This is the best composing channel. I keep going back to all your video to help me improve my compositions. I would love a video on how to modulate from one key to another. Maybe a video on Chromatic mediants (kinda of what you did in you Fantasy/magical chords vid). Maybe some breakdown/analysis of famous film scores to help us understand how composers have used different orchestrations effectively. thanks for all your hard work
Thanks so much for your kind words! Great idea - I'll make sure to make a video on Chromatic Mediants. I would love to do an analysis and breakdown of famous film scores - I just don't quite understand how using existing scores will work with RU-vid and Copyright :-)
I just found your channel yesterday and it has been very helpful. I'm really interested in composing for films/games but since I'm a student with no money, your vids are the best resource. Keep it up! 🔥
Oh Simon, how could anyone not love your channel. I suspect your subscriber numbers will go up dramatically in the coming months, and for absolutely good reason. :) Thank you so much for another fantastic tutorial! Best regards, Frank
This is a very brilliant demo of composing a piece with specific guidelines that anyone can apply. So glad that I came up your channel and have subscribed! Cheers!
Your videos are of much better quality and usefulness than some paid courses on Udemy. You go straight to the point without redundant repetition and keep the right balance between theory and practice throughout the entire video so that even beginners can relate to the emotions of chord progressions without knowing much of the music theory.
Thank you very much. I will print out the pdf and go over it to analyze the score again and watch the video again for more study. Your videos are very interesting and entertaining. Enjoyed.
Hey Simon! Fantastic video as usual! Hope the family is doing well too. I really like the concept of taking inspiration from other composers like you did in this video. It'd be a cool idea to do something similar with other composers like John Williams, Danny Elfman, Henry Jackman, Alan Silvestri, Howard Shore, Michael Giacchino, James Newton Howard, and of course my favorite, Hans Zimmer :) (also a fan of Harry Gregson-Williams Williams from this video). Your channel definitely deserves more credit and more views/subs because you do great work and explain in a clear, easy-to-understand manner that I'm sure a lot of people appreciate! Please keep it up for as along as you can and thank you!
Hey Daniel... funny that you should mention Michael Giacchino. Back in 2004, before he had reached the heights that he has now, he was scoring the show ALIAS in his garage... and a friend of mine hired me to help him install Michael's upgrade studio. At the time ALIAS alternated weeks... one week was all synth scoring and the next week was live orchestra. This was back in the days when soft samplers were just beginning and there were still a TON of outboard synth modules generating heat in this San Fernando Valley garage. He was married with two sons at the time and for some reason I don't feel like that marriage lasted, in spite of his career heading off into the stratosphere!
Hi Daniel - many thanks for your message. Yes I think I'm definitely going to explore the concept of taking inspiration from other composers more, as if anything, its really fun for me to learn from them myself!
Hi Jim - yes Michael is amazing. I was lucky enough to intern with him for an episode of LOST back in the day, as part of the film scoring program at USC. He was writing so much music so quickly for that show! Easy to imagine all of that outboard generating heat!
Man, you are brilliant as a composer and as a teacher as well. I sincerely appreciate you spend time in sharing your knowledge. The way you explain is unique and very fresh. Looking forward for every video you upload.
Thanks for another helpful and informative tutorial! Interesting that you are using 3-measure phrases for your piece. The long chords seem to give it more suspense. I like the effect!
Thanks for watching! I was conscious that this style of music might very well have a lot of dialogue to content with, if it was written to a specific film/scene. Giving more 'space' , by using the 3 measure phrases would hopefully help to achieve the space.
Very good. I like your channel. Keep creating and here is a list of what you might consider posting here : Composing with moving picture, Mixing, EQ, Mastering the whole track.
Wonderful video! You should make these start to finish composition type of videos more regularly. They're really helpful and inspiring! Cheers bro, great day ahead!
Hi, totally agree. I have two other videos, which might be worth taking a look. The Lydian Mode for Beginners & How Thomas Newman makes use of Modes. Thanks for watching!
This is amazing, do you have any idea how long I've been trying to find the exact guideline you did here? Years. If possible, please do more of this series with 6/8 6/4 5/4 5/8 10/8 11/8. Would you please teach me how to do very hype building transitions and bridges? Thankyou.
Hi Simon. Thanks for this video!! Most information or cources on composing with vst's seem to be about creating that godawful "EPIC" or "TRAILER" sound, not something delicate as this piece. Hope to see more of this!
This is such an inspirational video, thanks so much Simon! I'm new to composing and didn't know how to start composing at a beginner level so this video was exactly what I was looking for. I'm going to get started tomorrow morning writing my first piece! Happy to be a new subscriber. P.S. Have you started using Soundpaint yet? Troels has created something special!
This is really helpful, thanks! Any insight on how sync licensing work for cinematic composers these days? Is it worth it, or is it better to just look for a job in local film studios? What do you think?
