I like the way the internet used to be, so here is a list of cool websites and resources to check out beyond Reddit and Quora, that have helped me with my composing.
The Websites About Composing
- The Composer’s Site This site lists out most of the composer competitions that are coming up. A great opportunity for anyone.
- www.leonwillett.com – This is a really good blog by a film and game composer named Leon Willett. He has some great advice and great examples.
- https://partimenti.org/ – This is a repository of partimenti. Critical resources for your learning journey.
Film Scoring
- The Complete Guide to Film Scoring – This is a great book, that covers the entire world of film scoring in a easily digestible way.
- On The Track – This one is next on my list of film scoring books to read. It is very in depth, and has a foreward by John Williams as well as blurbs by many famous composers touting it’s benefits.
- The Emerging Film Composer – This is more about the people side of the business of film composing.
- Scoring Sessions – Awesome scoring sessions videos.
- Scarecrow Film Score Guides – These are in depth analysis of several very famous scores, including Batman by Danny Elfman, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly by Ennio Morricone, and The Godfather by Nino Rota.
- Composing Music for Film – Jack Smalley was a professor at the USC Film Scoring Program.
Composing Forums
- Young Composers A good place to talk about composing.
- Composers’ Forum There are a lot of awesome composers here.
- VI-Control – A great forum with a lot of advice on every facet of composition.
Sample Libraries and Technology
- Musio – Great libraries for a decent monthly price. No need to spend thousands upfront just to see if you like some libraries.
- EastWest Soundsonline – I started with the EastWest Symphonic Orchestra library back in the day. They also have a subscription now.
- V.I. Control Forum – this is the place to go to learn about using your virtual instrument libraries.
- KVR Audio – a great place to learn about what is out there technology wise.
- Gear Slutz – another great place.
- Tweakheadz – yet another great place. This one has really good tutorials.
Notation
- musescore.org – This is the best freeware notation program that I have found.
- musescore.com – You can post what you write on musescore to this website. Great tool for sharing your work.
- Dorico – Newer software, but mature now. The output looks great.
- Sibelius – My main choice for notation. I’ve been using it since 1999.
- Scoring Notes – A great blog about the world of music notation software.
Music Theory
- Fundamentals of Musical Composition – My favorite book about composing.
- Classical Form – By William Caplin, This is my new favorite book about composing, although it is a pretty deep theory book, it has, by far, the best explanation of classical form that I have seen.
- Harmony and Voice Leading – If you are going to get one book on harmony and voice leading, this is the one. I used it in college. If you have the drive to make it through (it can be a little dry), you will learn a ton.
Derek Remeš – Excellent research and materials on historical music theory, composition and improvisation to learn from here.- Music in the Galant Style – Very interesting about the way Galant composer (ie Baroque) actually composed.
- Music Theory Online
- Ricci Adam’s musictheory.net Good overview of basic music theory.
- Teoria A very good overview of music theory.
- https://historyofmusictheory.wordpress.com/
Orchestration/Arranging
- Fiddlerman – Excellent resource for learning about how violins play
- Modern Cello Techniques – a site that goes over some different aspects of more modern ways of playing the cello. Pretty cool stuff.
- Orchestration Online – Great videos by a professional orchestrator.
- DeBreved – This is a site by Tim Davies, that covers his real experiences as an orchestrator in Hollywood for many big movies.
- Midi Orchestration – This is the bible for creating realistic midi sequences on your computer.
- The Study of Orchestration – The most comprehensive orchestration manual out there.
- How to Write For Percussion – This is for the rest of us that don’t play percussion. I hear it really sucks to count 63 bars, and then play one note. Let’s give our percussion friends a little more love in out scores.
Sheet Music, Scores for Study and Free Music
- The International Music Score Library Project This is probably the best site on the web for composers, that is, after my site.
- The Juilliard Manuscript Collection This site is awesome. It has a bunch of original manuscripts from great composers. It’s like looking directly into their creative process.
- Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Some great free public domain music to be listened too.
Please note that some of the links below are affiliate links and I will earn a commission if you purchase through those links.
These are all things that I am recommending because they are helpful, not because of the commissions that I may earn from you using these products.
Please do not spend money unless you feel it’s for something you really need and will help you reach your goals.
Hey Jon.
First, thank you a lot for theses resources! They’re of great value!
I want to learn orchestral music, basicaly stuff for movie/game soundtrack. I mean, I want to write for choair, string sections, etc. Like Hans Zimmer, James Horner, theses great composers.
I’m currently studying Walter Piston’s Harmony book, but its very hard to selfteach with it. Which of these books (or any others, if you have) would you recommend me?
Thank you!
This site is great! Thank you a lot for all these information!
Dear Master
I am from the land of oldest music culture in the world, India. I think my search for a composition teacher ends here.!!!
Thank you for providing such a wonderful opportunity.
Regards
Biju
Glad you liked it.
Hi, Jon
I’m curious as to how to create catchy melodies, and how would you know to transition to a certain note to connect to an emotion as well as the harmony to use.
Thanks -ben
Benjamin,
I think your goal should be more in line with how to create a lot of melodies. A catchy melody is a subjective thing, so there is no rule on what is catchy. There are however a lot of techniques for creating a developing melodies, and the more you do it, the better your chances of creating a catchy one.
I recommend reading through my series on composing melodies, and signing up for the Academy https://www.artofcomposing.com/academy-landing/join-the-academy in which I cover create melodies in depth.
+Jon Brantingham
This website is absolutely fantastic and is a heaven for beginners.
Thanks.
