Orchestral Question #2: Your Educational Backgroun

[matto]

I would say I'm about in the middle of the bell curve of music education here, halfway between composer mazz and poser dave dubya ...guess I should call myself a "mposer" (sorry guys that was just to good to pass up...it's all in good fun!).I had about 6-8 years each of formal piano and trumpet lessons throughout high school and college. I also took what I guess should be called "singing and music appreciation class", a two hour/week elective during those same years.In college, I sang in the choir and played in the orchestra (or should I say, as a trumpet player, counted rests in the orchestra ). I also played in a couple of bands during college and a bit beyond, and took a few jazz arrangement classes.I read pretty well, courtesy of my piano/trumpet lessons, and am pretty solid in basic theory and ear training...my music lessons got me started with this but about 80% of what I know I taught myself thru listening, trial and error.Finally, I attended the recording engineering course at a music school for a year and took some harmony and other music (theory) related electives there.I don't have any formal training whatsoever in songwriting, composition, arrangement (aside from the few jazz classes) or orchestration. What I know about those subjects I taught myself.I would agree with Dave W that being able to evoke an emotion in your music, and sustain it throughout a cue, is the most important aspect of writing music for visual media, regardless of whether it's orchestral or not, and regardless of whether it's underscore or production music. I also agree that, as long as your music will be MIDI to the end, it's more important that it sounds great than whether a real orchestra could perform it exactly as "written" (of course if there's a chance a real orchestra will perform it then it better be playable).I think formal music education, whether acquired via some kind of home study course or by attending classes or private lessons, can never replace experimentation and personal growth. However I think it can be extremely helpful as a starting point for experimentation, and also, at a much later point, for helping to overcome obstacles and open entirely new perspectives.The potential downfall of formal eduction, when it comes to writing music for media, is that one can sometimes do "too much", more than what would be best to subtly support a visual and best evoke the intended emotion.This is where personal growth and experimentation come back to the fore.And as mazz so aptly points out, you never stop learning as a creator of music, whether as a songwriter or composer.matto

[djbobm]

Hi Barry!This is a great post. It is always interesting to see where fellow composers are coming from. I’m enjoying reading other people’s stories. As far as having a music degree goes, you don’t really need one unless you want to teach in a public school. There are many great players who never went to college. On the other hand, I know people with college music degrees who can’t sing on pitch. For certain things, it is good if you can study with an expert. Reading and trying to do it on your own only goes so far. Knowing some theory or at least how to read music is a good idea, although being able to play by ear is also very valuable. I know music majors who could play really well as long as the music was written out. Improvise or play by ear…no clue! In advanced theory, I learned ho to analyze Bach chorales in order to study voice leadings while learning the lingo. In choral music, voice leadings are important. Applying voice leading techniques to instrumental music can go either way. If you are doing MIDI orchestrations, if it sounds good, go for it. Nobody care is you followed some “rules”. If you are presenting a score to a live orchestra, that might be a different story. If you write for a chorus or and orchestra, it is important to try to make each part interesting for the player. An Alto, Tenor or 3rd clarinet part has to have some life to it. Nobody wants to get stuck with a boring part just because a note was needed to fill out a certain chord. In pop music, anything goes. In choral music using parallel 4ths or 5ths is a big No No. Tell that to Aerosmith! A beauty of recording with a computer is that you can experiment and learn as you go. As Dave said, it is the emotion that counts.Here’s my story: I started playing trumpet in 4th grade and got piano lessons starting in 7th grade. (If you are bored, you don’t have to read any farther. My feelings won’t be hurt!)I played a lot of trumpet doing school shows, concert band, marching band, all-county and area all-state bands. I took some organ lessons and got my first paying gig as a church organist in a small church…learned a lot. I studied piano and trumpet in college while playing guitar in bands at frat parties and local bars. I started writing songs around this time. I wrote a full length rock opera for chorus, orchestra, rock band and solo singers, that got 2 performances…pretty cool. After college, I got my first teaching job, high school band and junior high general music. At night, I got a teaching job teaching music at a maximum security prison. That was interesting! I got a band going, playing trumpet and guitar. This band was pretty popular and lasted about 3 years. During this time, I got into playing wedding receptions. I still like working weddings. Besides, the money was really good and was married with 2 babies. Goodbye nightclubs!I changed teaching jobs and was teaching elementary vocal. I wrote a lot of music for my chorus and some musicals. With a lot of persistence and many re-writes, I published a lot of pieces with major choral publishers. That was pretty cool, too. I still had dreams of being a big time songwriter…hired a NY music lawyer and had some expensive demos done in NYC. I got a couple of pieces on hold by major acts…close but not close enough.I was still working weddings to help finance all this. I also did some union gigs on trumpet. A great thrill was playing some gigs with the Ringling Bros. Circus Band…talk about a lip buster! (I still remember the breeze you got when the elephants walked by!) This story is too long, sorry. I’ll condense the rest. Changing with the time, I ended a long run with my wedding band and became a mobile DJ working high end weddings. I changed to an elementary band job where I completed my 30 years of teaching. Now I spend my days trying to figure out Logic, taking my dog for a walk and going to the gym. My wife has another year to go before she can retire, so I send her off to work everyday…what a life! I’m really enjoying my experiences with Taxi…there are a lot of fantastic people here.Have a nice day.Bob

[mewman]

