Music Composition with the Piano

This was the first course I ever created back in 2018. It cemented my love for long-form educational content and, actually, as you see from the slightly basic trailer above, an interest in motion design. This was the first time I ever played around with motion, and it was actually in a tool that was just meant for screencasts, Camtasia. For my motion friends, this will look hilarious, but I have a very fond memory of working on this. It was the start of a whole new realm of work for me.

Anyway, below is the standard spiel about the course that is on Udemy, and also some previews of the first part of the course. It's interesting looking back in time at myself. It's quite a long time ago now. I've had kids, moved to a different city, but I still love the way that this course is structured. I'm very proud of it. People still take it every week, and it still brings me a good income on Udemy.

Check out the course here on Udemy →

The Ultimate Guide to Piano, Harmony, Chords & Music Theory for Producers, Film & Game Composers and Songwriters.

This course has four core elements:

• An extensive introduction to piano technique, theory & arrangement
• Fundamental & advanced harmony & music theory at the piano taught & learned in a practical way you can start using immediately. (as opposed to learning how to read, which isn't as efficient as a learning strategy.)
• A look at powerful compositional techniques and strategies to help you generate material and problem solve when you get stuck
• Conventions and structures of piano chords, progressions and songwriting, so that you can analyse and grow your knowledge of building songs & tracks.

Many composers, producers and songwriters feel restricted by their lack of ability and knowledge of music theory at the piano. Without doubt, one of THE greatest things you can do to supercharge your composing and songwriting abilities is to gain greater technique and experience in modern day harmony at the piano.

The aim of this course is to give you a powerful and extensive compositional vocabulary, from the ground up - right up to advanced music theory, chords & harmony. And it does it all through a practical, hands on experience of theory at the piano, and it's all accessible without having to read any music.

This course was designed for three types of musician, the beginner and intermediate:

• Producer
• Composer (Film & Games)
• Songwriter

For the beginner, this course takes you from literally ground zero into the building blocks of what makes music work, right up to advanced harmony - without skipping a beat. You'll learn to write a wealth of different material at the piano and start your composing journey off right with a powerful skillset at the piano.

For the intermediate composers, producers and songwriters who are already serious about their craft but feel restricted by never really getting their head around piano & theory - this course covers almost everything you need to know. It's built from thousands of hours (literally) of experience in private teaching with composers, producers & songwriters with a highly experienced teacher. For those of you who feel your writing ability is held back by your piano, arranging, compositional strategy & harmonic knowledge this course is completely designed for you.

And even if you're basically semi-pro, but think your piano technique, voicings and harmonic knowledge are missing a trick, I still know the course will be of value to you. We cover extended Jazz Harmony, thematic writing, non-diatonic chord relationships and more.

At the end of this course not only are you going to feel more strong and fluent as a writer, you're going to be able to solve critical problems on the fly whilst composing; things like:

• 'Where do I start? How do I generate material?'
• 'I have a chord progression, how do I make it more interesting?'
• 'How can I make my chords sound more sophisticated?'
• 'I have a chord progression, but I don't know where to take it next'
• 'What's the musical science behind why that sounds like it does?'
• 'I have chords, how do I add a bass line?'
• 'I have a melody, how do I add chords?'
• 'I have chords, how do I add a melody?'
• 'I have a bass line, how do I add chords?'
• 'My melodies sound a little dull, how can I make them more interesting?'
• 'If my chords are going to stay the same, how can I make them sound different or more inspiring for the next section?'

At the end of this course, you're going to be able to:

• Express yourself and your ideas fluently
• Know how to compose well & use extended music theory without having to involve yourself in reading music but by understanding simple patterns at the piano.
• Unleash your writing with tools to unblock the writing process and generate material with ease
• Be able to write anything from classical music, to jazz music to mainstream music - because the fundamental building blocks of harmony are largely the same.
• Build interesting chord progressions and choose from hundreds of other options when something doesn't sound quite right
• Alleviate a lot of writer's block!
• Have specific principles, techniques and formulas for making music work at your fingertips
• Teach others the fundamentals of music theory and composition and keep teaching yourself so that you can learn and master piano more and more.

This course has A TON of theory in it. But the goal is not to turn you into a theory monster who composes theoretical music. The goal of this course is to give you fluency and OPTIONS so you can choose who you want to be and how you want to write, and express yourself in your own unique way.

Above all, you should know that I obsess about teaching effectively - there's no rambling, tangents, wasted space or filler. It's not 30 hours (yet) because I've made every video super condensed and to the point, whilst trying not to rush. I also care deeply about and teach you how to think & learn music effectively. I hope to see you on the inside!