Your Big Score Begins Here

What we call film music is a language of signs. It speaks to us through a multitude of musical gestures that, over time, have come to have meaning for the audience. As with any system of signs, the sender must be competent in their use to convey messages that are clear and cogent. This course is an introduction to the vocabulary of music for the screen. In it, you will learn the language of screen scoring through a series of exercises in writing for short scenes of many different media types and genres.

In order to solve the dramatic and story problems posed by all forms of on-screen media, composers need to understand how artists who have preceded them have grappled with the same problems, such as how to evoke sympathy, apprehension, terror, nostalgia, and the full compass of human emotional experience. During this course, you will study scores and analyze both iconic concert works and landmark film music to give you the foundation to develop your own style.

Basic skills in instrumentation and arrangement are the first steps toward accomplishment in the craft of orchestration, which is the ability to make musical instruments “speak together” in a powerful and coherent way. During this course, you will go beyond basic grounding in orchestral instrumentation and learn about instrumentation for screen media, which incorporates a wide range of non-symphonic, folk, ethnic, electronic and even invented instruments and techniques for how they can be blended effectively to produce the contemporary hybrid score.

The platform for music composition and production in visual media is called the Digital Audio Workstation (DAW). In this course, you will learn about the most widely used tool and explore topics such as MIDI sequencing/programming, MIDI editing, digital signal processing, and the precise synchronization of music with picture. In addition, you will become familiar with the full array of Virtual Instrument (VI) libraries. As you progress through the course, you will gain proficiency in music design, which is the synthesis of these elements with your own imagination and compositional instincts.

As any experienced film composer will attest, the principal job of the composer is to support the story and the filmmaker’s intent in telling it. In musicological terms, the craft of doing this is called musical narratology, literally, “telling stories with music.” Narrative cinema is constructed based on classic story form, which includes exposition, conflict, resolution, three-act structure, and manipulations of time and space. You will score three assignments to picture, and through this exercise, learn to create a linear partnership between the story’s structure and the score that accompanies it.

Maurice Ravel, acknowledged as one of the greatest orchestrators in musical history, distinguished instrumentation from orchestration by saying that the orchestrator painted the colors around the individual instrument in such a way that these colors became more important than the identity of the instrument. The analogy to painting is fitting: works like Daphnis et Chloe and Mother Goose Suite are highly visual and textured in a way that can almost be felt. This course will put Ravel’s musical paintbrush in your hands. In addition to orchestration techniques, you will also learn the fundamentals of score preparation, notation, and engraving to prepare you for the live recording sessions that will occur at key stages of the program.

The “mock-up,” a digital simulation of an acoustical/orchestral performance, was once just a demo used to show the client/filmmaker one’s intent and obtain approval of the music prior to live recording. With the extraordinary advancement in the quality of digital instrument libraries, what was once a demo now frequently becomes the final product. In this course you will develop the skills to create these digital products to meet the high standards of production and authenticity currently expected in the industry.

“Find your voice” is the imperative given to every student who enrolls in the Master of Fine Arts program. It is not always a straightforward process, as you must hone, winnow and polish to clear away what is merely imitative and arrive at something truly original. This is what the industrydemands. In intensive individual sessions, your work will be critiqued and shaped in order to bring out the gold of your own personal identity.

In this first of three studio recording experiences, you will prepare the pieces you wrote to picture in Screen Scoring II for performance by live ensembles of varying size and instrumentation. Recording will take place at the end of term in a designated U.S. recording studio with full professional crew, conductor, and librarian. Travel will be within the U.S.; full in-person participation in this exercise is required. All travel expenses (e.g., transportation, lodging, incidentals, and meals) are the responsibility of the student. Strayer will cover the studio reservation and recording fees.

It could be argued that the future of genuinely innovative and ground-breaking music for the screen lies in music created for non-linear, interactive media such as video games, virtual reality (VR), and other forms of participatory entertainment. This music is potentially revolutionary because it is adaptive to dramatic/narrative contingencies created by player choice, and the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) will only accelerate these adaptive capabilities. As a media composer of the future, you will need to be equally adept at handling both linear and nonlinear narratives. In this course, you will work with indie game developers at the Media Design School at Strayer and other selected locations to create music for these adaptive, interactive experiences.

Every media composer is now also a music producer, and this requires a skillset once needed only by audio engineering professionals. In this course you will develop this skillset. You will also explore topics ranging from microphone choice and usage to effects processing to compositing tracks and outputting stems for final mixing. By the end of this course, you will understand how to use the composer’s workstation as a full recording and mixing studio to produce a final product.

