Pillars of Composition
Develop your core skills
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"I learned so much from watching your work and from the knowledge you shared. Anyway, i submitted two pieces to the Film Scoring Academy of Europe's online Master's Degree Program and i got accepted into the program! So i just wanted to say thank you!
Michael Johnson
,
Composer
Ryan Leach's flagship course "Pillars of Composition" already helped hundreds of students to improve their music composition skills. It provides fundamental training for composers, presented in a unique and modern way. Music luminary Ryan Leach, with credits like Disney and Netflix, guides his students through over 13 hours of high quality content.
Students will get a deep understanding of the four pillars: Melody, Harmony, Accompaniment and Counterpoint. The course follows a spiral approach, with each turn Ryan expands on previous lessons.
This music composition course is well suited for beginners who want to build a solid fundamental knowledge, as well as experienced composers seeking to strengthen, develope and refreshing their core skills.
This course is for you if …
you want to write longer pieces, but you get stuck after 8 bars of music
you want to build a strong foundation you can finally build upon when it comes to harmony melody, counterpoint and form
you would like to join hundreds of students in learning professional music theory in a fun, engaging, and highly practical way without compromise
Check out the Trailer
The course follows a spiral approach, with each turn of the spiral Ryan expands on the previous lessons:
In the first module Ryan covers the fundamental concepts for each of the four pillars: melody & form, harmony, accompaniment, and counterpoint.
You’ll learn what makes a memorable and useful motivic idea and how to use it to craft a musical phrase. The harmony lessons explain how to think about harmony for function, not just for color. With the accompaniment lessons you’ll learn how to actually voice the chords you’ve chosen.
And for the counterpoint lessons you’ll learn the basic concepts of counterpoint as well as how to write a 1:1 first species counterpoint to a given melody.
The second module goes deeper with the fundamental concepts. Motives and phrases now expand into 8 bar themes with the Period and Sentence forms, two melodic formulas that once you learn will help you never be stuck writing a melody again.
The harmony lessons will take you beyond basic diatonic harmony with secondary dominants and harmonic sequences, and explain the importance of harmonic rhythm.
You’ll take the chords you learned how to voice in Module I and create interesting background accompaniment parts with them, and start to make your counterpoint sound like real music with second species counterpoint.
Things start to get serious in the third module! Ryan walks you through the small ternary, a basic ABA musical form that can serve you well for a vast majority of video game, library and film music.
Your harmony will become more colorful and emotional as you learn about modes and how to use them, and the counterpoint starts to serve a practical purpose as we learn how to use counter melodies as an accompaniment part.
And of course the counterpoint lessons keep getting deeper as third species counterpoint teaches you how to write four notes against one.
The fourth module and final module is where everything gets a final polish and shine. Your musical form expands in all directions with introductions, interludes and codas. You’ll take the modal harmony you learned in Module III and learn how to mix and match modes for powerful cinematic effects!
The final polish on accompaniment includes ways to bring music to life with fills, accents, and ornaments, and the fourth and fifth species of counterpoint will turn your counterpoint exercises into elegant flowing musical lines.
As a bonus section Ryan walks you through three complete projects, starting from a blank screen all the way to a final output.
Explaining every decision and idea along the way, Ryan writes an adventurous video game loop, a dark and moody production library track, and a refined TV main titles cue.
Follow along as all of the lessons and concepts from all four modules come together into real pieces of music!
Walkthroughs
First Adventure
"First Adventure" is an uplifting and energetic track for full orchestra that uses course elements like themes, modal interchange, and active accompaniment patterns. Built out of two main sections, the piece is designed to make the most of the Small Ternary Form by coming back around to the beginning for an endless loop.
Emerging From the Depths
"Emerging From the Depths" is created in Logic to show you that the principles of the course can be applied just as usefully in a DAW. The cue is composed and produced exactly like the real tracks Ryan writes for production music libraries that get major network TV placements, while adhering to the core musical principles of the course.
The Bridge Over the Abbey
Written as the main titles cue to a fictional BBC drama, "The Bridge Over the Abbey" is an original composition for small orchestra. Ryan walks you through every step from initial motivic idea to final arrangement and incorporates lessons from the course like contrapuntal bass lines, flowing counterlines, and a well balanced.
What students have to say
Mark Baldwin
Beginner Composer
"Ryan's Pillars of Composition is an incredible resource. Even for an absolute beginner, like me, the content is straightforward and provides a great roadmap to improve your compositions."
Michael Johnson
Singer/Songwriter
“Ryan’s course is fantabulous! I’m a songwriter and composer of musical theater with 20-plus years of experience, and I can tell you that diving back with Ryan into the details of form, counterpoint, melodic construction, and harmony has proved invaluable. What’s more, I find Ryan’s straightforward approach, as well as his no-nonsense, effortless decision-making process to be joyful and awe-inspiring.”
Marcel Gruhn
Composer
"I bought this course really quickly after release, because i knew Ryan makes high quality Videos regarding composition and orchestration on Youtube.... and it was 100 % worth it :)
The course is structered really well (the prozess of always returning to already learned techniques is really good) and for me as new composer, who just started this year the content has such a great value.
100% recommended"
Gabriel G.
Getting Melody, Harmony, Form and Counterpoint into one course might sound almost impossible, but this course manages to break down all these aspects of composition into small units and increases the complexity in little consecutive steps that can be easily followed. The assignments after each chapter ensure that it’s never getting boring, and that the new know-how can be applied immediately.
Blake Burnett
Composer
My composition skills were ok before I enrolled in this course. When I enrolled I began to see my compositional skills improve gradually over time.
Ryan's way of teaching is a great contributor to my overall improvement.
What you will get
13+ hours of high quality content
5 main sections with over 80 lessons
unscripted creation of 3 tracks
Lifetime access to the course
Access to the private facebook and discord groups
30-day satisfaction period
An instructor who shares all his knowledge
Course Curriculum
Best suited for
This music composition online course is best suited for beginners as well as more advanced composers looking to improve their craft. Learn to write melody, harmony, accompaniment, form and counterpoint, and build a strong compositional foundation. Covering everything from short motives to longer musical forms, this music composition course will help students in never getting stuck again.
Requirements
Exclusive discounts for our students
All our students are eligible for discounts on libraries and plugins by renowned developers. This exclusive benefit alone can result in substantial savings, amounting to hundreds of dollars on composing software and libraries!
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Frequently Asked Questions
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