The Legend Of Otoe: Writing Music For Anime and JRPGs | Music Composition Course

The journey begins by setting the foundation for everything to come. Japanese anime and JRPG music is known for it's rich and lush harmonies, but reaching that level of sophistication requires a firm understanding of core harmonic principles.

Gavin and Ryan clearly explain topics like harmonic function, cadences, and secondary dominants. With examples from classic video game tunes and original compositions, you'll learn what these concepts are, what they mean, and most importantly how to use them.

The core of the first section is the lesson on common chord progressions. There are certain progressions that appear again and again across anime and JRPG music. You'll be introduced to some of the most common ones, including the classic Royal Road progression and the concept of Diatonic Walks.

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Take everything to a higher level as we explore ways to make our harmony richer and more sophisticated. To add to the harmony lessons, this section goes into the details of 7th chords, chord voicings, and the use of inversions.

With all of that harmony training you'll be well prepared to take on the melody writing section of the course. We go deep into common melodic structures, including the Period Form and Sentence Form. With these forms in your toolkit you'll always know how to turn a simple idea into a complete theme with a satisfying structure and contour.

Bring the harmonic and melodic aspects together with a lesson on melody note choices. There are certain chord tones that are more idiomatic to Japanese anime and JRPG music than others. In this section you'll understand what those choices are and how to make them yourself.

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Armed with a solid grasp of the essential theory concepts, it's time to turn the ideas into real music. We take our first steps into composition by focusing on the piano, an instrument that takes a center stage role in countless anime and JRPG tracks.

Ryan and Gavin show you common piano patterns, both right hand and left hand techniques, so even if you're not a piano player yourself you'll understand how to write for the instrument. Go deeper with chord voicings, learn to fill out a melody with harmony, and add classic accompaniment patterns to your toolkit.

Not only do you learn about essential techniques, you learn why they work in the first place. That way you can take the underlying concepts of how to support the harmony and energy of the music and go on to invent your own textures and patterns.

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In the final section of the course, Gavin and Ryan walk you through the final arrangement of your own Hometown Village theme. Building on the layers from previous lessons, you'll compose a complete piece of music arranged for string quartet and piano.

You'll learn how to write take music written for the piano and arrange it for strings. Arranging is not simply a copy-paste job, which means you need to understand how to turn something written for the piano into music that works great on a string instrument. You'll pick up useful shortcuts for making string writing more idiomatic and less "pianistic".

Besides learning to write for strings and piano together, you'll also learn what to do when the piano piece is being arranged for just strings. What parts of the music need to be adapted? What advantages do the strings have over the piano that can add even more color and interest to the music? This is where it all comes together.

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