This course provides an intensive, project-based introduction to composing and producing music for media. Students study music’s narrative function through weekly film analysis, learn essential production techniques in recording, mixing, and mastering, and learn how to compose around dialogue and sound design by scoring short films.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students: Graduate students are expected to produce longer, more complex, professional-quality projects. In comparison to their undergraduate counterparts, graduate students are expected to use more advanced production techniques and develop denser, more narratively complementary, and/or stylized compositions.
Athena Title
Media Composition Production I
Non-Traditional Format
This course is primarily project-based with lectures every week on composers and their film scores and how their decisions "help tell the story."
Prerequisite
MUSI 1100 or MUSI 3550
Undergraduate Pre or Corequisite
MUSI 4670/6670 or MUSI 4670E/6670E
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student learning Outcomes
Students will analyze popular film scores and iterate how the music supports the narrative by identifying the music’s type and function.
Students will practice and apply industry-standard processes such as spotting, creating/implementing “temp”, and arranging and conforming music to picture on student-led film and/or animation projects.
Students will develop technical skills needed for media music composition such as music editing and template construction.
Students will produce professional recordings with virtual instruments.
Topical Outline
Class overview for Media Composition and Production I
• Introduction: Career paths in media music
• Introduction: The psychology of media music
• Digital audio workstation and sampler software fundamentals: template-making, virtual
instruments, and the art of “mocking up.”
• Media composition fundamentals: spotting and cue sheets, applying/creating temp,
conforming/arranging pre-existing cues, industry-standard deliverables.
• Production fundamentals: effects, mixing, and mastering.
• In-depth media music score analysis and discussion
• Communication and critical analysis of own work through peer and class review
exercises.
