Cinematic music?

Chords, scales, harmony, melody, etc.
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So, the quetsion is simple: I want to learn how to compose cinematic music. I have a solid experience with EDM, trance in particular. But rather poor instrument skills.

Are there any forums, tutorials or books you could recommend?
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Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)

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No one replied so I'll give it a shot: I just study a composer I like. I'm a big fan of Italian movie composers (mostly Ennio Morricone and Piero Umiliani). I pick a piece I like, analyse it, figure out all the notes for each instrument, then work out the structure (there are usually repeating or structured patterns, it's not all a long string of unrelated notes) and that tells me most of what I can figure out about the composition. I believe all I need to learn is in the music itself, so I learn all from analysing.

After that if you want to make something out of it it's the usual, you try to reproduce the instruments and sounds in your DAW and play the notes. I guess a good thing is to pick a theme you like, analyse it until you understand it. If you pick a movie's main theme you might have many different recorded interpretations of it available which is good because it gives you the same theme in different forms, and you're trying to create just another of those forms so it guides you but also shows you how much freedom you have. Pick something with a strong theme (that means something you can whistle, as opposed to one of those more ambient soundtrack things that no one can whistle), and pick something simple. A lot of what Morricone did for instance was pretty simple yet catchy.

At first it might seem daunting but the more familiar you become with a piece/theme you analysed the more you understand how simple it actually is. I'd suggest first that you learn to make covers, composing something entirely new is itself another added layer of difficulty you don't need quite yet. I see so many people who try to make original compositions but still lack the skills and experience to even make a good cover so it either sounds bad or pretty limited. How can you make a good original if you lack the skills to make a good copy?
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Do you mean you want to make music for actual film/tv/visual media or just "that kind of music" for the sake of the music alone? If you mean for actual moving images the best way to train is to rip a few good short movies from Youtube and start scoring. Remove the original audio and just start layering your own ideas and see how it affects the mood of the film.

I'd say the trickiest part in any kind of film scoring is to be able to identify the power you have over the "tone" and mood of a film. Technical difficulties comes in the form of precise music cue lengths. If a director says we need 12 seconds of music here that highlights <insert mood here> you'll have to make it happen. It's not easy at all but practice makes perfect.
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Do you mean you want to make music for actual film/tv/visual media or just "that kind of music" for the sake of the music alone?
That's an interesting question.

In the (distant) future I woudl try to make some soundtracks for media, computer games or whatever. But for now I have no stuff to score.

For now I would like just to learn stuff and incorporate cinematic passages in my trance tunes, or maybe ambient. Or just learn the different approach than layering 4/4 loops. That being said, I don't listen to cinematic music on regular basis.
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Tricky-Loops wrote: (...)someone like Armin van Buuren who claims to make a track in half an hour and all his songs sound somewhat boring(...)

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I bookmarked this page a few days ago but I'll probably never get around to looking at it properly. The site may be of general interest to you though. It looks to be very well conceived.

The page I bookmarked ...

http://www.midi-orchestration.net/p/bui ... ation.html

MIDI Orchestration
Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.

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As far as forums go vi-control has a lot of info on this type of thing. It is mostly centered on gear, but there is a lot of good info on composition also.

On YouTube check out spitfire audio, Daniel James and Thinkspace. They all have good info on writing and insturments used in cinematic songs. If you don't know any theory I suggest learning as it will help achieve those cinematic sounds without tons of trial and error.

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