TAXI.com

I’ve seen a few online courses aimed specifically at writing production music for TV/Sync, either via YT or dedicated websites. I looked into one in quite some detail. It’s compelling but it also seems expensive ($1,000). I won’t mention any names because I want to ask an open question:

Has anyone paid for and done any online courses in writing for Production Music? If so, was it worth the price (and what was the price?) and would you give a recommendation that I could look into.

TIA

Hi Steve
It depends on many, many factors. Some questions:

What kind of music do you write or intend to write? Cues? Vocal songs?
Do you need help with what to write/how to write (composition) or production and engineering?
Have you made use of all the much less expensive and often much better resources available to you as a Taxi member? Taxi TV, this forum, the Road Rally?
Have you read any books on the subject?
Please answer these questions and tell us more about where you are on this journey.

Be very wary of any course that says or implies you can quickly start making lots of money with Film/TV music. It's a very long haul. If the course says you can start getting huge sync fees ($10K, $20K, etc.) for placements, run. Those things do happen but not at all the every day norm.

A great place to start would be books like Demystifying The Cue by Dean Krippaehne (instrumental cues) and books on Film/TV songs by Robin Frederick. Also, look up books by Taxi members Steve Barden and Tracy & Vance Marino. Absolutely, attend the next Road Rally, November in LA. It's a Film/TV music university to itself. Assuming you are a Taxi member, admission is free. Or, if not a member, you can get a guest pass from one.

Anyway, more after we learn more about you, where you are, your goals, etc.

Casey

I reccommmend everything mentioned above by Graham and Casey

But I also reccommend Sync Academy if you want a more structured set of tutorials , plus there's a good community over there too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSKcE97o3CM

They've also added Sync Opportunites there now but I only stayed a year and completed all the courses so I've not seen it from the inside for a couple of years. There might be some more recent feedback here

https://musiclibraryreport.com/forums/t ... c-academy/

Last I knew it was aound $200 a year . I certainly woudln't be spending $1k+ on any sync music course, that's nuts. Be wary of anyone that promises that you'll quickly make it back. You can see how long it took me here :

topic150215.html

As always YMMV

Mark

I agree with the comments above and learned a great deal from this forum and the TAXI TV. I also have most of the books Casey recommended.

I also have taken, and continue to take, courses on composition and orchestration. That cost seems quite steep to me. Places I have taken courses from that I felt helped me, are:

Evenant
Cinematic Composing
Thinkspace Education - you might try their Composer Blueprints Training $99 bucks. Also they have a great youtube channel.
Mix with the Masters

Before you decide what to buy, you might sit down and try to establish what it is that you need to know to be successful. There are three things - composition, mixing, attitude and I guess a fourth would be stick-to-it-ness.

Thank you all very much for your comments!

Casey H wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 25, 2023 4:37 am

Hi Steve
It depends on many, many factors. Some questions:

What kind of music do you write or intend to write? Cues? Vocal songs?
Do you need help with what to write/how to write (composition) or production and engineering?
Have you made use of all the much less expensive and often much better resources available to you as a Taxi member? Taxi TV, this forum, the Road Rally?
Have you read any books on the subject?
Please answer these questions and tell us more about where you are on this journey.

Be very wary of any course that says or implies you can quickly start making lots of money with Film/TV music. It's a very long haul. If the course says you can start getting huge sync fees ($10K, $20K, etc.) for placements, run. Those things do happen but not at all the every day norm.

A great place to start would be books like Demystifying The Cue by Dean Krippaehne (instrumental cues) and books on Film/TV songs by Robin Frederick. Also, look up books by Taxi members Steve Barden and Tracy & Vance Marino. Absolutely, attend the next Road Rally, November in LA. It's a Film/TV music university to itself. Assuming you are a Taxi member, admission is free. Or, if not a member, you can get a guest pass from one.

Anyway, more after we learn more about you, where you are, your goals, etc.

Casey

Hi Casey

Thank you for taking the time to write. To answer your questions:

Type of music: Cues and Instrumentals. Instrumentals are my forte, typically hybrid synth and orchestra, think Vangelis and stuff like that but I also like rock & roll and using electric guitars for texture and/or all-out energy. I play piano and keys mainly. Did a few years classical piano training (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music) in my early 20’s, messed about in a rock band, including some original recordings in studios (Auckland, New Zealand) and got taught some guitar along the way by my guitarist buddies. Anyway, Instrumentals are my thing because I am a cr@p singer! Learning to structure cues is something I need to figure out. I think I tend to create too much melody and make it too interesting, rather than just creating a mood, which I know is whatI should be doing! Gotta figure out the magic formula. Also getting edit points right, using transitions (or not, as the case may be - I don’t really know). Things like cymbal swells - good or bad? Do they annoy editors because it’s too hard to loop, or are they good? Some feedback I got recently was I needed smoother transitions, but I thought I was doing good by leaving it so that it was easily choppable. It made me get a bit lost tbh. Anyway I digress from your questions…

I’m OK with composing, in a creative sense, excepting the above mentioned, being a bit lost on how to channel it/restrain it appropriately. I think I’m ok with production and engineering.

Making use of resources as a Taxi member - check! I’m a member, and shout out to you guys posting here!

