Alexander University announces new writing for Strings Online Course

Alexander University's Professional Orchestration Writing For Strings Level 1 online course is open for registration with an April 21 start date. To keep classes small only six students are accepted. Registration ends Sunday April 20. This six week course is taught by composer/educator Stephen Hill.

Writing For Strings is a hands-on course taught by having students write original two-minute pieces and having them played by a musician. The piece is then checked for playability with input on how to improve their writing. The student's work is based on a piece of literature. If a student wants to do film, TV or game composing, the piece is approached like a scene from a movie. If the student wants to do concert scoring, the piece of literature becomes the "inspiration" for the new musical composition. In Writing For Strings, the student writes four two-minute compositions, one each for solo violin, viola, cello and bass.

Using sample libraries, students are also required to do what the industry calls "MIDI mock-ups." This is an electronic recording of their piece using sample libraries. By doing this, students also build their recording skills.

To aid students with this new skill demanded by the film and recording sectors of the music business, Alexander University has teamed with the Vienna Symphonic Library to provide students 13 solo works with MIDI files for each major orchestral instrument that was created by composer Jay Bacal using the Vienna Instruments library.

By comparison, traditional college classes have students only do exercises that are rarely performed live, if at all. Few colleges teach "MIDI mock-up" skills.

Professional Orchestration Platinum Learning Package is the required class text. Included is the Professional Orchestration book, the Professional Mentor workbook, the Strings Position booklet, MP3s of a majority of the book's 200+ full page/full score examples, and the 13 MIDI mock-up compositions by composer Jay Bacal. Also included is The Concert Package created exclusively for Alexander University by eClassical.com. The Concert Package contains an average 20-minute concert for each solo instrument including harp and percussion. Professional Orchestration has been endorsed by winners of the Academy, Grammy and Emmy Awards including Bruce Broughton and the late Jerry Goldsmith.

For registration information, please visit http://www.truespec.com/professional-orchestration-writing-strings-p-922.html

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Back 11.04.2008