Pillars of Composition lays the groundwork for any composer looking to build strong fundamentals in melody, harmony, accompaniment, and counterpoint. With over 13 hours of content led by Ryan Leach—an award-winning composer for Disney and Netflix—this course provides a hands-on approach to music composition.
Through a spiral learning structure, you'll strengthen your grasp on key concepts while applying them through real musical projects. This foundational music composition course is ideal for both beginners and seasoned musicians.
Pillars of Composition II is the perfect next step for composers looking to move beyond short musical sketches. This orchestration class teaches you how to structure and develop full-length pieces using the sonata form, without falling into academic rigidity. You'll learn to balance contrasting themes, create fluid transitions, and shape engaging, cohesive works from start to finish.
The course dives deep into harmony with lessons on pivot chords, borrowed chord modulation, and reharmonization. A full unit on solfege ear training helps you quickly translate melodies from your head to the page. This music composition course equips you with practical skills to confidently expand your musical ideas into complete compositions.
20th Century Orchestral Writing, taught by Mattia Chiappa, explores the techniques behind film and concert music from the last century. This orchestral composition course covers evolving textures, non-traditional harmonies, and symphonic development techniques used by composers like John Williams.
Led by Mattia Chiappa, a composer with credits on Netflix and BBC projects, this course begins with theme variation techniques, showing how to develop a simple melody into a longer composition using diatonic, modal, and non-diatonic approaches. You’ll also explore modulation, extensions, and structuring to create compelling musical continuity. Later modules guide you through effective sketching and orchestrating with step-by-step walkthroughs, helping you understand orchestral texture changes, transitions, and instrumentations.
Techniques like doubling, counterpoint, and working with rhythmic, chordal, and scalar textures are thoroughly explained. You’ll also analyze four classic cinematic styles: heroic, romantic, mystery, and family adventure through complete track harmony and orchestration walkthroughs. The course concludes with the breakdown of a complex cue, combining advanced harmony and dynamic orchestration. This is an essential orchestral composition course for composers ready to apply traditional orchestration in a film-scoring context.
If you’ve ever wanted to write music like your favorite composers, The Legend of Otoe is your gateway. This unique online music composition course blends practical music instruction with a fully immersive storytelling experience, complete with original artwork and narration by a native Japanese speaker. You’ll learn how to compose in the style of Ryuichi Sakamoto, Koji Kondo, and Joe Hisaishi—breaking down the musical building blocks that define the anime and JRPG genres.
Led by professional composers Ryan Leach and Gavin Leeper, the course teaches how to develop themes and write in distinct Japanese harmonic styles. By the end of the course, you'll have completed your own orchestral score in the style of classic anime and video game music, making this a standout music composition course for fans of Japanese musical storytelling.
Ready to expand your skills after Level 1? The Legend of Otoe – Levels 2 & 3 explores advanced composition techniques inspired by anime and JRPG music. In Level 2, you'll explore jazz-based harmony and modal writing. You’ll also build your orchestration skills, focusing on woodwinds and ensemble blending.
Level 3 takes a bolder step into non-functional harmony, quartal and quintal voicings, and the use of traditional Japanese musical instruments like the koto and shakuhachi, introduced through exclusive guest lectures.
Wizards and Witches is a unique entry in the 'Composing Worlds' series, focused on crafting music for magical film scores and fantasy storytelling. This is not a classical music composition course. Ryan Leach guides you through the entire creative process—from brainstorming themes to orchestrating a fully polished track.
You'll explore common musical elements found in fantasy genres: ethereal harmonies and instrumentation that includes everything from celestas to string ensembles. It’s the ideal online music composition course for anyone writing for fantasy films, games, or animation.
Adventure meets orchestration in Vikings and Dragons, a course built for those writing bold, epic, story-driven music. Follow Ryan Leach as he composes three original themes—a Viking march, a soaring flight theme, and a dragon cue—taking each one from sketch to full orchestral production.
Along the way, you’ll master compositional tools like unusual scales, dramatic rhythms, and the best instrumentation choices. Assignments keep you engaged, while community feedback inside the Master The Score Discord helps refine your work.
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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Ryan’s approach is a welcome surprise that really benefitted my own writing process. Unlike other courses, he sketches in Dorico before jumping into his DAW. Ryan’s detailed analysis of the genre that can be applied to nearly any musical style. They may call this a “mini” course… it is anything but. There is a ton inspiring material - so much so that I grabbed Ryan’s other courses!