Hey Big BlueMy father was a well trained classical pianist. I started piano lessons at age seven, but quit after a couple of years because my teacher was a bit abusive. Took drums in grade school for a short time but the music teacher quit after the first semester. Fast forward ten years and another attempt at piano lessons with a lousy teacher. Stopped that and began playing guitar and taking lessons with a good teacher. I discovered ECM jazz recordings in College and attended piano improv workshops with Art Lande at the Naropa Institute in Bolder, Colorado. This time the piano stuck and I moved to Seattle, Washington and studied Jazz theory with Gary Peacock, piano with Marc Seales, Peggy Stern, and Art Lande, drums with Jerry Granelli and played in the Cornish percussion ensemble. I moved back to Northern New York and got my first composing gig with the Pendragon Theater Company in Saranac Lake. During my ten years in the Adirondacks I composed original music for five more productions with Pendragon and worked as an orchestral bassist and percussionist for the Community Theater Players in Lake Placid, gigged in a variety of groups and in restaurants and clubs and produced music for a few local commercial TV spots and promotional videos. I traveled to New Orleans where I did over sixty nights at the "Famous Door" on Bourbon Street. I also produced music for a Production of Bertholt Brechts "Caucasion Chalk Circle" at the Sanford Community College in Florida. I've toured with an education program in northern New York schools and have freelanced in the Charlottesville Va. area.I immigrated to Quebec in Canada around 1994 and have worked as a freelance jazz pianist in a wide variety of contexts as well as honed my composing chops and MIDI studio recording techniques. I toured the east west Carribean on a Holland America Lines ship, The Oosterdam, have been a modern dance accompanist, have played festivals and performed with a circus, and appeared with an improv trio on a Bravo broadcast.All in all, I feel everything I've done has fed my ability to write and record my ideas. Everyday offers another opportunity to grow and learn. Every show I attend or musician I hear leaves me thinking of things I can add to my bag of tricks.I also have to mention a great book on arranging you may want to check out. Principles of Orchestration by N. Rimsky Korsakow. It's all in there!Best of luck on your journey!Mewman

[charlie2]

Two good books to have are "the study of orchestration" by Adler with the Cd set that goes with it, plus "acoustic and midi orchestration for the contemporary composer". The adler book was the college text book I used when I studied orchestration and composition. I'm still learning...it's a lifelong process

[hummingbird]

"I was wondering what type of educational background you have in music? Did you go to college and get a Music Degree? Were you self-taught? What did you do to get to the skill set that you currently have?"

-sang in school & church choirs til 17
-taught myself piano from my older sisters' piano book when I was a pre-teen, the parents thought I'd be a prodigy but I disliked going to lessons
-played piccolo, flute, trumpet in school bands
-taught myself to play guitar by sneaking into my older brothers' room when he was out, figuring out the chords from the chord diagrams in his guitar books
-started writing songs of my own and, sometimes performed them at church or at school
-sang in musicals - mostly chorus, some small roles; took acting & directing, been in about 25 stage shows and directed a few as well

then took a hiatus from most creative activity to get 'serious' about life and have 'real jobs'. found myself working at a big corporation making lots of money and feeling desperately unhappy. Had disgarded idea of musical or theatrical career because of acute stage fright and social phobia. Finally came to my senses, retrained as a graphic designer so I could do something more creative to earn my living, and... started to take voice lessons.

-studied classically as a private student, two lessons a week. Also took some classes in opera repertoire, master classes with a coach, private coaching as well.
-sang in opera choruses & a couple of choirs
-as I studied voice I had to reacquaint myself with reading music, I had to memorize music in other languages, sing in harmony again, pick out melodies on the keyboard
-after a few years I started teaching group classes in voice to beginners. I had to help them learn music. I started to arrange gospel songs so I could teach them to my group. I actually wrote a song myself. I started teaching voice privately.
-one of my students had a throat problem and couldn't sing. He asked if he could bring lyrics and musical ideas to his sessions, and could we work on making them into songs? We ended up writing several songs and getting them recorded as well.
-I started playing with ideas for composing. I’d compose melodies and chord progressions and use free plug-ins to make the sounds
-I started recording my songs using Band in a Box and a computer mic
-over the years I acquired better tools and better skills by getting advice and feedback from my peers on forums, TAXI screeners, professional songwriters, etc
-I also have, over the past little while, taken lessons in guitar, mandolin, harmonica. I’m playing penny whistles, and just picked up the flute again.

Long story short…. I believe it’s my experience in singing opera, and in singing harmony in choirs for so many years… that helps me intuitively to understand counterpoint. However I’ve had a long journey in terms of ‘getting’ how the elements should work together in a composition and how they should be mixed effectively. I’m still learning.

I love going to movies, not just for the movie, but to hear the score. There are movies I’ll watch just to hear the music. I like listening to music, I never seem to get tired of it. Cept maybe the old genre (or song) that I don’t appreciate.

[DesireeBowen]

My father taught music history and piano at FSU and just retired last year. I studied piano since I was 4 and starting singing in high school. I went to FSU for my undergrad in piano, took a bunch of music history and theory classes but only one composition class (16th cent counterpoint, which I LOVED, but isn't that helpful in composing indie pop!). Lately I have really wished that I focused more on composition and maybe less on performance. I am glad I did focus in on music history though, because I feel like you learn a lot from studying the past musical greats. The music theory was very helpful in learning about modulations, chord resolutions etc.

All that being said, most of my favorite songs were composed by people without a formal musical education, and as many on here have proved, you certainly don't need it to succeed!

[cardell]

I've been trained in Drums, Guitar and Voice.

I've always loved the way the Beatles combined pop/rock music with orchestration so I'm also experimenting with this kind of thing and thoroughly enjoying myself. I don't really know what I'm doing with the orchestration side of things, but now and then I stumble across some combination of orchestral instrument lines that really seems to work.

Stuart