
Modulation 101: Berklee Online Instructors on How to Leap into a Key Change
Modulation can inject a song with a jolt of interest, but it takes skill to make a key change work. Be advised, songwriters: Use modulation in moderation. And learn from these Berklee Online instructors, sharing their favorite songs to feature key changes.
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Orchestration: How to Write for an Orchestra
“It is assumed that, if you can write for orchestra, you can write for anything.” An agent once told me that, and I took it to heart so much that I wrote two courses to help you get where you need to be with orchestration. Here is an excerpt.

Music Composition Techniques and Resources
Learn various music composition techniques and resources that will help you get started as you write your own piece of music.

Scoring for Games: Composing Music for Interactive Media
Michael Sweet shares eight techniques that can be used to score interactive music for video games.

Melodic Shapes in Music Arranging
Music arranger Jerry Gates explains how to create music arrangements for linear, circular, and square melodic shapes in this excerpt from his course “Arranging: Woodwinds and Strings.”

Jon Kull on Orchestrating Some of Hollywood’s Biggest Blockbuster Movies
You know who Jon Kull is, even if you don’t know that you know who he is. You’ve heard his orchestrations in films like all of the “Hunger Games” movies, “King Kong,” “Avatar,” “Black Panther,” “Mary Poppins Returns,” and so many more.

Modal Harmony in Jazz Composition
The modes have provided fertile musical soil for jazz composers since the late 1950s. In effect, modes can be viewed as displacements of the major scale.

Arranging for Horns with Jerry Gates
Jerry Gates’s work as an arranger, orchestrator, composer, and producer have been featured worldwide, on the concert stage and for TV shows and commercials.

Imaginary Barlines in Musical Notation
Jonathan Feist explains the concept of imaginary barlines in music theory, a notation convention designed to help the music reader know what’s syncopated.

Guitar Notation Basics
Guitarists might read three different types of notation. Each has its strengths.