20th Century Orchestral Writing was a real game changer for me. Since I have no formal training, I wasn't aware how important it is to first clarify your musical ideas and tie them together harmonically before attempting orchestration. Mattia's clear explanations about the importance of piano sketching and excellent MIDI orchestration examples opened up a whole new world of musical exploration for me. Highly recommended.
"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."
I really enjoyed this course. I think anyone interested in sound design can get a lot out of it, not only composers of trailer music. Starting with the fundamental concepts and working its way into advanced territories, I walked away with a lot of cool new techniques in my arsenal. Simon's love for experimenting and creating sounds really shines through, which is contagious. I felt very inspired to go create after each lesson.
"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"
“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.”
The Legend Of Otoe was the first course I took on Master The Score. It's a nice step-by-step process to write your first jrpg main theme with a solid harmony underneath. I enjoyed the different homework assignments that felt like small achievements before even completing the course
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.
The course did not only teach me the jrpg style, but also helped me to expand my harmonic vocabulary. Every composition I wrote since finishing with Legends of Otoe benefited from this new knowledge. I am eagerly looking forward to Legends of Otoe part two!
I was looking for a shorter course to fit my available time and I am a big John Powell fan, so this offering fit the bill. Ryan’s teaching style makes learning each new topic easy. I found the modules to be just the right length, introducing each topic and then following Ryan in real-time as he composes and arranges each theme. By the end of this course, I was able to compose and produce a complete suite in the style of the “Vikings and Dragons” trailer, which was my goal and is something I would not have been able to do before taking this course.
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.
If writing eight bars and getting stuck sounds familiar, Ryan’s courses will help. Ryan’s teaching style is clear and his methods can be used to structure your compositions, no matter what genre you are writing for. After competing Wizards & Witches I used some of the techniques to complete a couple of scores for a spaghetti western. I can honestly say Ryan has helped me structure and elevate my writing process…no more half finished ideas!!
As a software engineer during the week and a hobbyist composer on weekends, I've always loved creating music. Despite over a decade and a half of classical piano lessons as a student, I lacked the skills to orchestrate my ideas. Master the Score has been an invaluable resource in bridging that gap. Courses like "20th Century Orchestral Writing" and "Pillars of Composition" make complex topics approachable, helping me connect the dots with patterns I recognised but never fully understood. Courses like The Legend of Otoe and Composing Worlds also bring a special focus that adds sparkle to my compositions.
I now feel much more confident orchestrating my work, and I’ve even found greater enjoyment in films by discovering the same techniques and ideas from the courses and understanding their applications.
Remember all of those fun RPG's and Anime's from your childhood? Do Final Fantasy, Spirited Away, and Breath Of The Wild come to mind?Now Imagine for a second that you'll be able to make music for those games and media. Otoe Levels 1, and Otoe Levels 2&3 are a godsend to you if you'd like to learn how to write music for this genre. I highly recommend purchasing this course if you'd like to upgrade your harmonic palette as well as music theory!
Pillars of Composition II is a course devoted to making us write a piece in Sonata form. It is in depth and modern. Ryan breaks down the form into smaller pieces so that we learn it. There is a discord forum devoted to Pillars of Composition II. In the discord forum we can post our works to get feedback. This is awesome because assessment is a key component to learning. I highly recommend this course to anyone that wants to write larger works. It's wonderful. If you like Ryan's YouTube channel, you'll love this course: Pillars of Composition II.
"20th Century Orchestral Writing" is an immediate purchase for anybody wanting to own a complete how-to for modern film scoring. It offers a complete and detailed look at the most important aspects of the musical language needed to sound convincing in Hollywood and elsewhere. From the notes to the sound this covers it all. If you are serious about orchestral film scoring this is a must have"
"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!
"The truth is that I am delighted with this course because Mattia has a great ability to explain and turn a simple melody into a harmony of great interest. Especially with this course, I am learning how to structure my musical sketches effectively and how to compose more efficiently. Without a doubt, I strongly recommend this course primarily to those people who need to continue improving their level of creating orchestral mockups with interesting harmonies."
Master The Score provides in-depth music composition courses for aspiring and professional composers creating music for film, television, trailers, and video games. These aren't generic theory classes; they're structured, skill-focused programs that teach you how to craft expressive, functional music for real production environments. Whether you're developing themes for emotional scenes or building harmonic progressions for cinematic cues, each online music composition course gives you clear instructions and professional insights.
Led by working composers like Ryan Leach and Mattia Chiappa, our courses in music composition cover a wide range of techniques. You'll get practical guidance on composing for different genres and settings, without the fluff.
Explore our advanced and entry-level courses in music composition — each one packed with engaging video content, real-world assignments, and community support to help you produce polished, impactful music.
