<p>I am a sophomore who wants to go into the field of soundtrack composition for movies. However, I am finding it very hard to obtain information on what program that even classifies under, what colleges offer that sort of program, what I should do to improve my chances of getting into this sort of school, and what major(s) this occupation would classify under. I would really appreciate it if somebody could give me an idea of a good place to start. Thanks!</p>
<p>I would look under the term “film scoring”, and then composition. There’s a number of past threads here.</p>
<p>Take a look through the search tips here <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/892168-search-tips-other-insights.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/music-major/892168-search-tips-other-insights.html</a> and see what you can come up with. If you have issues, I can pull some for threads you.</p>
<p>You can also search for posts by the usernames RichardHK, SpiritManager, Hunt, compmom, compclub.</p>
<p>Take a look at Oberlin’s TIMARA program. It may also be the type of program that might be of interest.</p>
<p>Before you begin to ask for school specific advice, some background info on your musical training and experiences, as well as your academic stats are helpful</p>
<p>Musicnerd94, the reason you are having trouble finding info about that field is because people come to that profession from various avenues, including school of music composition, followed by something such as USC Thornton’s masters in film scoring program – among myriad other avenues. The idea is that first you need to a) master composition and b) master placement of elements programatically in the stereo sound field and c) become adept at the technologies involved in scoring and working with images and sound together. Each of these can, in essence, be different programs sought at a range of academic, conservatory or vocational programs. </p>
<p>So, are you presently fooling around with garage band, and want to go deeper in electronic layering or are you constructing original scores on piano, or midi etc. and performing same. What’s your level of performance capability, keyboard capability, and technical capability? Do you have ensemble experience and a private instructor? Would you be comfortable putting together a portfolio of multi-tracked recordings that you’ve composed? Have you written any computer programs? Or on the traditional side, have you taken any summer composition programs or entered any composition competitions or had any private instruction in composition? Knowing where you’re at would help me direct you to programs that my son looked into.</p>
<p>If electronic composition or a hybrid (as opposed to traditional composition) is more in line with what you see yourself doing, University of Michigan School of Music has a portfolio-based admission program called Performing Art Technology that has 4 different concentrations, including electronic composition for multimedia. There, you take composition and theory courses, plus recording and audio acoustic, programming, visual, film, and film production courses, plus musicology and performance instruments. It is not a “scoring-specific” program per se, but really good prep for a masters level program in same. Its approach is art form meets rigorous skill development in software and programming. Very unique program.</p>
<p>Berklee School of Music I believe has scoring/videogame music tech courses specifically, although I would encourage you to consider being “near” a film program wherever you go to school so that you can actually work on scoring productions and I don’t know if Berklee has other programs (think it’s strictly music but could be wrong).</p>
<p>Many schools have “music technology” programs. Some have “recording arts” programs that would also give you the base, eg: Indianna University Jacobs’ Music School has a very well-regarded recording arts science degree, wherein many students compose for a variety of media (although the program is not currently integrated with composition dept. they way Michigan’s is.) Ball State U. also has a good sound program, and Colorado has a full sound engineering program.
