Mongster06
New Member
Hi Everyone,
This is my first post here and first just wanted to thank everyone here who's so active. I've benefitted greatly from all of the discussions, advice, and input!
Prior to starting MITA, I had gone through various other courses (Evenant, Chris Siu, Scoreclub), with Scoreclub being the best of those. I really like Alain and how he teaches and it is probably the best course in teaching classical style composition. If anything, it is for sure the most comprehensive.
But MITA I found to be something entirely different. It changes the way you see and understand music. I'll share some points from my experience but also want to state, in full disclosure, that I only spent a few months with it and decided to now pursue private lessons. The decision in no way reflects the quality and usefulness of MITA. I just finally heeded a lot of the advice here to get someone I can engage with one-one-one that provides feedback on my work. I do plan to go back to MITA at some point. Back to MITA:
- It does NOT do away with diatonic theory. I was afraid of this before starting. In fact, it probably helps to have some grounding in it before starting MITA, though it doesn't seem like it's necessary either. By the end of the basic course (which you get even before the main composition course), I had a deeper and more profound understanding of all the modes than I had gotten in my other studies up to that point.
- Frank is an incredible video instructor. He is incredibly clear, repeats concepts multiple times, and you really don't feel like you need to rewatch the lesson afterward, though I'm sure it may be helpful to. He also has a great energy and really helps to take away a lot of the anxiety you feel early on in developing your own composition workflow.
- It provides you with a really clear workflow that can be particularly helpful if you're like me, less than 2 years into composition, and still struggling to find a proper workflow.
- It'll feel really weird to write without key signatures and only using accidentals. But you get used to it fast and it'll quickly make sense why. I still had hesitations until I saw that my now private teacher, an accomplished composer, often writes without key signatures.
- You definitely need to know how to read notation to get the most out of it. I don't argue one way or the other on this topic as I prefer notation but have friends who can't read sheet music and still write some pretty cool things (though it's not orchestral). If you don't and don't want to learn, Evenant is probably the best at working around this from the few programs I've tried.
- For me, I did not find that it in any way tainted or obstructed the "artistry" of the craft by prescribing a certain way of doing things. In fact, it was the opposite. Prior to MITA, I would sit down to listen for music in my head and found that it was hard to find "new sounds". It seemed like everything had a I-IV-V element to it, or something like it, all the time. With MITA, you explore new scales, progressions, sounds and then you can choose what you like and use it while discarding the rest. It's a great way to use your technical aptitude to lay down ideas and progressions into an idea palette, and then shift to your more emotional artistic instinct to choose and build on whichever one calls to you most.
- I'm not usually a community person but the community at MITA is really great. I had a question that I posted and Frank answered in a day. But the really great thing is to be around other composers. If you're like me and the only person you know that writes orchestral music is, well, yourself, I can't express how cool it was to get on a video call and see a bunch of people talking about composition, sharing their works, questions, and challenges. Everyone is also really nice and approachable.
Anyway, I hope this helps someone searching through here, much like I often do. I'm happy to elaborate and answer other questions.
This is my first post here and first just wanted to thank everyone here who's so active. I've benefitted greatly from all of the discussions, advice, and input!
Prior to starting MITA, I had gone through various other courses (Evenant, Chris Siu, Scoreclub), with Scoreclub being the best of those. I really like Alain and how he teaches and it is probably the best course in teaching classical style composition. If anything, it is for sure the most comprehensive.
But MITA I found to be something entirely different. It changes the way you see and understand music. I'll share some points from my experience but also want to state, in full disclosure, that I only spent a few months with it and decided to now pursue private lessons. The decision in no way reflects the quality and usefulness of MITA. I just finally heeded a lot of the advice here to get someone I can engage with one-one-one that provides feedback on my work. I do plan to go back to MITA at some point. Back to MITA:
- It does NOT do away with diatonic theory. I was afraid of this before starting. In fact, it probably helps to have some grounding in it before starting MITA, though it doesn't seem like it's necessary either. By the end of the basic course (which you get even before the main composition course), I had a deeper and more profound understanding of all the modes than I had gotten in my other studies up to that point.
- Frank is an incredible video instructor. He is incredibly clear, repeats concepts multiple times, and you really don't feel like you need to rewatch the lesson afterward, though I'm sure it may be helpful to. He also has a great energy and really helps to take away a lot of the anxiety you feel early on in developing your own composition workflow.
- It provides you with a really clear workflow that can be particularly helpful if you're like me, less than 2 years into composition, and still struggling to find a proper workflow.
- It'll feel really weird to write without key signatures and only using accidentals. But you get used to it fast and it'll quickly make sense why. I still had hesitations until I saw that my now private teacher, an accomplished composer, often writes without key signatures.
- You definitely need to know how to read notation to get the most out of it. I don't argue one way or the other on this topic as I prefer notation but have friends who can't read sheet music and still write some pretty cool things (though it's not orchestral). If you don't and don't want to learn, Evenant is probably the best at working around this from the few programs I've tried.
- For me, I did not find that it in any way tainted or obstructed the "artistry" of the craft by prescribing a certain way of doing things. In fact, it was the opposite. Prior to MITA, I would sit down to listen for music in my head and found that it was hard to find "new sounds". It seemed like everything had a I-IV-V element to it, or something like it, all the time. With MITA, you explore new scales, progressions, sounds and then you can choose what you like and use it while discarding the rest. It's a great way to use your technical aptitude to lay down ideas and progressions into an idea palette, and then shift to your more emotional artistic instinct to choose and build on whichever one calls to you most.
- I'm not usually a community person but the community at MITA is really great. I had a question that I posted and Frank answered in a day. But the really great thing is to be around other composers. If you're like me and the only person you know that writes orchestral music is, well, yourself, I can't express how cool it was to get on a video call and see a bunch of people talking about composition, sharing their works, questions, and challenges. Everyone is also really nice and approachable.
Anyway, I hope this helps someone searching through here, much like I often do. I'm happy to elaborate and answer other questions.