Reading; I have read Steve Barden’s, Writing Production Music for TV (maybe I should read it again). I read Erin’s (the lawyer’s) book, Don’t Get Screwed, and I’m currently reading Dean’s, Demistify the Cue, and I have Demystify the Genre for reference. Been watching replays of Taxi TV. I live in Dubai so it goes live at 4am Tuesday mornings - a bit of a challenge for me so I catch the replays. I’m definitely learning a lot, and fast.

I realise it’s a long road. My goal for this year is to get my first forward(s) and for bonus points, if I get a placement or two, I’d be stoked.

I’m producing one to two tracks a week, focussing on tension right now, just to pick a genre and try to get it nailed. Once I clock the winning formula, I’ll try to apply it to other genre’s. Just feeling a bit lost right now. I have lots of energy and enthusiasm to compose and I want to build up some useful material, bit I want my efforts to be in the right way, rather than creating yet more “nice”, but useless stuff. I know it’s a learning process, so nothing is wasted, gotta remind myself that so I don’t get too downtrodden, but I’d rather forge on knowing I’m improving and heading in the right direction.

Thanks again

Steve

cosmicdolphin wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 25, 2023 5:05 am

I reccommmend everything mentioned above by Graham and Casey

But I also reccommend Sync Academy if you want a more structured set of tutorials , plus there's a good community over there too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSKcE97o3CM

They've also added Sync Opportunites there now but I only stayed a year and completed all the courses so I've not seen it from the inside for a couple of years. There might be some more recent feedback here

https://musiclibraryreport.com/forums/t ... c-academy/

Last I knew it was aound $200 a year . I certainly woudln't be spending $1k+ on any sync music course, that's nuts. Be wary of anyone that promises that you'll quickly make it back. You can see how long it took me here :

topic150215.html

As always YMMV

Mark

Hi Mark

Thank you. I’ve been watching a lot of Jesse’s content. Quite tempted to sign up with him. Glad to hear you have done it and give good feedback. One of the courses I was checking out, which caused my OP, was 5x that price. That made me baulk! There was a very long sales pitch type video and it became a bit of a hard sell towards the end, a bit like a late night info-mercial, you know, limited time offer, huge discount, course worth >10k for only $997, but hurry you only have 7 days to avail… My reaction was “WOAH!, let’s go do some solid research on this.” Now I’m getting daily emails with a countdown timer reminding me, like tick, tick, tick, BOOM! Conclusion now drawn about that one. No doubt some good stuff in it but like you and others have said, it’s info that’s already out there (and through here). I will persevere.

Steve

Telefunkin wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 25, 2023 4:51 am

One option would be to save you money, and instead....
- keep checking these forums (read the posts and listen to the potential submissions)
- check the Taxi forwards blog for what gets forwarded
- listen to the music in some music libraries (search on you favorite genre)
- watch Taxi TV
- attend the free Taxi Road Rally, but if you cant then at least watch the Taxi Road Rally videos
- watch videos by Taxi member Yo Paulie https://www.youtube.com/@YoPaulieMusic
- read the books by Dean Krippaehne https://www.deankrippaehne.net/media and Steve Barden (look on amazon)
- check free content at https://www.youtube.com/@MusicForIncome
and https://www.syncmymusic.com/home11049550

Sure, its unstructured but everything is there and you can probably narrow it down quite a lot depending on what you need to focus on.... songs, instrumentals/cues, genres, writing, arranging, structures, recording, mixing, mastering, instrumentation, orchestration, loops, VSTs, DAWs, plugins, libraries, delivery, contracts, business...etc.

All good stuff. Thank you! Ticking most of those boxes, so I am hopefully going in the right direction.

hummingbird wrote: ↑

Tue Apr 25, 2023 9:59 am

I agree with the comments above and learned a great deal from this forum and the TAXI TV. I also have most of the books Casey recommended.

I also have taken, and continue to take, courses on composition and orchestration. That cost seems quite steep to me. Places I have taken courses from that I felt helped me, are:

Evenant
Cinematic Composing
Thinkspace Education - you might try their Composer Blueprints Training $99 bucks. Also they have a great youtube channel.
Mix with the Masters

Before you decide what to buy, you might sit down and try to establish what it is that you need to know to be successful. There are three things - composition, mixing, attitude and I guess a fourth would be stick-to-it-ness.

Thanks for the added resources!

Thanks for the further information on what you feel you need to know. I understand your dilemma, as I too often get the feedback that my tracks are too creative and draw too much attention to themselves.

The best way to approach it, imo, is to allow yourself total creativity in the composing stage while making sure the arrangement fits the brief (most TAXI listings want 2 mins). In terms of edit points, think of them like button endings, I'd suggest at least two in a 2 min track. End A section, End B section, End track. It can be as simple as completing the melody/part with some sort of ending. A drum beat on the last note or something, with a beat rest before clicking in again.

Step two is to start editing from the ground up. Here's where I start to edit down sections. Maybe take that added synth and have it come in later when dropping something else out. Maybe muting a few tracks to see how things work. Making sure there's a thru line while having things ebb and flow.

Everyone wants things to develop but often at the same time don't want too much ear candy. Go too subtle, it's not enough. Go too far, uh oh.

I'd suggest also listening to the forwards for listings you'd be interested in submitting for, if you don't already. Listen for how the track develops, where the 'edit points' fall.

HTH