NYU has the Clive Davis music production program that’s housed with the Tisch film school, but when we visited there did not seem to be a lot of integration between the two programs. That said, like Michigan, there are successful film scoring profs on staff.</p>
<p>So, hope that gets you started, go googling and let us know how your thinking takes shape. When you’re ready for visits, I’d be happy to hook you up with my son at Michigan to get the skinny.</p>
<p>Cheers,
K</p>
<p>I agree with everything the above posters have said and will add a little narrower example. My son is a freshman at USC in the popular music program and is a singer/songwriter. He visited with the person in charge of the masters program in film scoring the day before his audition to learn a little more about it. The gentleman was very helpful, but basically indicated it is a masters program.</p>
<p>USC does have a top tier composition program in the Thornton school of Music and arguably the best film program in the country. He has been asked to compose a soundtrack for a short film competition because his roommate was in the film and after an on-campus performance of original music he was approached by a film student about doing soundtrack work on a future film for that student. </p>
<p>NYU probably has similarly high quality disciplines. My point is not so much to promote USC as to support one of the above posters points with an example that as an undergraduate student one of the best things to do is find a combination of great film school with great composition program and network in that environment to develop opportunities. My son is having them without intentional effort in that direction and is not part of the composition program.</p>
<p>I will warn you that for USC and NYU and likely other top tier schools with exceptional film and composition programs, the basic academic standards are very high so you will need to stay focused on your gpa, test scores etc. too. Your “art” is primary, but your academics can keep you out. It is great that you are investigating these things now. It should help you a lot.</p>
<p>A classmate of my D’s is attending Savannah College of Art and Design this fall. They have a school of Film, Digital Media and Performing Arts. It’s worth a look.</p>
<p>Get SCAD to send you a viewbook. It is superb work. We live nearby so we get all the “local materials” in the mail. Not a match for my D but I read throught the whole piece, it was so well-done.</p>
<p>North Carolina School of the Arts composition students compose for the film division students, as undergrads. You might look at their program too.</p>
<p>I’m interested in the same sort of career–does anyone here have any insight as to whether Rutgers or Temple would have a better program (or at least better preparation) for this?</p>
<p>Frankly, I don’t recommend a film scoring program for undergrad. The problem with a film scoring degree is that the industry is so unstable, constantly changing, and how film composers come into the industry has historically never been through formal training. At one point, it was largely classical composers. Now, more and more composers seem to be rock/pop people who capture the attention of directors–Karen O, Jonny Greenwood, Nick Cave etc. </p>
<p>Film scoring degrees are largely new to the field, and unfortunately, they’re great for learning genre styles, but not in developing an individual voice. Both a purely classical background, or a pop/experimental/rock/jazz background is much better in my opinion. Again, the most interesting directors are not looking for genre composers.</p>
<p>I do agree with some earlier posters in that knowing music tech and the common pro software like Logic, ProTools will be useful if not crucial–with that said, you can easily learn that in something other than a film scoring degree program. </p>
<p>The top notch programs like NYU/UCLA/USC are good for one reason: industry contacts via the professors/teaching staff. But the sort of work you’ll be doing will also be very ‘industry’…i.e. John Debney type scores. </p>
<p>P.S. Lots of generalizations above; there are of course exceptions to what I’m saying, but I think I’m by-and-large correct in my assessment of film scoring programs.</p>
<p>I’ll throw another .02 on the pile here and share the convo my son and I have had about this for the last 3 years. He has twin loves – creating music and making films. At first, he was torn between NYU Tisch for film undergrad or pursuing a school of music composition and technology related degree.</p>
<p>Since I went to film school and know a bit about it, and have had some audio exposure, I told him I felt he would do much better to “develop his voice” through liberal arts (or music school) and then pursue NYU or USC at the Masters level. This is the best FINANCIAL and PEDAGOGICAL combo, to my mind, because I just don’t feel an “artist” is fully (or even half-) formed until they’ve undergone a certain amount of education/world experience/analysis and basic “skill” development. There are a lot of “lopsided” folks out there and I feel that media convergence is creating the demand for folks less lop-sided who have the intellectual and technical capacity to create and generate multiple forms of content, be it music, motion picture, flash, et al.</p>
<p>I feel the same way, ultimately, about film SCORING in that I feel at the undergrad level students should be mastering composition, instrumental performance, ear training, theory basics PLUS visual/sound integration basics (eg what is the psychological effect of this angle. what type of chord reinforces the psychological effect of this angle…if you get what I mean…) PLUS technical basics before making an effort to put them all together.</p>
<p>When it comes to psycho-acoustics, engineering, sequencing, sound synthesis, reinforcement etc. however, my experience is that to work at a profitable and professional level requires a level of efficiency in workflow that only comes from a few solid years of training or at least repetition. So in that regard, it can’t hurt to be hands-on in logic, protools, abelton live, c-sound, maxmsp and the like PRIOR to developing scores for film, provided one is still engaged in solfege, composition, theory and performance. So I am with Wind on this one at the end of the day.</p>
<p>BTW, to the OP – Please note that I did not refer to USC a lot in my original post only b/c that’s not where my son chose to go. I would say that USC has everything one would need, including the contacts, to successfully enter that field, and that my own son is hopeful that he might access the masters there if he determines not to do film school instead.</p>
<p>PS – Another (likely) germane way to look at it is this - Focus on creating music. A film score these days is often found, compatible music. So in a way, and in <em>some</em> cases, being part of a film soundtrack is just another channel of exposure, as opposed to an end in itself.</p>