I would like to tell about what I learned and know from watching the videos from this.
Maybe someone will not agree (if he is stupid), but most of the people that expected to learn something ended up being disappointed from this nonsense, and here is chapter by chapter from me.

1. World of cinematic music - We will go very deep, great tutorial, you will be pro Zimmer, you will be so good at music, we will learn techniques, we will learn everything.

2. Crafting your theme - Minor is sad, major is happy, or at least not sad, I made 10h videos to tell the one sentence that includes happy and sad words. I am amazing.

3. Harmony - I pressed note E, so lets use chord E, and than we can press G, and use chord G, and than we will have two chords and that is harmony, and see how it flows, how we have harmony.
Because I have this melody, my chords doing well with it.
Hey, we can add 7th chord too, but I have no idea why some special note as 4th note, or triad plus that note works in particular situation, but anyway listen my theme, look it sounds good, so you should make music that sound good, bro.
Look how my progression goes, look how my common progression works, look how my this and how my that.
Spread chords, but if you end up having wrong bass note when inverting, use basic bass note, and I don't know what you will do if bass notes have big interval and than it sounds weird on bass or cello, maybe try different progression.

4. Structuring your track- If you want to track to be good, structure it, track should be structured, so when you structure your track, your track will be structured.
Intro, intro more, go to climax, go back, mmm good bro, and you have counter melody you know, and how do you make it, I don't know, but you have it, you have counter melody, I introduce counter melody, have chords, ostinato, you will be good, have elements and building blocks, hmm, look I talk only 5 minutes, lemme do more, you have blocks, elements, and counter point, have individual elements, and have horns, and trumpets, and strings, and i mean violins, and make your track sound good. See you in another chapter where we will learn everything.

5. Orchestration and arrangement - When you orchestrate it's called orchestration and when you arrange its arrangement. Look how I....
Choir has nothing to do with this topic, but I have to talk about it because I have no idea to explain you orchestration and arrangement.
Look my track is so epic....
Violins have strings, that is why we call them strings, umm, and that will help you orchestrate like a pro, bro.

6. Creating realistic mockup - Listen this, yeah, that is one fun little track, see you in the next chapter girls and boys.

7. Mixing and mastering - You need to master your track.

Now, you are pro, and good luck making your pro music.

Now, I am back, I am Esteros, before you make bullshit comments, bring me facts what have you learned from "Cinematic Music: From Idea To Finished Recording", except from nonsense I just wrote.

All this bullshit the guy talks in videos, are mentioned in any of the short YouTube videos about trailer music, or classical music.
From such expensive tutorial, one would expect things like:
1. How we deal with long intervals in voicing, if we need to do it? (Choosing another chord is not an pro answer, but kid answer.)
2. What about dynamics and expression? (Seems like not important from world class pro evenant composer.)
3. Where this pro composer said what instrument doubles what, and why?
4. Where this pro composer said what instrument doubles in octave what, and why?
5. Where this pro composer brought us the types of arranging instruments depending on what instrument and which octave we want our melody to be on?
6. What happens with choir, playing melody on, lets say B6, when there is ostinato on B6, and they clash on the high register of frequencies? (Choose another voicing, octaves, chords is not an answer.)
6. What happens with violas, playing support (harmony) on, lets say B4, when there is ostinato (spiccato or staccato) on B4 by cellos, and they clash on the high register of frequencies? (Choose another voicing, octaves, chords is not an answer.)
7. How the fuck all this shit he told me, actually helps me to have finished track from piano idea?
It makes no sense, if you name tutorial this way, you should have one or few themes on piano and show ways on which one can develop them into different finished tracks.
Instead he used another example in every new video, and that does not make any sense with the title of the tutorial.
7th. question is actually:" How do we go From Idea To Finished Recording?"

I feel sorry for all the people bought their tutorials, this seriously should be banned and inspected on internet by law or some fucks like that.
Nowdays internet is full of scam.

I am an fucking amateur composer too, and I can make better tutorial than this shit, because he makes music same as I do, and when he comes with good idea, he makes video about it and sells it as tutorial.
This is a bunch of non-connected stuff inside nonsense title, I could make the same, and I would probably make tutorial in 1h or so, but it will be better than all what he said.

Alex was clear proof they have no idea what they talk about, they paid him to advertise them, and he still can not explain why he does what he does very well, but at least he does it for free, and he admitted he use ears to create music, so he can not explain it well.
But he said he went through evenant tutorials and that's why he knows.

