- Hey, everybody.
Welcome to the 1000 subscribers Q&A.
(crowd cheering)
First of all,
I wanna say thank you to everybody
that has helped build the channel to this point.
I really do appreciate it.
Today, I'm gonna be answering questions
that you guys have sent in.
If you didn't get a chance to send one
or somehow I missed yours,
just leave it down in the comments
Pretty big one to start with.
I already have a video on this,
on "How I make music as a composer in 2021,"
I think is the title or something like that.
Watching that video is probably the better way to go.
I won't get too much into it,
but basically there's a mix of projects, library music,
which is the big one for me,
a little bit of teaching, string arranging.
It's a mix.
How you make a living as a composer
is by putting together all of these different little pieces.
You're a freelancer
and you kind of have to run your business
with as many eggs in baskets as you can, I guess,
is sort of the metaphor.
But yeah, check out that video.
I'll put a link in the description
and that goes into much more depth of
how I earn a living as a full-time composer.
"Can you make a video talking about interactive music
in video games?"
Yeah, I can.
That's a pretty interesting topic.
And if any of you have a video topic or idea
of something you really wanna see something about
that you think would fit this channel
always just leave a comment and let me know.
So I guess the answer to that question is just,
yes, I will add that to my list of topic ideas, thank you.
"What is the best source to study film composition?
I know a college will be the most obvious answer,
but I can't afford one."
So yes,
I went to Berklee and was a film scoring major,
but I realize that wasn't cheap.
So if you're not going to college,
I think, I mean, YouTube didn't exist
when I went to college,
and all these online courses and everything.
So man, that's a tough question.
How would I study film scoring?
Something I might suggest is finding a private teacher.
Somebody you can submit your work to, they can critique it,
they can give you assignments.
What else would I do?
I think there's plenty of really good courses.
For film scoring, specifically,
I don't have any in mind.
You would just probably have to Google that,
but I'm sure that good online courses
that are affordable do exist.
The other thing is becoming a composer's assistant
can really be a huge growing opportunity.
So right after college,
I became a composer's assistant
and eventually I was able to write
transitions and small cues,
and that graduated to longer queues and bigger scenes.
And that was a really amazing way to learn
because I was watching him work,
and how he wrote his cues,
and the feedback he got and how he responded.
And then starting to write my own cues,
then he would give me feedback and it was really good.
It was basically like an apprenticeship in a lot of ways,
you do have to pay your dues to do that.
There was plenty of late nights, and taking out the trash,
and picking up take out orders,
and all a whole other side of things,
but, you know, it was worth it.
So if you can't afford a college
then saying move to LA might be a stretch too.
So I guess the other way is to learn on the job,
get student films, get indie films, get anything,
anything you can possibly score and work on.
And your stuff might be kind of bad in the beginning,
but every project you work on, you will get better.
"Dear Ryan,
I have recently become aware of step progressions
as a way of squeezing extra material
out of a theme I've already written.
Do you find this method useful?
And are there any other ways you like to analyze your themes
to draw out more materials?"
So I guess by step progressions,
maybe you're talking about sequencing.
So maybe you have a phrase,
and you sequence it up a step or down a step.
I think that's maybe what you're referring to.
And yes, sequencing is extremely important.
I think it's Schoenberg who says that
"The value of the sequence is slow, harmonic development."
So you're able to go somewhere,
your music is evolving,
but you're not just rushing through to the cadence,
you can kind of take your time and go to the one chord,
you go to the two chord and you sit there for awhile.
So yeah, I highly recommend,
I think people should be doing sequencing more.
I think people tend to ramble and go off into new ideas
when really, they should just keep working
with their existing ideas.
I don't analyze my themes as I'm writing them.
I'm more trying to focus on the structure,
and what am I going for.
Being mindful of the cadence
I'm heading towards is really important.
So I think about, am I in a period form?
Am I in sentence form or some hybrid or neither?
Where am I trying to go, and what does my theme need?
So if I've already repeated myself a bunch,
maybe my theme needs some forward motion.
I need some sort of continuation.
