Today we take a look at 10 essential scores that changed the game for what roles and responsibilities composers take to bring a film to life.
How to Use Borrowed Chords
A handy guide for using borrowed chords in parallel scales and modes, to make your chord progressions more refreshing and unpredictable.
A Harmonic Analysis of Radiohead’s “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi”
Let’s revisit one of Radiohead’s most propulsive and intricately layered songs, to deconstruct all the elements at play and how they function.
Stravinsky & Jazz: Yes, Even Classical Music Is Influenced by Black American Forms
Stravinsky’s music and the music of Charlie Parker and John Coltrane have been compared to Cubism, is jazz the connector? We trace the influences.
Resilience in Music: Composers in Times of Hardship
Composers throughout history have created great masterworks of art during times of hardship, here’s an examination of three such pieces.
How to Learn the Note Names in Every Fret on the Guitar
Don’t waste your time memorizing all of the notes in each fret without understanding how they relate to each other, here’s a few tricks.
Scale Mode Cheat Sheet: How to Remember Each and Every Mode
Modes and Key Signatures have a variety of different characteristics and are great for outside-the-box songwriting. Here’s a cheat sheet to remember them!
György Ligeti’s ‘Musica Ricercata’: Is It Possible to Compose with Just One Note?
We look at Ligeti’s famous composition in order to decide how much, or how little, the use of music’s foundational parameters really matter in composing.
An Introduction to Zappa’s ‘Black Page #2’: Modality, Polyrhythms, and Intervals
We explore the fundamental rhythmic, harmonic, and melodic concepts at play in one of Frank Zappa’s most lauded compositions.
How Jonny Greenwood Uses Materiality, Clusters, and Aleatoricism in His Film Music
We break down a handful of composer Jonny Greenwood’s go-to techniques in examples from his scores to Phantom Thread and There Will Be Blood.