Ryan Leach – Pillars of Composition 2022
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Ryan Leach – Pillars of Composition 2022
“Pillars of Composition” provides fundamental training for composers, presented in a unique and modern way. Music luminary Ryan Leach, with credits like Disney and Netflix, guides his students through over 13 hours of high quality content.
Students will get a deep understanding of the four pillars: Melody, Harmony, Accompaniment and Counterpoint. The course follows a spiral approach, with each turn Ryan expands on previous lessons.
This course is well suited for beginners who want to build a solid fundamental knowledge, as well as experienced composers seeking to strengthen, develope and refreshing their core skills.
Ryan Leach
As an 8 year old growing up in South Australia, Ryan started studying guitar so that he could play Beatles songs, which marked the beginning of a lifelong passion for music. Now an award winning composer for Film and TV, his music has been heard on every major network with clients including Disney, The California Lottery, MTV, Lowe’s, Rainn Wilson’s SoulPancake, and the Netflix Original film Candy Jar. Before branching out as a freelance composer, Ryan earned a degree in Film Scoring from Berklee College of Music and worked as assistant to veteran composer Michael Levine at Hans Zimmer’s Remote Control Productions.
Fundamental Training For Composers
The course follows a spiral approach, with each turn of the spiral Ryan expands on the previous lessons:
1 Module I
In the first module Ryan covers the fundamental concepts for each of the four pillars: melody & form, harmony, accompaniment, and counterpoint.
You’ll learn what makes a memorable and useful motivic idea and how to use it to craft a musical phrase. The harmony lessons explain how to think about harmony for function, not just for color. With the accompaniment lessons you’ll learn how to actually voice the chords you’ve chosen.
And for the counterpoint lessons you’ll learn the basic concepts of counterpoint as well as how to write a 1:1 first species counterpoint to a given melody.
He covers topics like:
- motives
- phrases
- harmonic functions
- chord voicings
- counterpoint basics
2 Module II
The second module goes deeper with the fundamental concepts. Motives and phrases now expand into 8 bar themes with the Period and Sentence forms, two melodic formulas that once you learn will help you never be stuck writing a melody again.
The harmony lessons will take you beyond basic diatonic harmony with secondary dominants and harmonic sequences, and explain the importance of harmonic rhythm.
You’ll take the chords you learned how to voice in Module I and create interesting background accompaniment parts with them, and start to make your counterpoint sound like real music with second species counterpoint.
You will learn about:
- the sentence and period forms
- harmonic rhythm
- secondary dominants
- accompaniment figures
- 2nd species counterpoint
3 Module III
Things start to get serious in the third module! Ryan walks you through the small ternary, a basic ABA musical form that can serve you well for a vast majority of video game, library and film music.
Your harmony will become more colorful and emotional as you learn about modes and how to use them, and the counterpoint starts to serve a practical purpose as we learn how to use counter melodies as an accompaniment part.
And of course the counterpoint lessons keep getting deeper as third species counterpoint teaches you how to write four notes against one.
Learn about:
- small ternary form
- modes
- counter melodies
- 3rd species counterpoint
4 Module IV
The fourth module and final module is where everything gets a final polish and shine. Your musical form expands in all directions with introductions, interludes and codas. You’ll take the modal harmony you learned in Module III and learn how to mix and match modes for powerful cinematic effects!
The final polish on accompaniment includes ways to bring music to life with fills, accents, and ornaments, and the fourth and fifth species of counterpoint will turn your counterpoint exercises into elegant flowing musical lines.
Learn about:
- introductions and endings
- blend sound design with orchestral elements
- modal interchange
- fills and ornaments
- 4th and 5th species counterpoint
5 BONUS: Final Projects
As a bonus section Ryan walks you through three complete projects, starting from a blank screen all the way to a final output.
Explaining every decision and idea along the way, Ryan writes an adventurous video game loop, a dark and moody production library track, and a refined TV main titles cue.
Follow along as all of the lessons and concepts from all four modules come together into real pieces of music!
Learn about:
- introductions and endings
- blend sound design with orchestral elements
- modal interchange
- fills and ornaments
- 4th and 5th species counterpoint
Track Creation
1.First Adventureby Ryan Leach
“First Adventure” is an uplifting and energetic track for full orchestra that uses course elements like themes, modal interchange, and active accompaniment patterns. Built out of two main sections, the piece is designed to make the most of the Small Ternary Form by coming back around to the beginning for an endless loop.
2. Emerging From the Depthsby Ryan Leach
“Emerging From the Depths” is created in Logic to show you that the principles of the course can be applied just as usefully in a DAW. The cue is composed and produced exactly like the real tracks Ryan writes for production music libraries that get major network TV placements, while adhering to the core musical principles of the course.
3. The Bridge Over the Abbeyby Ryan Leach
Written as the main titles cue to a fictional BBC drama, “The Bridge Over the Abbey” is an original composition for small orchestra. Ryan walks you through every step from initial motivic idea to final arrangement and incorporates lessons from the course like contrapuntal bass lines, flowing counterlines, and a well balanced.