Or if it feels like I kind of have
an unfinished half-cadence phrase,
then maybe I need to go back and restate the thought,
and complete it this time.
I did just release a video about
how to take an eight-bar theme in different ways
to make it longer.
So I guess the longer answer would be in that video,
so check that one out.
"What is the most rewarding project you've worked on?
Why was it so rewarding?"
Oof, that's a deep one.
There are so many, there are so many.
I'll think of a couple.
One of the really unexpected, surprising ones was,
I scored a Serbian feature film
maybe 10 years ago.
And I even got to actually go to Serbia, to Belgrade
for the premiere.
And it was like a red carpet premiere
and Jeremy Renner was there.
It was just a whole big event.
So that was really cool.
It was a really great film,
and I was really happy with the music I had written,
and it was overall a pretty awesome experience,
and life adventure to be able to go to Belgrade
and experience all of that.
"Candy Jar"
was definitely a huge career milestone for me,
that was a Netflix original with a bunch of Hollywood stars.
And so, thank you to Ben Shelton for hiring me for that gig,
but also we worked together for years before that point
and built a working relationship.
And so, it was amazing to see
all of those different short films, and online projects,
and commercials, and all things we've worked on together,
kind of, build and build,
and for both of us become a really big project.
And then for that to actually be something
that's on Netflix that people can watch is huge.
Because if you go anywhere,
you go to the dentist and they're like,
"Well, what do you do?"
And you say, "I'm a composer."
The first thing anybody ever asks is,
"What have you done that I've heard of?"
I don't know why that's the default,
but everybody asks that.
And so, to be able to actually have something like,
"Oh, well, there's this thing on Netflix.
"So even if you haven't seen it,
"you could go watch it tonight," is pretty awesome.
That's pretty cool.
"What is the fundamental difference
between music for movies and for games?"
The fundamental difference is that the music for a movie
has to fit the picture.
It seems obvious,
but really the picture, the movie, the scene,
the action rules everything.
It doesn't matter what cadence you want.
It doesn't matter how you wanna develop your theme.
The guy falls off the building,
the guy fell off the building
and your music needs to acknowledge that.
In a video game, it's much more,
we're setting a mood,
we're setting a space and usually it loops.
So it's, "How can we keep this vibe going
"at roughly the same energy level forever." (chuckles)
For 60, 90 seconds.
But you know, essentially,
just kind of keep it smooth and keep it rolling.
So I think film music is a little more dynamic;
there are a lot more highs and lows.
But really, it's the film music is responding to a scene,
and video game music is responding to a mood,
I guess, is the main difference.
One of the reasons I really like to study video game music
or use examples from video game music
is that it's not written to a scene.
So sometimes you might be like,
"Oh wow, the composer did this amazing chord change,"
but really it had nothing to do with musical taste.
It was more about the train crash that happened
that we aren't seeing when we're listening to it.
In video game music,
the compositional decisions
can be a little simpler sometimes.
All right, so the next one is a little long.
"Hi Ryan, how are you doing?"
I am good.
"I am creating my video game composer portfolio.
I would love to recreate my version of the score
and sound effects of video games that I have played
since I have no other way to demonstrate
the impact of my music on the narrative."
I think that's a really good idea.
I would do the same thing with film music.
There are some scenes available.
You just gonna have to Google it or ask around.
There are some scenes available,
where the music has been taken out.
You can practice scoring those,
or there's a famous scene from Polar Express
that has no score.
That is a great opportunity for you to write music for it.
I think that scene works better without music
is why it never had a score.
There are ways to practice,
and I think just kind of pulling up the game,
and letting the visuals inspire you
is a really great way to practice.
Let's keep going.
"I have in mind to send emails to the developers,
ask them for permission to use their scenes.
Do you think this might sound rude and make them mad?
If the answer is yes.
What do you recommend that I do?
I don't have good internet connection,
so I can't join a Game jam?"
You can email developers.
I think that almost all of them will just ignore you.
Honestly, I just think they don't care.
There's so much video game content on YouTube,
on Twitch, on everywhere
that everybody's just used to their games being online.
So if you have their game with your music behind it,
it's not really...
I don't think...
