The third class that I took during my first term with Berklee Online was “Music Notation and Score Preparation Using Finale”. Overall I feel it was a really good class for me to take as I hadn’t really used Finale before and it got me very familiar with the ins and outs of the software. It’s an older application that doesn’t have some of the features that many have come to expect from modern software (e.g. ability to option+drag duplicate objects, a way to align text frames with one another, etc.), but once you get to know “how things are done in Finale” it is really deep and pretty powerful. 

The class not only went over how to use Finale but also spent a good amount of time on the do’s and don’ts of general music notation. Some of the topics we covered were: the Finale Interface, Clefs, Key/Time Signatures, Special Notation, creating and working with Lead Sheets, Lyrics, Expression Markings, Repeats & Roadmaps, Instrument Specific Notation & Fingerings, Drum Notation, Ensemble Score & Part Preparation, Page Layout, Publishing Standards and Templates.

It was a lot to cover in twelve weeks, but I’d say that we went through most of the “main path functionalities” of Finale and by the end of the class I was feeling pretty comfortable using the app. Is it my favorite software that I’ve ever used? No, but I know how to work with it now and it does what I need it to do.

All that being said, I still feel that notating by hand is the way to go when I first have an idea. This allows me to quickly sketch out and map musical concepts, so as to get a sense of form and structure. Once all that is in place I use notation software to create fuller versions for presentation/distribution.

Here is a score that I put together for one of our weekly assignments.  

Another class that I took during the Fall Quarter of 2019 was the “Berklee Keyboard Method”. While I have “played keyboards” for years, what I was able to do was all self taught and rather limited. I knew just enough to bring my ideas for songs to fruition. This was my first formal training for the keyboard and I’m really happy that I took the class. 

A lot of ground was covered in just twelve weeks. We went over: reading parts in the treble clef/bass clef/grand staff, different hand positions, walking bass lines, melodies that moved between clefs, accidentals, hand independence, major and minor triads and their inversions, harmonizing melodies, voice leading, various chord progressions, left and right hand chords as the other hand played melodies or bass parts, left hand chord shells (Root + 3rd or 7th), seventh chords using just 3rds & 7ths, as well as some extended chords (9ths & 13ths).

Each week typically had two performance assignments to be submitted where you performed a keyboard part live via video recording. No editing, no quantizing, just the real thing. At times this was really challenging for me as I didn’t have much experience reading from the grand staff and was still developing my hand independence. 

The approach that ended up working for me was to start early in the week learning the pieces at _super_ slow tempos, like 40 bpm. This gave me enough time to interpret the grand staff, get my hands in the right place and play the parts correctly. Once some muscle memory was established I could start moving the tempo up. Towards the latter part of the course I was able to increase the tempo to performance speed within the same day. Wasn’t perfect but once I had accomplished this I knew that I could refine it over the next couple of days. 

Now I still don’t consider myself a keyboard player but I have a better understanding of and facility with the instrument which is something that I wanted for a long time.

As mentioned in my previous blog entry, one of the classes I took during my first term with Berklee Online was “Basic Ear Training 1”. While I had done some ear training previously this was my first “full dose” and I’m glad I took it.

We did a bunch of exercises conducting while singing in various time signatures, as well as learning to read and sing notation via Solfege, with a lot of work focused on hearing & identifying interval relationships/chord types/chord progressions/song forms and towards the latter part of the course we did a fair amount of transcription.

For me the most exciting area of development was transcribing via solfege. Not too long ago this seemed like a fantasy to me. Being able to write music free of an instrument for reference seemed like something that only someone like Quincy Jones could do. It truly was a really great moment for me in my musical life when I realized that I was doing it without trying. Granted, I wasn’t super fast with it and the melodies were rather simple, just the same I was doing it.

I still have a ways to go for all of this to be second nature but I’m happy to know that I can do it. Looking forward to the next ear training class that I’ll be taking in the upcoming term: “Harmonic Ear Training”.

Here is the daily exercise that I came up with as part of my final assignments.

Last July I was accepted to the Music Composition for Film, TV and Games Degree Program at Berklee Online and December 22nd marked the end of my first term of classes. I have one word to describe my experience so far: wow. This was perhaps the most intense three months of my adult life. Pretty much all I did was study, take care of family stuff and sleep. 7 days and nights a week for 3 months. Often I would work through the night not going to sleep until 10:30am or later just to get through the coursework and assignments. 

For this term I went full time and took four classes: “Basic Ear Training 1”, “Berklee Keyboard Method”, “Music Notation and Score Preparation Using Finale” and “Music Theory & Composition 1”.  Each was challenging, interesting and covered a lot of ground in just twelve weeks. I also received prior learning credits for two additional classes (“Music Production 101” and “Producing Music with Logic”) for what I had learned on my own over the years. One key thing that I discovered through all of this is that I won’t be taking four classes in a term ever again. It was just too much. Glad I did it, but once was enough.

All that being said, the teachers were subject matter experts, the learning environment was professionally designed & implemented and the content was extensive and very well thought out. I’m super impressed and happy to be associated with the program.  

I’ll go over the specifics of each class in separate blog entries. 

The one recurring thought I had throughout this term was how I wished that I had been able to do this a whole lot sooner. A number of things that were a bit of a mystery to me for years are much clearer now (e.g. songwriting with modal interchange, transcription via solfege, do’s and don’ts of notation, voice leading keyboard parts, etc.) and I think my musical life would have taken a much different trajectory. I’m really looking forward to the next term and seeing who I become through all this.