"I am Alex, I finished evenant tutorials, that is why I use ears to create music, because they teach me nothing, so everyone, go and take their courses you will learn everything (nothing) like I did, and you will use ears to make music."

This is all full of shit!

 

Last edited: Oct 29, 2020

I'll tell you right now
- When i started looking into courses, i was hyped up about "Evenant" and their product - simply due to exclusivity & the way it was presented.

However, once i "got" them, i've understood there's not much that you can really learn from it from the sense of musical harmony/ground up

They really are bad at explaining Harmony to you, and it's more of a "do what i do, ask questions later"

Courses are good in a sense that you'll see process of someone creating an epic orchestral track
But for you to understand why this works the way it works

You simply need knowledge of musical theory/harmony

I recommend:
Michael Hewitt - Music Theory for Computer Musicians (Harmony/Theory | those're 2x books)
Julian Velard (Lynda) - All of his courses. (Just fucking torrent it)

And this two youtube channels for some concepts:

The reason why i hate Evenant as a team and their courses is simply because they created monopoly on courses for orchestral composition
- There aint better even though these are shit -
Once i find myself capable of teaching someone what i know regarding musical harmony/theory and composing as well, i'll make courses in the end tbh.

 

True.
I mean like, I have basic knowledge about some thing, like for example I know that bassoon will be great support for cellos, cellos will be good support for double bass, violas in middle between deep freqs and high freqs can serve well for counter melody, or some of notes to give some range to harmony, and so on.
Even though this might be considered like advanced, I still consider it as my basic knowledge.

As, sometimes I find myself can't solve how to make track more full if I have high freqs melody, or high violins range melody, and can't really support it well with harmony, because everything needs, or tends to go on lower freqs, track will naturally sound muddy, because mix will lack high freqs atmosphere.

Or, situation number 2, have melody on cellos, and try utilize harmony on high register of violins (sustained), will always create some mess in track, because human ear naturally likes to catch high freqs first, before it reaches to realize melody is actually on cellos. (Listen to Game of Thrones track, producer did not dare to use high register, but his track is all about mid and low end, it is smart move, but yet not the perfect one, if he utilized high register, it would be better track than it is right now.)

I think it would be superb if Thomas Bergersen do his tutorials.

TBH, I read few books on this, but none did mentioned things like this, and one that comes to answer this, will be my real hero.

 

Also, in their tutorial, I laughed when they tried to talk about minors as sad, and majors as brave, heroic or whatever.
It is not like this at all.
Every melody by piano, well, almost every, if you play it slow, it is sad, if you play it fast it is "dancy", does no matter what scale and interval it is.

Also when you bram with horns, it will always sound angry, happy, adventuristic, whatever scale or interval you use.

Or, lets say you want mystery sound, you again get this by choose of instruments and not by choose of scale or melodic intervals.

I find them more like complicating things to beginers than bringing anything good to it.

 

Evergreen syndrome : dumb ppl trying to convince other dumb ppl they will be more clever listening to them

 

Tbh, if you're good on music theory
I recommend that you find books on orchestral composition as a whole
Not as a theory, but as which instruments supplement each other
-- There's a course that i intend on finishing from Jonathan E Petters
But i myself am weakest on music theory/harmony so i'm sort of learning that first.

 

Well, the pain in the above posts speaks for itself. (and @Esteros - I really enjoyed your rant )
I too always feel very pissed off seeing ignorance hyped-up and sold as knowledge.
Nothing is worse than having your precious learning time wasted with inferior and even damaging learning materials.

Maybe people could start posting links to good stuff instead and then forget about the garbage.

Given that the discussion leans more towards orchestration rather than just music theory...

[1] The guy that @Sillytune mentioned (Jonathan Peters) does some nice stuff
https://composerjonathanpeters.com/on-line-courses

[2] Groove3 has a nice course
https://www.groove3.com/tutorials/midi-orchestration-explained

Surely it can't be hard to find many more. I'm looking forward to seeing other suggestions.

 

Sounds like most of my teachers at uni

 

TOTALLY AGREE! Evenant is a joke, i was shocked watching their BS.
If you want to know abt Music theory go to Rick Beatos You Tube Channel and watch for free!
If you need theory backup, buy his E Book

 

Nice to know. I'll skim through them then hopefully chuck them as they do take up a lot of hd space.

 

Tbh, i don't understand what's the Hype about Rick Beato

I honestly believe that he's one of worst teachers on youtube
Yes he has knowledge, and that can be deffinitevly seen, but he doesn't know how to pass that knowledge onto students

Also his book?
It's a joke - I dare you to go trough the book and try to understand what the fuck's going around it

There're far better musical theory/harmony teachers/courses out there than RB.