Nobody's gonna care.
It's not gonna offend anybody.
Nobody's gonna be mad that you're inspired by their game,
I really don't think.
Maybe there's some exceptions.
And then, "What do you do if you can't..."
So yes, a Game jam would be great.
I don't know if you need a great internet connection
to do a Game jam
because you don't need to be online doing it.
You meet with people and you say,
"Hey, what kind of music do you need?"
And then you can log off and write it.
I really encourage you, if you can,
to work with indie game developers,
if you wanna write game music,
But if you can't,
yeah, I think your idea is pretty good
to write tracks you think are inspired by the games,
and also, that visual will really help your portfolio.
If it's just like, "Hey, inspired by Hades."
And you have Hades in the background with your music.
I mean, you have to be careful
because if people know that music,
and if that music's really good,
like Hades has a pretty great soundtrack.
They're gonna be comparing yours to that.
So that's something to consider.
If they're like, "Hey, this isn't the music from Hades.
What is this?"
I guess that's a risk,
especially if you're using a popular game,
but as far as just getting you inspired,
I think it's a good idea.
"If you had a chance to have dinner with any composer,
dead or alive, who would it be and why?"
Definitely Nadia Boulanger,
who is not a household name,
but Nadia Boulanger was a French composer and teacher.
In the first half of the 20th century,
Her sister, Lili Boulanger was also a composer
and tragically died very young,
I feel like at 19 or something.
And so, she had shown great promise as a composer,
and unfortunately, I guess, got sick.
And so, Nadia swore off composing when that happened.
It was just such a tragedy for her
and just became a teacher.
But what's fascinating about Nadia Boulanger
is her students.
So she had Aaron Copeland, Quincy Jones Phillip Glass.
Just all of these amazing composers,
studied with her and went on to have great careers
and unique careers.
I mean, Aaron Copeland and Phillip Glass
sound nothing alike.
So the fact that they studied
with the same composition teacher,
I think is pretty amazing.
So I would assume that I could speak French,
or that she would speak English.
I would love to have dinner with her,
and just say, "What did you do with your students?
How did you develop their craft?
And how were you able to develop their unique voice
in such a way that Aaron Copeland is a style,
that if I wrote something in Aaron Copeland's style,
people would be like, 'That sounds like Aaron Copeland.'
Just how did you do that?
How did you help them foster that?"
would be really interesting.
"How do you structure your days?
How do you balance between work, practice,
finding/networking for jobs, et cetera?"
I'm not sure I'm the best model for this.
I've mentioned before that I have ADHD,
and I also have a family and a mortgage and all that.
So my circumstances are not yours and yours are not mine.
So right now, the season, it changes
depending on the season.
But right now I get up around seven
and get my family ready for the day,
feed the cats, make my son breakfast, take my son to school.
My wife has the full-time salary job
with health care benefits.
And I'm the freelance one.
So because I'm freelance,
my schedule is more flexible for the day.
So I take my son to school.
I usually try to get in a workout,
go to the gym, and go for a run, come back,
work on whatever I need to do
until it's time to pick up my son from school.
And then it's kind of family time from three till dinner.
And then after dinner,
I might teach private lessons
or finish any pressing projects
or ideally just, like, play some Nintendo or something.
I'm definitely a productivity junkie
just, 'cause like I said, I struggle with ADHD
and I'm a procrastinator and I just get interested in things
and put things off and whatever.
I don't know.
Unfortunately, I think how to structure your day
is a personal issue,
depending on your surrounding circumstances.
But I would say try to get some exercise every day,
get outside and make lists, lots and lots of lists.
"If I join ASCAP as a writer and publisher,
do I have to send my music to them
or post it somewhere else online for it to get heard?
Does my music automatically get into their database
for people to find it
or do I have to do my own marketing, so to say."
There's kind of like six questions in there at once,
and they kind of seemed to be overlapping
and confusing things.
So ASCAP, like BMI is a performing rights society.
So they make sure you get paid
when your music gets performed,
they don't want your music.
They don't have any interest in like your actual tracks.
