen common orchestral textures in classic action style. Learn how to write a meaningful motor – the rhythmic engine of action textures – then combine it with other components to form orchestral action textures. Above all, we will learn to choose motors and components that create textures with the desired expressive meaning.
Turn your short ideas into large, well-structured themes and suites! Learn how to expand 8-bar themes and construct forms with a contrasting B section like rounded binary and rondo. Write large themes of flexible length called “continuous themes” from short units of just a few bars. And learn tried-and-true practices for connecting themes into a suite like those for end credits, main titles, and the like.
I worked as a Professor of Music Theory for several years in universities, specializing in film music, Beethoven, and rock music in my teaching and research. For more than two decades, I have taught music theory and analysis to all ages and at all levels from the community music school to the large university. I have published articles on film music and have a chapter on John Williams’ Star Wars themes in Film Music Analysis: Studying the Score published by Routledge Music.
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To avoid copyright infringement, this course contains no score excerpts or audio from film scores. Students are directed to find and listen to soundtrack excerpts while the course content consists of:
1. Music theory connecting the techniques to be discussed
2. Analysis describing the techniques behind the assigned excerpt, and
3. Composition tutorials applying the techniques to original compositions
To avoid copyright infringement, this course contains no score excerpts or audio from film scores. Students are directed to find and listen to soundtrack excerpts while the course content consists of:
1. Music theory connecting the techniques to be discussed
2. Analysis describing the techniques behind the assigned excerpt, and
3. Composition tutorials applying the techniques to original compositions