Course Curriculum
- Pre Course Info
- Student Discounts
- Melody 1a – Motives (6:32)
- Melody 1b – Phrases (9:08)
- Module I – Melody & Form Assignment
- Harmony 1a – Harmonic Function (10:14)
- Harmony 1b – Using Functions (11:37)
- Module I – Harmony Assignment
- Accompaniment 1a – Harmonic Series (6:36)
- Accompaniment 1b – Voicing Chords (11:44)
- Module I – Accompaniment Assignment
- Counterpoint 1a – Intro to Counterpoint (11:03)
- Counterpoint 1b – First Species (12:11)
- Counterpoint 1c – Dissonance (2:26)
- Module I – Counterpoint Assignment
- Module I – Project Assignment
- Project 1a – First Piece (8:55)
- Project 1b – Finish Melody (6:16)
- Project 1c – Voicings & Final Touches (10:39)
- Project 1d – Second Piece (12:14)
- Project 1e – Voicings & Final Touches (9:49)
- ? Module I Project – mp3, MIDI and PDF
- Melody 2a – Period Form (6:29)
- Melody 2b – Writing a Period (9:13)
- Melody 2c – Sentence Form (6:25)
- Melody 2d – Writing a Sentence (9:03)
- Melody 2e – Beyond 8 Bars (6:47)
- Module II – Melody & Form Assignment
- Harmony 2a – Harmonic Rhythm (10:44)
- Harmony 2b – Harmonic Sequences (3:24)
- Harmony 2c – Secondary Dominants (5:27)
- Module II – Harmony Assignment
- Accompaniment 2a – Rhythmic Support (5:37)
- Accompaniment 2b – Pulse (7:28)
- Accompaniment 2c – Ostinato (6:59)
Module II – Accompaniment Assignment
- Counterpoint 2a – Non-Chord Tones (8:54)
- Counterpoint 2b – Second Species (9:16)
- Module II – Counterpoint Assignment
- Module II – Project Assignment
- Project 2a – Four Themes for Piano (9:26)
- Project 2b – Finish Earth Theme (11:49)
- Project 2c – Fire Theme (11:56)
- Project 2d – Finish Fire Theme (5:01)
- Project 2e – Water Theme (16:27)
- Project 2f – Air Theme (15:30)
- Project 2g – Finish Air Theme (7:41)
- ? Module II Project – mp3, MIDI and PDF
- Melody 3a – Small Ternary Form (5:22)
- Melody 3b – Writing a B Section (8:43)
- Melody 3c – Refining the B Section (7:03)
- Melody 3d – Return to A (9:22)
- Module III – Melody & Form Assignment
- Harmony 3a – Modes (10:48)
- ? Modes PDF
- Harmony 3b – Using Modes (11:20)
- Module III – Harmony Assignment
- Accompaniment 3a – Counter Melodies (4:25)
- Accompaniment 3b – Crafting a Line (14:23)
- Module III – Accompaniment Assignment
- Counterpoint 3a – Third Species (11:34)
- Counterpoint 3b – Counterline Below (14:29)
- Module III – Counterpoint Assignment
- Module III – Project Assignment
- Project 3a – Piece for Three Instruments (9:42)
- Project 3b – B Section (12:02)
- Project 3c – Adding More Parts (10:42)
- Project 3d – Finishing Touches (14:02)
- ? Module III Project – mp3, MIDI and PDF
- Melody 4a – Introductions (11:23)
- Melody 4b – Interludes (5:21)
- Melody 4c – Transitions (16:12)
- Melody 4d – Codas & Endings (9:05)
- Module IV – Melody & Form Assignment
- Harmony 4a – Modal Interchange (14:54)
- Harmony 4b – New Theme with Borrowed Chords (15:47)
- Module IV – Harmony Assignment
- Accompaniment 4a – Accents (8:51)
- Accompaniment 4b – Fills (7:11)
- Accompaniment 4c – Texture (10:03)
- Module IV – Accompaniment Assignment
- Counterpoint 4a – Fourth Species (14:52)
- Counterpoint 4b – Fifth Species (14:09)
- Module IV – Counterpoint Assignment
- Final Project A – Assignment
- Final Project Aa – Video Game Loop (16:23)
- Final Project Ab- Sketching Melody (12:32)
- Final Project Ac – Sketch Refinements (11:43)
- Final Project Ad – B Theme Counterline (14:06)
- Final Project Ae- B Theme Texture (8:29)
- Final Project Af – A Theme Accompaniment (8:10)
- Final Project Ag – More Accompaniment Ideas (8:12)
- Final Project Ah – Polish and Adjustments (10:47)
- Final Project Ai – Finished Project (2:19)
- ? Final Project A Files – mp3, MIDI and PDF
- Final Project B – Assignment
- Final Project Ba – Production Music Track (6:34)
- Final Project Bb – Main Idea (9:51)
- Final Project Bc – Basic B Section (14:10)
- Final Project Bd – Expanding B Section (8:55)
- Final Project Be – Percussion and Improvements (10:11)
- Final Project Bf – Quick Dirty Mix & Finished Project (15:21)
- ? Final Project B Files – mp3 and MIDI
- Final Project C – Assignment
- Final Project Ca – Main Titles Cue (14:37)
- Final Project Cb – A Theme Consequent (7:26)
- Final Project Cc – Counterline Texture (12:42)
- Final Project Cd – Return to A (10:19)
- Final Project Ce – B Section Sketch (13:54)
- Final Project Cf – B Section Texture (9:16)
- Final Project Cg – Refinements and Finished Project (10:11)
- ? Final Project C Files – mp3, MIDI and PDF
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