I am sure most of you are familiar with big blockbusters like Sherlock Holmes, Batman: The Dark Knight and Pirates of the Caribbean. These movies may all be from different directors but the soundtracks are all works of
He is considered by many to be the absolute best in the industry and has won countless awards for his work. Now, thanks to the good people over at MasterClass, we are given the opportunity to dive into the mind of Hans and learn from the master himself.
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Masterclass Review
Overview
Hans Zimmer Teaches Film Scoring is about 5-6 hours in total and consists of 31 videos ranging from 3-25 minutes, covering different aspects of his teachings.
Now, I am not a score composer, I am a songwriter so I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this. But I discovered that I didn’t need to be a film scorer to understand most of this. There may be some minor details where having a background in scoring might help, but overall, I still found this very enjoyable and easy to follow.
Who Is This Course Best For?
If you are a producer/musician that needs technical content to learn with absolute do’s and don’ts, then this may not be right for you.
If you are brand new to music in general, it may be best to brush up on some of the fundamentals before tackling this
(And if you are brand new to music, check out our guide 8 Courses To Kickstart Your Music Production Journey.)
The self-taught Academy Award-winner teaches how he creates sounds from nothing, composes compelling character themes and narratives, and scores a movie before ever seeing it.
MasterClass (Review)
Let’s set one thing straight before you read any further. This
There are sections on how he communicates with the directors and helps reinforce the original film ideas discussed as the project progresses. There are sections on how he chooses specific musicians and works with them to help achieve the best possible result. So really, it’s an all-around insight into the entire process of working in the industry as a whole.
That’s not to say that there is nothing technical in the
Here are just some of the more practical teachings included in the
- Hans goes into his favorite key and why.
- He talks about how to effectively match up a scene using the tempo and the film’s frame rate.
- Synth building to create custom sound palettes.
It’s essential that you use his teachings as a base for your own learning instead of blindly absorbing these lessons and expecting instant improvement. Once my mindset adjusted to this fact, it made everything in this
This
The fact that this
Hans also breaks down some of his signature character themes and how they start with just three or four notes. He then goes on to show how those notes can be transformed into almost any emotion the scene requires and then back to its most simple form to reinforce the central character’s theme.
Homework (The Good Kind)
A workbook comes with the course and gives you assignments based on different parts of the
Hans gives some very simple but effective tips on his approach to themes, and he gives you a chance to take those tips and try them out. This is a great way to reinforce learning by taking a simple idea or tip and seeing just how effective it is on your own.
I would like to point out that Hans doesn’t mention this workbook in the
This
Quality Of Content (8/10)
You can hear and understand what he means by this without any other context, which I found pretty surprising. He then follows up with “the answer”, and the melody he plays creates a feeling of resolve. This helps demonstrate the concept and function of good film scoring.
As he puts it himself, “There is a natural way in music where you are basically having a conversation”.
In this same section of the
” Sometimes you leave it as a question, with another question…a bit of a dodgy question here…I’m being a bit confrontational…and I can take the tension out… I can get happy about it…And kill you”.
The self-taught Academy Award-winner teaches how he creates sounds from nothing, composes compelling character themes and narratives, and scores a movie before ever seeing it.
Hans also gives fantastic advice on how to handle the other aspects of writing music for films that less experienced composers would not realize are incredibly important.
Though I’ve touched on working with directors and musicians, he also goes into strategies on keeping the producers and studio happy, and how doing private screenings with a real audience can really help with this.
So he covers a lot of very important topics alongside the obvious ones like composing and sound design.
Don’t get me wrong, there are still a lot of topics about actual composing as well. Hans dives into “scoring under dialogue”, “creating synths”, and he even goes into the iconic Batman character theme as well as doing a case study of “The Dark Knight” and “Frost Nixon”.
Hans touches on the tempos in “Sherlock Holmes” and its “music diary”. It was very inspiring to get inside the thought process of some of my favorite films. He takes you through the structure of his theme and how he develops it for different scenes.
Hans also touches on how he got to where he is, what inspired him to become a composer, and his influences over the years. This
The Platform (8/10)
It’s a very accessible
The student forum also touches on the topic of feedback and personalization. Obviously, It’s not
You get the opportunity to revisit certain sections or the whole thing again whenever you please, not just that one hour a week you get with a tutor. It also gives you access to so many more people with the Student Forum and some are even in the industry. Others will have the exact same issues as you so you won’t feel like a newbie.
Value For Money (9/10)
I see four ways to look at this.
- The caliber of the teacher.
- The content they provide.
- Accessibility.
- Personalization / Feedback.
The caliber of the teacher or tutor is important as you want to be taught by someone who knows what they are talking about. I think it’s fair to say that
His proven success makes him ideal to pass on his methods of how he did/does what he does. Comparing Hans to a tutor or teacher, Hans has them beat in terms of experience and methods that work.
Hans covers a lot of why he does things which is fantastic for a learning mind to develop into its own, as opposed to learning someone else’s bad habits and not really understanding why they are doing it. Hans also likes to reinforce the idea of, “you’re not always right” and the need to accept that there are other ways of doing things, sometimes better ways. He shows how to keep an open mind, which is key for creativity.
You can ask the same questions and get many different approaches to your problem, leaving you to craft your own solution. I think this is much more beneficial than having one person “tell” you how it should be done.
Final Thoughts
The self-taught Academy Award-winner teaches how he creates sounds from nothing, composes compelling character themes, and scores a movie before ever seeing it. By the end, you’ll have learnt many of the fundamentals of film scoring.
- Mindset focussed
- Case studies
- In depth content
The MasterClass is a fantastic resource for any composer at any skill level. It may not dive into the technical aspect of creating music from scratch, but as mentioned, that’s not the point of it.
The content alone is rare as he dives into some huge blockbuster scores that you wouldn’t be able to get otherwise.
When you crunch the numbers on what you get and for how much it costs, then it starts to show its value.
Not to mention that currently, if you spend $225, you get access to every
Of course, they aren’t all music-related, but you would still get access to plenty of production and beat making classes with Drake or DeadMau5, or even guitar classes with Santana or Tom Morello. Those 4 alone make it worth the money, plus you can indulge in some of your other hobbies or passions as well.
(Guitarists looking to level-up their skills should check out our review of GuitarTricks, which is one of the best places to learn guitar online.)
Overall this is an enriching
The self-taught Academy Award-winner teaches how he creates sounds from nothing, composes compelling character themes and narratives, and scores a movie before ever seeing it.