Electronic Music Composition Course

Improve your workflow. Learn to write chords, arrange and create.

Duration: 12 weeks

Included free with every

Complete Music Production Course Master Course

Introduction

You may be producing music, but good are your composition skills? Forget GCSE music lessons, this course has been created to give music producers and sound engineers a solid grounding in musical theory and keyboard skills using contemporary examples – from Daft Punk to techno.

The knowledge you’ll gain from this course will underpin your approach to making music, and will give you a confidence to experiment creatively. This course will allow you to generate ideas not only quickly but with ease, and will answer questions like:

What are keys, scales, melodies? How do they fit into a groove? What’s a time signature? How do I develop a chord structure? What’s the anatomy of a drum rhythm? How can I create a track, with a sample as a starting point? How do I work vocals, timing and tuning to make my tracks tighter? How can I improve my remixing? How do I make a bigger drop? How can I make my music more interesting? What arrangements can I look at? How can I finish this track?

It’s important to remember, this course isn’t just for music producers wanting to improve. If you’re a sound engineer, music theory will help you to communicate with the musicians around you in a language they understand. If you want to create music for other mediums such as films or TV, a foundation of music theory is absolutely essential for your workflow.

This is a great all-rounder course for anyone wanting to delve deeper into music. The training will improve your musical ear, and help take your ideas to a finished arrangement, ready for mixdown.

You don’t need to play an instrument or be able to read music in order to do this course. No musical theory background required!

Did you know? Electronic Music Composition is normally taken as a module in part of a larger course. All our ‘Complete Music Production’ Courses and ‘Master’ Course include this module for free.

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Suitability
16+. Read more on our eligibility here.
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COURSE FEES
Advance payment: £525
Monthly instalments: from £7
BONUS!
Upon starting the course, you will have 12 weeks unlimited access to SEM’s Midi Labs, where you can use Ableton Live to practice and get support from our Tech Support team 7 days a week.

For the Electronic Music Composition Course you must have a working knowledge of Ableton Live to attend the course.

Lessons are delivered on Ableton Live, so you will need to be able to manipulate and input MIDI and audio to keep up with the pace of the class, as the focus will not be on music production, but music composition. We have solutions for if you’re a total beginner, or just new to Ableton Live.

New to music production?
If you have not made music before at all, take a look at our beginner friendly Online Music Production Courses.

If you prefer to learn in-house, our Ableton Live Short Course or some 1-2-1 training prior to the Electronic Music Composition Course would be suitable. Book a call with a course advisor now.
Using a DAW other than Ableton?
If you’re a music producer but new to Ableton Live, we would recommend that you download the 1-month free trial of Ableton Live.

We can then provide you with a set of basic Ableton Live training videos to prepare you before the Electronic Music Composition Course. Read here for the detailed list of what you’ll need to be able to do.

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REQUIREMENTS

You will need a working knowledge of Music Production. If you are new to Ableton, we can provide you with free online training videos to orientate you. You don’t however need to play an instrument or have music quals to study this course.

STUDIO ACCESS : 12 WEEKS

We are open 12pm – 10pm Monday – Friday, and 12 – 9pm on weekends for you to use our Midi Labs and Tech Support staff. Our iMacs are armed with the latest Ableton Live and Native Instruments Komplete software.

MODERN COMPOSITION

Forget classical music lessons at secondary school. This course uses lots of electronic music examples, asking ‘how did they make that?’ If you have any music genres you want to look at, we can explore these in class.

Subjects Covered

Get started
The keyboard
Bars & beats
Tempo
Analysing music
Theory
Keys & scales
Basic chords
Extended chords
Inversions

Writing
Melodies
Bass lines
Harmony and chords
Arpeggios
Creativity
Sampling
Creative Effects Processing
MIDI effects
MIDI from audio

Structure
Song sections
Arrangement
Analysing songs
Templates
Beats
Style breakdowns
Beat building tools
Sound selection
Swing & Groove

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Start dates and course fees

Course Info

Start dates alternate between Mondays and Wednesdays throughout the year.

This course is often studied as a module within a larger course. If you study any ‘Complete‘ or ‘Master‘ Music Production Course you get this module included as part of the training.

Book in for a call with a course advisor to discuss your full timetable.

Course fees

Option One : Advanced Payment
£525 advanced payment to pay course in full.

Option Two : Monthly payments from 6 – 48 months
We can offer payment plans from 6 – 48 months, subject to passing our criteria. Plans from 0% finance, and from £7 per month. Credit check not always required.

Book a call with a course advisor who can discuss the best financing option to suit your circumstances.

When should I enrol?

In short: enrol as soon as you are ready. All live course dates are available for you to enrol on.

Unlike most training centres SEM has a limit on lecturer to student ratio and keeps its class sizes small. We therefore have limited availability and courses fill up in advance. We would recommend enrolling as soon as you are ready, to avoid disappointment.

We would always recommend chatting to one of our friendly course advisors prior to enrolment. Book a call now.

Read before enrolling : Course FAQ

Suitability for this course

This course is delivered on Ableton Live. You will need a basic working knowledge of Ableton Live to attend the course.

If you are a total beginner to music production

…and have not made music before at all using a DAW, then it will not be suitable for you to take the Electronic Music Composition course just yet. Take a look at our beginner friendly Ableton Live Short Course, Introduction to Music Production Fast Track Course, or some 1-2-1 training prior to the Electronic Music Composition Course would be suitable.

We would encourage you to book a call with a course advisor to discuss the best options.

If you have made music before using a DAW, but just not using Ableton Live

We would suggest the following:

Download the 1-month free trial of Ableton Live
Enrol for the Electronic Music Composition Course
Notify us as soon as you have enrolled that you are not familiar with Ableton Live, as we can provide you with a set of basic Ableton Live training videos to prepare you. You will need to ensure that you can do the following before the Electronic Music Composition Course starts:
- Be familiar with using a Mac
- Create/edit MIDI Clips
- Work with instruments/v. basic sound design (filters envelopes LFO)
- Arm tracks
- Apply FX
- Apply basic sampling and working with audio
- Edit arrangements (i.e dragging/resizing clips/loops copy + paste, automation etc)

If you do not have a Mac at home, please do not worry. It is simply some basic shortcuts and mouse buttons that will be different from a PC. When enrolling, please notify us if you do not have a Mac. We can allow you some Midi Lab access to prior to the course so that you can familiarise yourself with a Mac and get assistance from our Tech Support team.

Wheelchair Access

There is no wheelchair access for this course at present, please contact SEM for alternative arrangements.