What kind of movie scene / storybeat could this music be used for...? I picture handheld camerawork, rain, person inside a train, filmed from the outside thru a glass with raindrops, lowkey, desaturated colors, they're working on something on their laptop; they look outside into the distance and ponder on the meaning of their work; the journey continues, another aerial shot of the train.... 😊 so fun thinking of possible scenes to music ❤😊
Hi Simon, Awesome stuff! Thanks a lot. Why Thomas Newman don't use often the third like in your exemple. Also, there is a lot of parallel fifths? I heard is "not good". What do you think?
Hi Isaac, there is a checkbox in Edit - Preferences. Under 'Event Display' select 'Chords and Pitches' and on there will be a checkbox called 'Enharmonics from Chord Track' which needs to be ticked. I hope that helps!
Great video, thank you. What did you mean at the beginning where you say it is "modal and ambiguous" please? | know what modes are (and what you mean by ambiguous), but don't recognise a modal sound I think. Is it C mixolyian?
You could try thinking about it as being in C major and simply borrowing chords from parallel modes that include the nots Ab, Bb and Eb (In this case only C-minor has the notes to make up Ab and Bb). C-mixolydian only has Bb, so you can't really say that's the mode :) Theory can help and certainly has helped me, but sometimes it's just about trying things outside the scale you're composing in and figuring out how they sound. I find that in C-major some interesting chords to borrow are: D, E, Eb, Fm, F#, Gm, Ab, Bb, B, Bm, and then of course you can try using diminished, augmented and all sorts of extensions and suspensions to get interesting sounds. I'm just a guy who thinks this is fun, but hope it helps in some way :)
Thanks for reaching out - I mentioned both 'modal' and 'ambiguous' as an attempt to describe that I didn't want the music to feel rooted in a particular major/minor key, as there's no obvious major/minor key centre. Upon reflection maybe that wasn't the clearest way of describing my composing process. When composing I will often consciously ignore music theory, trying to free myself of any constraints. I often am just playing around trying chords out without being restricted to any particular key or indeed mode. Or another way of describing is that I will often treat all major/minor chords (24 in an octave) as all potential candidates. I find this can present new melodic patterns as well, which I may not have discovered, if I stuck to a particular key. I hope that helps!
To someone who's planning on getting cubase Pro eventually, what DAW would you recommend that's cheap or free to use until Cubase Pro can be gotten? Thanks :D
@@BellsCuriosityShop Yeah that's pretty cheap I suppose. Don't mind paying for some good instruments, cause I'm assuming I can just transfer those to Cubase when I eventually get that. Right?
Hi Malleboy122, sorry I had meant to reply to your message from a few days ago about this. Have you considered using Cubase Elements or Artist? I use Elements when I'm teaching students in school and it seems pretty feature rich. The main limitations I've found is the amount of tracks you can load, but it would definitely be useful in learning the main functions of Cubase. Any sample libraries you buy would be able to be used in versions of Cubase.
Hi, im new to this channel, very good video, but i dont read musical notation , so please show the midi notes of each track at least 2-3 seconds (i pause de video) to see de midi notes, or share the midi file, or cubase project better, thx
Good question - as the Cubase chord track doesn't have the function of being to write open 5th chords, they are actually blank midi regions instead, which I've individually renamed.
One question I have: this sounds like something that someone else may possibly have already composed. Is there a good method to try to find out if this is too close to something someone else has already done? I am not sure Shazam would work, but maybe? Do composers have a favorite method for figuring this out?
I'm not aware of any service/method, but it would be extremely useful to me if there was one. I often have doubts if a melody I have written has been composed before. One thing I always do is 'sleep' on it, listening the next day with fresh ears, to see if my perspective has changed. I will also play something to loved ones to see if they think it sounds familiar. Sorry I couldn't be more helpful, but if you find a service, do let me know!
@@composingacademy8270 Hi Simon, here's a huge admirer of your work;) In one of his music courses Guy Michelmore says he has a good friend with a huge knowledge base in music which he consults about music he has written. If this guy (another one than Guy) says: it's okay, then Guy can trust the music he has written doesn't infringe on anybody elses music. You need to have a 'guy' or 'gal'!
Hi Allen, firstly apologies for the delay in replying! There's a few different sample libraries - the Piano is Emotional Piano from Soundiron and the Malmsjo from Art Vista. The pad sounds are mostly from Omnisphere with the strings mostly from Spitfire Audio's Chamber Strings. Finally for the plucked sounds I'm using a lot of Spitfire Audio's free Labs range in this piece. I hope that helps!
01:07 Yeah, but why these particular chords? I don't suppose you just picked them at random, but you never explained HOW did you pick them and HOW do they do what they do; what's their ROLE in the composition.
I am going to stick to your channel - your pace of teaching is good. Try to include info about - why use a particular instrument to create which mood or why use a certain rhythm to convey which mood? In most of the videos that I have seen on RU-vid, the "WHY" part is not satisfactorily answered.