Have you ever heard of/read Paul Hindemith’s craft of musical composition by any chance? It’s an extremely interesting take on harmony and how to analyse music.
I read it a number of years ago, and I did find it helpful. Maybe I’ll pull it out again soon and re-read it.
Hi i would like to ask when I pay USD 29/month, will that include the Composition 101 and Composition 201? How will the lessons be conducted? Hope to hear as soon as possible.
Jorge,
You get access to both 101 and 201. 201 in fact, just released today. It is being released 1 module at a time, as I complete them, so I am hoping to have it complete within the next month to two months. The lessons are all video lessons, paired with a comprehensive workbook, as well as supplemental videos of me completing the key exercises.
Can’t believe IMSLP have been under my radar, what an extraordinary site, how ‘mindblowingly’ many resources lying there waiting to be studied.
Do you have any recommendations on which scores or pieces would make sense to study after having taking the academy course?
This was a great collection and I’m very much enjoying it but i have a question.i have played the piano for 6 years now but i have always been more interested in Composing music rather than performing it but due to some financial reasons i can’t afford composition classes and i can only selfstudy.if you were to suggest the best books written on harmony,theory ,counterpoint,ear training and orchestration which ones would you suggest?something like the top 5 essentials for composing?
Nikoo,
Well, actually, I would start with deep listening first. Make sure you are listening to a lot of music. Just absorb it. Take it on runs, transcribe it, play it.
After this, I would make sure you’ve gone through my free beginner’s composing course, which covers some fundamentals of melody, harmony, and form. You can sign up for it here. Beyond that, read the articles on the site. I try to take the useful parts of books, and summarize them in my articles. There are a lot of theory books that aren’t that helpful for composers, because they aren’t written for composers. They’re written for theorists.
After that, there are some great books. In particular, I like Analyzing Classical Form by William Caplin. This is about the analysis of classical music, but there is a lot of value.
Music in the Galant Style was a good read, and will open your mind to the way composers learned back in the 17th century.
The Classical Revolution by John Borstlap. I am reading this right now, and it is really getting me thinking about what it means to be a composer in the 21st century. A return to classicism, restraint, and beauty.
As far as harmony goes, I learned using Aldwell and Schachter, but it is slow going. You will learn a lot though.
For counterpoint, my favorite so far has been Peter Schubert’s Modal Counterpoint: Renaissance Style. Very logical and step by step. But you must do the work.
I also recommend keeping an eye on the Academy. I am working on a sonata form course as we speak, and making updates to the 101 course, which is 8 hours devoted to the fundamentals of composition. https://academy.artofcomposing.com
I would also recomend dave conservatoire which although not strictly about composition offers a well rounded course on music theory, here is the link.
http://www.daveconservatoire.org/
Alternatively try this one.
http://www.music-theory-for-musicians.com/
What about Robert Gjerdingen’s Music in the galant style? Also his homepage has huge collections of partimenti and all the rules that follows – such as Rule of octave and how to modulate etc..
There is also another book that covers Beethoven’s time as a student. It was published in 1850 something so it’s not even copyrighted and can be downloaded for free!!! It was his time with the teacher after Haydn, I think he was called Albrechtsberger or something.
Thanks for the recommendation Hans. I would like to get Robert Gjerdingen on a future episode of the podcast, because I really enjoyed his book. I’ll add it to the list. I am not sure which book that is about Beethoven’s time as a student, but it sounds interesting. I’ll look it up.
Don’t forget to include http://www.vstbuzz.com – its a “deals” website for music software. Plenty of awesome sample libraries and plugins on discount there each month 🙂
Sure thing. I am a big fan of your site , by the way. I am just starting off getting into the world of film composing. I just joined the SCL and I will be attending the UCLA Film Scoring Certificate Program this coming spring. I read you book, and thought it was very good.
The other books are written with the same discipline as Exercises in Melody Writing.
I would have you consider adding another resource. Percy Goethschius wrote a number of books in the late 19th early 20th century on composition and, particularly, form. They are old but they are detailed and methodical, especially the books on form. The books on form are in 3 volumes.; the homophonic forms, the polyphonic forms and the larger forms. Working through them has helped me immensely. They can be downloaded for free from Openlibrary.org.
Rich,
Funny enough, I have been working pretty seriously through Exercises in Melody Writing, which I have found to be very interesting and helpful. I am in the process of using the concepts from that book to create a course for this site on Writing Melodies. I haven’t read his form books yet, but I will definitely take a look. In the next few months, William Caplin is coming out with a follow up to his Classical Form book, called Analyzing Classical Form, which is geared for classroom use. Needless to say, I am excited about it… which makes me a total music theory nerd.
As a musician….from Quebec, near Montreal, I studied at McGill University, where Caplin teaches….. excited me too ( you have a right to be young man!)…..waiting for this new book.
I will investigate your videos on youtube for my students. Sounds interesting!
Frank
Thanks Frank. I love his book, and I am excited for the next one coming out. I haven’t personally met him, but I would like to interview him for the website sometime in the future.
Jon
I would add Feliz Salzer’s Structural Hearing as well as Counterpoint in Composition by Schachter and Salzer. The distinction drawn between contrapuntal chords and those of harmonic progression, together with techniques of prolongation I have found extremely enlightening. I have begun to see how music is motion directed toward goals.
I just wanted to let you know, that with the iPad I found that Symphony Pro is an amazing and cheap app for someone to use for music composition. It has some glitches in the system but for only 14.99 it is well worth the price. Also you can export in PDF form and open up in various music notation software for the computer.
Thanks Anne. I’ll check it out. I don’t have an iPad yet, but I plan on getting one eventually.