 

I agree when it comes to teach something complex like musical theory. I haven't read his books, just watched some YT videos.

The guy is really good giving his thoughts and rants and he's funny (in a good way). He knows his stuff too. But I don't think he's that good when teaching complex subjects.

 

i gave an opinion regarding EVENANT, and what i think would help any "newbie" BETTER, to get into the complexity of music, and production.
Its much more than "theory", its a lifetime approach, which needs experience and dedication. And Ricks talks a lot of the "background"
The Question was and would not be "who is the best theory teacher? This is IMPOSSIBLE to tell anyone.

 

If you think they’re bad, wait till you watch the utter trash that goes up on Udemy & Skillshare. You’re totally & completely right. The market is saturated with low-level crap that pass for tutorials.

I’d also like to agree with the other members about Rick Beato. He just talks & talks & talks. I can quite confidently say I never learned a thing from watching a number of his videos.

 

I'll watch something of his every so great once in a while. Think a lot has to do with that he's a really good presenter. He has that kind of a face, way of speaking, easygoing style, and personality that attracts people.

 

Last edited: Oct 30, 2020

Maybe I am wrong and you can learn something.
I just expressed myself as frustrated by it, and I wanted to know did anyone got any clue watching their videos.
I seriously did not get 1 good point from that.

Even if I forget about title, which has nothing to do with video content, and act like it is some type of trailer or modern orchestral music tutorial, I really have no clue, I learned nothing from it.

It's like one of those YouTube videos you watched for hours, just to realize you're gaining nothing from it.

And, yes, every tutorial anyone makes is basic, what is violin, what is triad, what is minor, what is major, they tell you info, but not how to do it, books tell you how Mozart, Bach etc. did it, and first mentioned (these modern composers, in video tutorials, not the books), they use titles as "Superb tutorial", "Epic music never easier", "Ladies and gentleman, believe or not, you will be Hans Fucking Zimmer after this tutorial".
And when you open it, they humming for half an hour to tell you violin has wires, than humming and Cccing half another hour to tell you that flute goes in your mouth, and than they play something on piano, randomly, finding good melody and fitting chords to tell you now this looks good, here is how you do it.

I learned the most by listening two steps from hell, Hans Zimmer and recreating these tracks (transcription).
Zero points from theory, zero points from video tutorials.
Theory is also how Bach, how Mozart did it, and is different depending on period.
Their time music had no parallel fifths, our modern time, parallels are everywhere, why, well, because music theory is just to know some basics, other things are your ears and your common sense.

There are thousands of people that know theory, but never know to produce a single track.
Theory is to know note names, to know specific intervals, scales, and once you grab a DAW to produce something, all this does no matter, you can borrow notes from other scales, you can borrow chords too, but it is not bad to know some basics.

I never realized why 7th chords change chord feeling and mostly sound like you missed harmony, and neither book I read explained me why that happens.
That is the thing from theory I will always say I don't know.
And other thing I search for is arrangement of the orchestra, not where and who sits, but with the melodic material.

 

But please also remember that people speak from their own insights, experiences and thoughts in their own books and tutorials, but it doesn't mean automatically that you should do too. For instance music theory says that the key in major should sound happy, but that's not automatically true. It depends on more factors, but music theory doesn't say this. That's why I think music theory is a bit overrated. You're just learning some 'rules', but if you find something what works for you, then is it bad? No, obviously no. Music theory is nothing for me. It really ruins my creativity. Although, I do know the basics, but nothing more.

When for instance Randy Newman says that he likes to orchestrate this instrument in combination with this, does that mean that you should do too? No, I quess not. If you have something what works and it sounds great, then it works and it's great. I mean if everyone makes music made by 'rules' or start copying each other, then everything will sound the same and boring which is already happening in music from today. Where is the music from the past? Additionally, plugins like Scaler aren't going to help either with this to make people more creative.

Maybe The Police should become the music police :P

 

Last edited: Oct 30, 2020

I bet we are from different countries but my teachers at uni were the same. The funny thing, I had to write just like that to pass the classes. So I learnt how to fill one paper fully with only one sentence information.

 

I really like the stuff over at ThinkSpace Education.

 

Nick12, I agrer completely on what have you said.
But, there are some starting rules about 7th chords, which in my case lose sense of a triad and make it sound different without support ing melody.
Second, thrills, tremolo, rips... etc. where we do use them, how do we prepare moment of their usage.
Third, dynamics and expression of string and brass.

In another words, this

but who Know to explain it.