The radical changes in compositional technique introduced by Modernism, Minimalism, Post-Minimalism, and other new forms, as well as simultaneous breakthroughs in electronic music and the integration of non-Western tonal systems into popular music, have had a profound effect on the way music for visual media sounds and the expectations content creators have for it. In this course you will continue the work of Cinematic Score Study I to explore the paths that brought music to where it is now, and consider where it is going in the future.

“Find your voice” is the imperative given to every student who enrolls in the Master of Fine Arts program. It is not always a straightforward process, as you must hone, winnow and polish to clear away what is merely imitative and arrive at something truly original. This is what the industry demands. In intensive individual sessions, your work will be critiqued and shaped in order to bring out the gold of your own personal identity.

In this course, you will bring to the studio the assignments you created in Screen Scoring III, which involved scoring adaptive music for video games. There will be three assignments, for varying hybrid instrumentation (electronic + acoustic) and style, and each of these, will be produced both virtually in the MFA composers lab and in live session recorded remotely in a designated European recording studio with professional ensemble, crew, conductor, and librarian.

This advanced composition class will pair you with a group of young independent or advanced student filmmakers to collaborate on the scoring of a selected series of short films that are either festival-bound or have been featured on the festival circuit. From spotting to scoring and mixing, the course will model professional practice at every stage. The resulting scores will be professionally recorded in the capstone quarter on a selected European scoring stage with students in attendance. All sessions will be filmed and scores professionally mixed. Recording is expected to take place over a period of 1-2 weeks in the designated country. Please see the course description for MFA536: SoundTrek III Live Recording Experience for more information on required travel.

Tools for AI-assisted music creation are currently in a formative state, but considering their rapid rate of advancement it is not unreasonable to expect that in the near future many lower budget projects and library catalogs will be at least partially scored with AI utilities. These are the same projects that today support the early careers of many composers. It is therefore essential that you become familiar with these tools, and that music creators find ways to become their masters rather than their servants. This course is a survey of existing AI technology and includes an analysis of current and future trends for AI-assisted music creation. You will also practice composition utilizing leading AI music platforms.

Music editing, the assembly, recombination, processing and pre-mixing of all music elements in postproduction, is both a gateway profession for those wishing to compose and an alternative career path for those who opt for a more stable occupation that is nonetheless at the heart of the craft. The music editor is the composer’s most valuable ally and is present throughout the entire scoring and re-recording (dubbing) process. You will also learn about music supervision, which encompasses the entire range of services needed to satisfy a project’s music needs. This includes researching, selecting, clearing and licensing pre-existing music for either diegetic (“source”) or non- diegetic use; engaging songwriters, supervising their efforts, and serving as an executive music producer; and recommending and securing a composer for the score.

“Find your voice” is the imperative given to every student who enrolls in the Master of Fine Arts program. It is not always a straightforward process, as you must hone, winnow and polish to clear away what is merely imitative and arrive at something truly original. This is what the industry demands. In intensive individual sessions, your work will be critiqued and shaped in order to bring out the gold of your own personal identity.

The composer of music for visual media is a self-employed independent contractor as well as generally the sole proprietor of a small business. Whether the composer is the only employee or oversees a staff of forty, they must be thoroughly familiar with all aspects of the business. In this course, you will become familiar with the language of both “work-for-hire” and “all-in package” contracts, the metrics of performance royalties, their administration by Performing Rights Organizations (PRO’s), copyright law, and the rules and regulations governing intellectual properties in the age of AI. In addition, you will learn what it means to be your own publicist, and in the early stage of a career, an agent.

The media composer who is also able to conduct his or her music will not only have an extra measure of creative control over the outcome of their recordings, but may become eligible to be hired as a studio conductor. In preparation for the capstone recording sessions in MFA536: SoundTrek III Live Recording Experience, all students will undertake this workshop and thereby gain the competence and confidence to conduct your summative piece.

During this course, you will undertake to score complete live-action narrative, animated, or documentary short films to demonstrate mastery of the craft and prepare you for your thesis capstone project. You will write for varying large orchestral ensembles blended with electronic elements, and your work will be recorded in live session on a designated European scoring stage with full professional crew, complemented by cultural learning experiences. Note: Recording is anticipated to occur over a period of 1-2 weeks in the designated country. This SoundTrek occurs in the final quarter of the program, travel to a designated European studio location is required. Full participation in this exercise is required. All travel expenses (e.g., airfare/transportation, lodging, incidentals, and meals) are the responsibility of the student. Strayer will cover the studio reservation and recording fees. Students are responsible for securing their own visa, if needed.

In the capstone course, you will undertake and complete a signature project that demonstrates your competency in the field of music for visual/screen media. This will be a major work of music written and produced for an audio-visual project such as a narrative or documentary short film offestival quality, a video game, an interactive or virtual reality project, or another approved audio-visual collaboration. You will also submit a written commentary, a finished composer “reel” suitable for professional use, and a composer website to showcase your accomplishments.