6. Transforming Ideas into Music: Exercises That Actually Work
- Arın Aykut
- 18 hours ago
- 4 min read
Like many professions, composing for film, TV, and games requires daily work, following a certain routine, and staying engaged with composition, orchestration, and arranging. Ultimately, what will make you write good music is practice, just like if you go for a walk every day, the next day you’ll walk more easily. Mastering a good DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), developing your writing style, understanding the details of the material that inspires you, discovering its nuances, improving your speed, fully knowing your plugins and sample libraries, understanding the limits of your technology, and keeping your ear trained through regular work are all indispensable.
In this post, I want to share scoring exercises that I have personally found useful for anyone aiming to become a film, TV, or game composer, whether you are currently studying for it or just starting out professionally. The methods listed here are meant for practice before you have project responsibilities, during your early projects, or in gaps between assignments when you want to improve. Not everything will suit everyone, but I encourage you to try whichever exercises fit your schedule, goals, and skills.
Unlike some approaches, I don’t think aspiring score composers should follow the same work routine as a concert composer. I believe we always need to be triggered visually and aurally by moving images, on-screen performances, or any other visual material. For this reason, I don’t personally recommend exercises that create music into nothing or only from imagination. Don’t be afraid to get inspired, it’s actually easy once you know how.
TIME TO BE TRIGGERED
I am a black-and-white photography enthusiast, and I recommend you try photography too. It encourages you to think about visual composition and brings together many parameters, while giving you material to translate into music. If one photo isn’t enough, a 20-second video you shoot yourself in the city can spark musical ideas. You might even make your own short film to score.
You can also find and download scenes from successful films that have the music removed, and use them for practice (rescoring). However, avoid scenes whose music you know very well if there’s any risk of accidental copying. Your inspiration doesn’t need to be limited to films, you can use TV series, ads, trailers, or any moving visuals. Remember to use these only for educational purposes and don’t share them without permission.
I remember years ago doing a rescore of the opening scene of the BBC’s Sherlock, probably as a university assignment. Even though I still think the music I wrote was quite bold, I got carried away and shared my rescore on social media, and on top of that, I tagged the amazing composer Michael Price, hoping he would see it. Let’s say it out loud: I took one of the most successful works of a composer at a very important point in their career, completely erased his music, wrote my own, and shared it tagging them for approval. And of course, even in the kindest way he could, he didn’t respond. Don’t ever do something like that.
One of my favorite exercises comes from a technique mentioned by master scoring mix engineer Alan Meyerson in a workshop. Limit yourself to a small number of plugins and sound libraries. For example, write music using only a solo violin library, one reverb, and one EQ. This forces you to think creatively, understand sound manipulation, learn the limits of your library, and master the few tools you have. I highly recommend this.
Another enjoyable method is copying a piece of music you admire as closely as possible. Choose composers with rich orchestration like John Williams, John Powell, Patrick Doyle, or epic styles like Hans Zimmer, Brian Tyler, Lorne Balfe. Import the reference track into your DAW and try to recreate it. To really learn something, you must feel the need for it. Searching for technical solutions to something you hear but don’t yet know how to do is more valuable than just reading or experimenting.
Specifically in areas like film music, commercial music, and trailer music, many competitions are now held online. Examples include the Berlin International Film Scoring Competition, ScoreLive Competition, Indie Film Music Contest, Zurich Film Music Competition, and Oticons Faculty International Film Music Competition. In my opinion, the biggest benefit of these competitions is that they provide excellent scenes for you to compose for. More than winning, the real value is in having access to this material, practicing with it, and listening to other participants’ music to gain experience with different styles. However, since most of them have entry fees, I recommend managing your budget wisely. The key is to gain the necessary experience, not to hop from competition to competition just to win.
Finally, arranging simple melodic ideas and orchestrating them is crucial. This helps you develop and expand ideas, while understanding their playability and orchestration. Conversely, you can reduce a strong orchestral score to a single instrument like piano. This exercise teaches you how to adapt large ideas to playable forms, sparking creativity and providing solutions for your next project.
PATIENCE AND CONSISTENCY
I may have gone on a bit long, but I hope readers are patient. Just like reading this post takes time, so does mastering the skills I’ve outlined. Patience and consistency are key, but don’t worry: the results will come faster than you expect. Treat your music-making ability like a muscle. Train it regularly, take care of it, and it will give you the strength you need when you need it most.