They wanna know that you have a song called,
"Happy Day," and it was used in a movie,
and they wanna make sure that when that movie is on TV,
that you get the royalty for it and they collect it for you.
So what you do with them is, you tell them,
the information about your tracks.
Hey, I have this new track and it's this long
and it's called this and I was the composer
and this other person wrote lyrics and whatever ever else.
But they don't need the actual music.
"Post it somewhere else to get heard."
So yeah, ASCAP's not gonna let anyone hear your music,
they don't really have anything to do with that.
"Does it automatically get into their database?"
No, you have to register the work.
You have to tell them, "Hey, here's this track."
Most of the music libraries I work with
register the works for me.
So I don't have to do that.
And then, "Do I have to do my own marketing?"
So yeah.
ASCAP has nothing to do with marketing you as a composer,
I mean, they have events,
but really, they're there to collect the royalties
is their main function.
So yes, you're on your own for marketing your music,
and getting people to hear your work.
"Why are the major and minor scales considered keys
whereas the modes are only considered scales?
Also what differentiates Ionian and Aeolian modes
from major and minor keys?"
So the first confusion
is in the first part of your question,
"Why are the major and minor scales considered keys?"
They're not.
Major and minor are scales and major and minor are keys.
There's a major key.
It's not the major scale is a key.
So a key think of that as your tonic, as your home.
So the key tells you where is home.
If we're in G-major,
then you know that we're using the G-major scale,
most likely,
and G is home.
But you can use an E-flat major chord.
You can use any chord you want.
It doesn't really matter, as long as G is still home.
So it doesn't matter what scale you're using.
It's really about just kind of the gravity
of the whole thing and what positions us.
The modes are more about fixed, specific arrangements
of notes that you go
whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step.
That is an arrangement.
That's a mode.
That tells you that Dorian is a different mode or scale
from Phrygian.
And so, if you're in G-major,
you could still be doing the Lydian mode
by having that C-sharp.
But G is still our tonic.
So what differentiates Ionian and Aeolian.
So Ionian and major, as far as I'm concerned,
they're the same,
except if you were in Ionian,
and you were being strict about it,
you wouldn't use a flat six.
You wouldn't use any chromatic tones from outside Ionian,
whereas in G-major, you'd be more welcome to.
Aeolian is the same as natural minor.
But if you're in the key of A-minor,
a lot of times you're gonna use the E-dominant seven chord.
You're gonna have a G-sharp.
You could have A melodic minor, A harmonic minor,
there's flavors of minor.
And you're gonna see G naturals, F sharps, F naturals.
Similar thing is the key is minor,
but the way you kind of gravitate around that tonic
is different, whereas Aeolian is very pure.
We're only doing the flat-six, flat-seven to the one.
You're never gonna be using that G-sharp
in A Aeolian because it's not part of that set.
I hope that makes sense.
So a key is your tonal center,
a scale is a specific arrangement of notes
and distances between notes.
All right, "How do you organize your DAW projects
when writing for a TV show?"
So how do I organize a TV show in a DAW is,
I will do a different Logic session for each episode.
And then within Logic,
you have this thing called Alternatives,
which is basically a different Logic file
within the same main file,
but I'll do different cues within each Alternative.
And I'll have a final one called Playback.
And that's where I'll put the whole video
of the whole episode,
and drop in my bounces there.
Then I can actually watch the whole episode in context,
how each cue is going,
but I do prefer to have a separate alternative
for each cue,
so I can like start at bar one.
It's just kind of clean and condensed in its own space.
And then kind of what you mentioned
later in the question is,
then I could export that and reuse that.
So, yeah,
I would totally Save As if I was gonna reuse a theme
in episode two,
but in a different way,
just export that alternative,
and bring it into the other Logic session for episode two.
Okay, if you have different questions
or if any of this kind of inspired a new question,
please put it in the comments, I appreciate it.
And I'm always taking your video suggestions.
Don't forget, you can join us on Discord,
if you wanna chat orchestration, and film scoring,
and all that cool stuff.
Thank you again so much for helping me get
to a thousand subscribers.
I really do appreciate it,
and I will keep working on videos
to help you guys write better music.