Film, TV, & Video Game Music Composition + Production Basics

Identify essential music gear for film, TV, and video game production, including a Mac or PC, a DAW, notation software, sample instruments, and mixing plugins, plus budget tips.

Explore essential music gear, sample instruments, books, and business tools for building a sustainable music career. Learn gear setups, bundles, and diversification strategies to diversify income.

Build a studio gradually with an external hard drive backup, a MIDI controller, an audio interface, studio monitors, a microphone, and sample libraries for film, TV, and games scoring.

Compare the top six daws for composing music and evaluate budget and workflow needs. Master one daw, try free trials, and choose the best fit for your projects.

Explore three ways to record instruments: midi, line-in with an active dye box into an audio interface, and microphone capture. Apply mic placement and basic mixing to a complete track.

Explore melodic, harmonic, and holistic writing styles in music, starting with melody then harmony, or vice versa, or composing both together, with improvisation ideas and practical uses.

Explore types of notation for musicians, including lyric sheets, chord charts, tablature, sheet music, and conductor's scores, and learn which works best for vocalists, guitarists, soloists, and ensembles.

Learn to notate an eight-bar piano piece using notation software, balancing melody in one hand with chords in the other to build harmony.

Explore common techniques for composing memorable melodies that form the sonic identity of film, TV, and video games, with examples from Koji Kondo, John Williams, and Beethoven.

Explore common techniques for writing melodies in film, tv, and games, including scales and modes, passing tones, large leaps, and downbeat rhythms guided by the gravity principle.

Practice writing an eight-bar melody in your preferred notation software, then stretch your skills by tackling an unfamiliar instrument—explore production options and refine a great melody.

Explore how to craft great harmonies by organizing music into scales and modes, and using new chords to expand melodies for film, TV, and video game genres.

Explore seven medieval modes, map each to a starting letter, and learn how Ionian, Dorien, Phrygian, Libyan, Lydian, and Olian shape mood with sharps and flats through video game examples.

Compose a 16-measured piece focusing on a major, minor, or medieval mode to blend melodies and harmonies. Beginners start with major or minor scales, while advanced composers try challenging modes.

Master the dominant seventh and diminished seventh as leading chords in major and minor keys. Explore their uses, with examples like G7 in C major and the deceptive cadence.

Explore chromatic mediants, an advanced, non diatonic third chord concept that moves by thirds to chromatically related neighbors, creating shocking progressions for film, tv, and games.

Explore the Neapolitan chord, a major flat chord in first inversion that substitutes the I–IV–V–I progression. Use it to spice melodies, in game cues like treasure chests or victory themes.

Explore polychords, a high-level technique that layers multiple chords or keys to create tension, producing intense music with a jazz-influenced sound popular in media.

Explore chord concepts for film, tv, and video game music: chromatic mediant chords, diminished seventh chords, neapolitan chords, common tone progression, and secondary dominant chords, with practical in-game applications.

Explore ambient, edm, chip tunes, hybrid, and sampled electronic music types for film, game, and technology contexts, and learn how to write in each style.

Explore electronic synthesis to craft your own sounds from scratch using Massive and Xebra, with hands-on basics in Logic Pro and guidance for film, TV, and video game music production.

Learn how sampling and recording your own sounds with Logic EXS24 and Kontakt turns found sounds into unique instrument presets, using velocity layers, looping, and convolution reverb.

Explore ambient music through three case studies, crafting minimal textures with chromatic mediants around C-sharp minor, and apply a Logic workflow with delay and isotope ozone mastering.

Learn to write EDM in Ableton Live with vertical live performance, clip-based arrangement, and one-bar section jumps. Explore sampling and synthesis with drum kits, Battery, and Omnisphere.

Learn to craft eight bit chiptune music by using square waves, chip sounds from older consoles, and live recording techniques, with quantization, velocities, and bit-crushed enhancements for energetic game tracks.

Create two 30-second electronic tracks with contrasting styles—ambient pads and synthesis, and a techno dance track using sampling—exploring electronic and hybrid film, TV, and video game music.

Explore an epic tv promo orchestration case study, blending strings, percussion, synths, and guitar, timed to 30 seconds with a flexible template and layered doubling.

Compose an eight-bar piano piece using two hands, keep it simple, then extrapolate it to a five-to-ten instrument ensemble, exploring either electronic or orchestral textures.

Learn why quality music production matters for getting work, and master the basics of mixing and mastering with Dawe plugins to boost sound quality and industry appeal.

Master mix creation in Pro Tools by arranging mixing plug-ins in the correct chain order, routing through buses to a master, and applying equalization, compression, reverb, and limiting.

Master a reliable mixing chain by starting with an eq, then compression, then reverb or delay, and finish with a limiter to create a reusable template.

Master mixing a massive live performance with 30+ instruments for a large orchestra, then efficiently export individual stems using Pro Tools routing and reverb buses for producer flexibility.

Master the art of mastering, not mixing; align a multi-track album in a separate session to create a cohesive sound across all tracks using consistent plugins, levels, and fades.

remix a previous track from this course using the newly learned music production techniques, then mix and master it with the discussed plugins to achieve a professional, quality production.

Explore the three L's of music for film, TV, and video games: linear music from point a to b with sections; interactive layers; and loops for endless repetition.

Learn to score to picture for film by composing, notating, and recording with an orchestra. Apply techniques like emotional openings, dialogue-friendly textures, markers, silence, reverse piano, and low percussion.

Learn what a film score is and how to compose one as a beginner, from spotting sessions to scene cues, DAW workflows, and 48 kHz exports.

Learn how to compose for movie trailers by analyzing the Dark Knight trailer, setting markers, shaping tempo, creating silence, and layering strings, brass, and percussion for dynamic moments.

Learn to design interactive layers for video game music, evolving from a simple base layer to shuffle chips, kick drums, toms, melody, harmony, and a bright synth doubling through gameplay.

Choose two mediums: film, TV, or video games—and score to picture by selecting scenes that showcase your desired sound. Craft two contrasting styles: fantasy/sci-fi and chiptune electronic—to build your portfolio.