MA Professional Media Composition

Full Time - 12 Months (30 hours/week)
Part Time - 24 Months (15 hours/week)
Part Time - 36 Months (8 hours/week)

Professional Media Composition is for composers who want to earn a living writing music for media. It delivers the creative, technical and business skills to help you succeed. Taught exclusively by working professionals, the course draws its knowledge directly from the industry so students can be sure they are learning exactly what it takes to make a living in the current market.

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Course Details

Through studying the creative aspects of composition, the software skills, and the specifics of the music business, you will be fully prepared to start, or further, your career as a working composer.

On this course, you will learn:

How to write in a wide variety of styles using different compositional techniques.
To produce professional quality mock-ups and demos.
To develop a voice of your own so you can stand out from the crowd.
The importance of market research, what producers and directors are buying right now, and how to deliver market-focused music.
The technical aspects of writing to picture, spotting a film, and working with hit points and markers.
Music editing, an important skill for composers both in terms of boosting productivity and also for opening new avenues of work.
The research and critical thinking skills to help you put media music in context.

I chose ThinkSpace because the tutors on the course all work in the industry themselves.

I feel the skills that I'm learning as a composer are right up there... The 21st century skills that any media composer needs to have.

James Wedlock

Film Composer and 'MA Professional Media Composition' Student

Student rating: (4.8)

Teaching Staff

Our tutors are all current working professionals, many involved at the highest level in the business.

The tutors who will be giving you individual feedback, either in writing or at the student workshops, have composing and orchestration credits including:

Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes
Iron Man Armoured Adventures
Die Hard 4
Angry Birds
Pokémon Movies
Robot Chicken
Batman: Arkham Origins and hundreds more.

They’ve worked for every major film and game studio and networks and production companies including Disney, Dreamworks, Marvel, Universal, Warner Bros, Sky, BBC, ITV, NBC, ABC and many others.

See All Teaching Staff

Guy Michelmore

Composition / Orchestration

Stephanie Taylor

Composition

George Oldziey

Composition / Orchestration

Bill Boston

Orchestration

Erik Desiderio

Composition / Games

Allison Piccioni

Composition

Douglas Black Heaton

Composition

Fletcher Beasley

Composition / Games

David Denyer

Composition / Orchestration

Student Stories

Our students are working in every corner of the industry from features films and television, to video games and trailers. Setting out on their careers as composers, orchestrators and sound designers, they continue to receive active support finding and pitching for work in the months and years after graduation.

Our recent students have gone on to work at Mojang, Creative Assembly, Frontier, Dam Busters and many more. Our graduates have worked on the score for Spiderman PS4 and scored the latest Battlefield 1 Apocalypse trailer.

See our student 'Hall Of Fame'

Course Structure

Your course falls into eight modules plus a final major project which lasts three months. Each module focuses on a different area of media composition, while at the same time developing specific compositional, technical and business skills.

Schedules

We offer 3 different schedules, and students are able to pick which suits them best.

Full Time - 12 Months (30 hours/week)

Part Time - 24 Months (15 hours/week)

Part Time - 36 Months (8 hours/week)

These are estimates of the time a student will spend on each schedule. It will vary from student to student, depending on your rate of work. This includes live workshops, one-to-one tutorials, reading and watching the course materials, and time spent on assignment projects.

Learn More About Your Time Commitment

Finance

Total course price:

£9750

UK and International students pay the same. Exact price is subject to exchange rate fluctuation for those paying in other currencies.

We offer interest-free payment plans from £218.06 per month, where you can spread the cost of your course across the duration of your studies. The payment plan you are on depends on the schedule you are on.

Students will be required to pay a deposit on enrolling. For more information on this, visit the Student Finance page.

Learn More About Finance Options

Applications

Before applying for one of our courses, we highly recommend getting in contact first. It is useful for us to hear your current musical abilities, and this also allows you to ask any questions you may have about studying with us. Please get in contact at

postgraduate@thinkspaceeducation.com

To find out more about the application process, visit the Applications page.

Learn More About The Application Process

Interested?

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*To submit an application, there will be an application fee

Frequently Asked Questions

For more FAQs, and more information please visit the Applications & FAQs, Student Finance and Study With ThinkSpace pages.

Ideally, applicants will have an undergraduate degree in music. However, there is an option for those who do not have a degree, taking into account real-world work experience of making music, and non-degree professional development courses. This Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL), as it’s known, is always assessed on a case-by-case basis. It also depends on how many other students are using this route during this stage of applications, as there is a maximum percentage of students we can take through this process.

We expect you to have a competent knowledge of one digital audio workstation. You need to write music fluently and productively. You should be able to produce roughly two minutes of music in a day. Your demos should be of good quality and we are happy to listen to your music and give you an opinion on this before you apply. A high level of music theory is a big advantage but we appreciate there are many different ways to create a great score and you will be judged principally on the potential shown in your portfolio.

The latest Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) capable of importing video files. We are able to provide extensive support for:

Cubase 8 (or newer)
Logic Pro X
Pro Tools 11

Sample libraries are a must-have for the course. There are literally thousands of libraries, many of them capable of creating outstanding quality demos and we could have chosen any number. Most of the libraries listed below are available at a significant educational discount.

Here are some sample library suppliers that we recommend:

East West
Vienna
Spitfire Audio
8Dio
Heavyocity
Native Instruments

For our base orchestral libraries, we suggest:

East West Quantum Leap – Symphonic Orchestra Gold
VSL Special Edition – Woodwinds
8Dio – Adagietto
Heavyocity – Damage
Soundiron – Emotional Piano

You must also have a reasonable to top performance computer (Mac or PC) as well as at least a basic orchestral virtual instrument library (we can advise you if you’re not sure about your setup).

PC:
Minimum Spec:
Intel/AMD Quad Core Processor 2.6GHz
8/16GB RAM

However we would recommend:
Intel i7 Quad Core 3.2GHz (equivalent or higher)
32GB RAM

Mac:
Minimum Spec:
Intel Processor Quad Core 2.6GHz
8/16GB RAM

However we would recommend:
Intel i7 Quad Core 3.2GHz (equivalent or higher)
32GB RAM

You will also need:
Monitoring headphones and/or speakers

We also recommend:
External audio interface
MIDI Keyboard

Have a question?

Let’s chat…

That’s how most of our future students start: an informal conversation about where you are and where you want to be. No pressure, just getting to know you and how we might be able to help.

Get in touch with Tim Johnson the course manager (and film composer).

postgraduate@thinkspaceeducation.com