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Put Your Music to Work: Composition for Commercials

MUSC X 484.931

Learn how to develop and fine-tune your musical skills for scoring TV commercials with weekly assignments, discussions, and critiques. Finish this course with a successful body of work to be put on your reel or website.

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What you can learn.

Hone your scoring skills by composing for a 30-second commercial each week
Explore topics such as advertising techniques, styles of scoring, and the ad formula
Discuss your work and engage with the instructor in weekly screenings
Understand standard business practices, self-promotion, and dealing with competitive demos

About this course:

Thousands of TV commercials are produced and scored every year, and the advertising business is always looking for something fresh, new and different. In this online course, composers fine-tune their musical skills to become more precise and focused composers. Each week, participants are given a different commercial video to score, as well as a second writing assignment that is music only. The latter assignment is to build up the student’s own library of music. Assignments are constructively critiqued by the instructor with specific detailed feedback on what improvements are advised to make the music fit the commercial requirements and stand out in a sea of competitive resources. At the end of the course, students who completed the course have a compilation of their work to be used for their own promotion at their website or online viewing portal. Topics include concepts of advertising techniques, styles of scoring, the ad formula, self-promotion, standard business practices and how to deal with competitive demos.

Prerequisites

Students must be able to receive Quicktime files, record and/or edit their own music, and send MP3s via the Internet. Students who are not proficient in composing and producing their own cues may submit music samples or loop composites created in programs such as GarageBand, Reason and Acid.