The Music Interval Theory Podcast - Episode 1
Why you should listen to this Podcast
Frank is a pro composer in the music industry and has worked for companies like Disney, Nintendo, Sony, and many more. Conventional music theory hasn't helped Frank survive the music industry, and in this episode, he explains what actually did! The journey has begun, and it's fantastic to have you around.
The Composer's Problem(s)
There's a ton of material available about conventional music theory, so why should you pay attention to this podcast at all? Why is it different?
Hi, I'm Frank, co-founder of the Music Interval Theory Academy, and I've spent most of my life composing music for all kinds of media - including commercials and video games for Disney, Sony, Nintendo, many documentaries for German television, and so on.
During my work as a pro composer in the industry, I realized quickly that conventional music theory and the usual composition techniques were not sufficient to compete.
Furthermore, the music I wrote sounded like everybody else, making it almost impossible to create a unique selling point other than money.
It's a race to the bottom this way, and you actually don't want to win that race as it will destroy your life as a composer.
Another point of frustration became the lack of a proper process. Nobody really taught me a straightforward methodology to compose music. All I did in my musical education was a lot of analysis that made me sound like I came straight out of the Classical Era.
But the truth is, nobody will pay you to sound like Beethoven, Mozart, or Vivaldi.
So, how do you compose an original piece of music then? Where do you start? Melody? Harmony? And what comes next?
There's Hope for Composers
It always seemed like gambling, and it made me feel insecure. Well, how do you build confidence if you don't know the path to finish your work? These frustrations led to the Music Interval Theory Academy that my business partner Thomas Chase Jones and I founded in 2015. You know, you just want to scratch your own itch; that's actually one of the best reasons to start a business.
We figured that many composers and music creators face the same problems and frustrations, namely:
Let's get rid of those things together. Let's focus on solutions to these problems. That's the purpose of this podcast, and I hope it will help you transform your musical life into something you can be proud of!
TC and I will be covering the most practical and proven techniques to create original and fresh music based on your taste; we'll talk about musical storytelling and how Interval Theory enhances the Diatonic sound, and also why it all works. The techniques and concepts I'll be sharing with you in this podcast are derived mainly from the Overtone Series (also called Harmonic Series) and how our brain perceives and processes sound.
Nature is beautiful, and humankind has adapted to the sound of nature over thousands of years. The sound structure gives us an emotional reaction, like peace, joy, happiness, anxiety, or courage.
I know that you're feeling *something* right now. You can't fight it, and it's part of your nature as a human being. The Music Interval Theory Academy focuses on bringing nature and music together. It's about understanding those connections and musical relations so you can make emotional decisions quicker and easier with the result of turning into a more efficient musical storyteller.
You will become a better composer, orchestrator, and arranger with this understanding. You'll turn into a more creative storyteller who will never suffer from writer's block anymore. Creativity will open up once you start seeing. That's the natural way of speaking music.
Establish a Process to Compose Music
That's when we select the main musical characters for the story. We pick the overall mood and decide if it will be a love story, an adventure, or something completely different.
The Gathering
That's when we select the main musical characters for the story. We pick the overall mood and decide if it will be a love story, an adventure, or something completely different.
The Sketching
Now, let's write the story. It almost equals a musical script that describes what our main characters go through and how they react in those situations.
The Development
This is the right time to flesh out the story and bring in all the details. In creating a movie, this is the stage where we shoot the scenes and edit the material into the final version.
We'll dive into all of those stages and talk about their application and importance for creating music most efficiently in future episodes.
So, I hope to see you back in the next episode. This was Frank, have a nice day and see you the next time.
Advice
Have a deep look at your process when writing music. Do you follow a methodology? Do you keep running into the same problems? Determine your approach and become aware of it - that's the first step in becoming more efficient.
Author: Frank Herrlinger