Skip to content
UdemyMusicPaid courseAll LevelsCertificate

Music Composition with the Piano: Ultimate Keyboard Theory (Udemy.com)

Music Composition - The Ultimate Guide to Piano, Chords & Music Theory for Producers, Film Composers & Songwriters.

Created by: Jack Vaughan

Last updated September 2020

icon
What you will learn

  • Unleash your composing & songwriting with tools to unblock the writing process and generate material with ease
  • Express yourself and your musical ideas fluently, at the keyboard and DAW
  • Use extended music theory without reading a line of music
  • Compose different styles of music; filmic, classical, jazz and mainstream through a fundamental understanding of harmony
  • Build interesting chord progressions and choose from hundreds of other options when something doesn’t sound quite right
  • Teach others the fundamentals of music theory and composition and keep teaching yourself well
  • Much, much more in terms of the granular details!

How it compares

Against the other 270 rated Udemy courses in Music on CourseDuck:

  • Rating4.9 out of 5higher than 96% of them
  • Reviews1,679#29 of 271 by number of reviews
  • Length7.8 hourslonger than 79% of them
  • Last updatedSeptember 2020earlier than 77% of them

icon
Course Description

This music composition course has four core elements:

  1. An extensive introduction to piano technique, theory & arrangement

  2. Fundamental & advanced harmony & music theory at the piano taught & learned in a practical way you can start using immediately. (as opposed to learning how to read, which isn’t as efficient as a learning strategy.)

  3. A look at powerful compositional techniques and strategies to help you generate material and problem solve when you get stuck

  4. Conventions and structures of piano chords, progressions and songwriting, so that you can analyse and grow your knowledge of building songs & tracks.

---

Many composers, producers and songwriters feel restricted by their lack of ability and knowledge of music theory at the piano. Without doubt, one of THE greatest things you can do to supercharge your composing and songwriting abilities is to gain greater technique and experience in modern day harmony at the piano.

The aim of this course is to give you a powerful and extensive compositional vocabulary, from the ground up - right up to advanced music theory, chords & harmony. And it does it all through a practical, hands on experience of theory at the piano, and it’s all accessible without having to read any music.

---

This course was designed for three types of musician, the beginner and intermediate

  • Producer

  • Composer (Film & Games)

  • Songwriter  


For the beginner, this course takes you from literally ground zero into the building blocks of what makes music work, right up to advanced harmony - without skipping a beat. You’ll learn to write a wealth of different material at the piano and start your composing journey off right with a powerful skillset at the piano.

For the intermediate composers, producers and songwriters who are already serious about their craft but feel restricted by never really getting their head around piano & theory - this course covers almost everything you need to know. It’s built from thousands of hours (literally) of experience in private teaching with composers, producers & songwriters with a highly experienced teacher. For those of you who feel your writing ability is held back by your piano, arranging, compositional strategy & harmonic knowledge this course is completely designed for you.

And even if you’re basically semi-pro, but think your piano technique, voicings and harmonic knowledge are missing a trick, I still know the course will be of value to you. We cover extended Jazz Harmony, thematic writing, non-diatonic chord relationships and more.

---

At the end of this course not only are you going to feel more strong and fluent as a writer, you’re going to be able to solve critical problems on the fly whilst composing; things like:

  • ‘Where do I start? How do I generate material?’

  • ‘I have a chord progression, how do I make it more interesting?’

  • ‘How can I make my chords sound more sophisticated?’

  • ‘I have a chord progression, but I don’t know where to take it next’

  • ‘What’s the musical science behind why that sounds like it does

  • ‘I have chords, how do I add a bass line?’

  • ‘I have a melody, how do I add chords?’

  • ‘I have chords, how do I add a melody?’

  • ‘I have a bass line, how do I add chords?’

  • ‘My melodies sound a little dull, how can I make them more interesting?’

  • ‘If my chords are going to stay the same, how can I make them sound different or more inspiring for the next section?’

---

At the end of this course, you’re going to be able to:

  • Express yourself and your ideas fluently

  • Know how to compose well & use extended music theory without having to involve yourself in reading music but by understanding simple patterns at the piano.

  • Unleash your writing with tools to unblock the writing process and generate material with ease

  • Be able to write anything from classical music, to jazz music to mainstream music - because the fundamental building blocks of harmony are largely the same.

  • Build interesting chord progressions and choose from hundreds of other options when something doesn’t sound quite right

  • Alleviate a lot of writer's block!  

  • Have specific principles, techniques and formulas for making music work at your fingertips

  • Teach others the fundamentals of music theory and composition and keep teaching yourself so that you can learn and master piano more and more.

This course contains many piano tutorials on piano scales, piano chords, exercises and is the perfect way to learn piano online.

---

More of the elements we cover:

  • How to write a song

  • How to compose music

  • How to improvise

  • All the most common piano chords and how to create them instantly

  • How to play jazz chords on the piano

  • The most common chord progressions and how to manipulate them into your songs

  • How to write music compositions for film or games

  • How to write themes for characters in films or musicals

  • The fundamentals of musical composition

  • How to compose piano music

  • How to play keyboard scales

  • What chords sound good together

  • How to modulate between different keys

  • How to create different feelings with literally hundreds of different scales (I’m not talking about different root notes here with just minor, major, blues etc - this is a whole other level of scales you’ve probably never used.)

  • How to transpose between different keys and transpose the songs you love into the right key for you or someone else to sing to

  • How to accompany singers

  • Many different accompanimental patterns to suit different circumstances

  • How to analyze music

  • How to read chord symbols

  • How to find the key of a song

  • Why the favourite sounds of your fav artists are so

  • How to write effective melodies that are really interesting

  • How to structure your compositions well with harmony

  • How to voice and arrange and play your chords in interesting ways

  • How to write bass lines

icon
Udemy Discount

The discount is applied through our link. Open the course from here and Udemy's current promotional price is applied at checkout on most courses, no code to type.

Some courses are excluded from Udemy's promotions. If the price does not drop, clear your browser cookies and use the button again.

icon
Instructor Details

Jack Vaughan

For as long as I can remember, I've been obsessed with deconstructing, creating and learning music more effectively. 

I'm a composer by trade primarily and love producing mine and others work with computers. I love tech and use it all the time. As an artist, I think mastering your tools and strategies is a key to creative freedom and that's what I teach online.

My name is Jack, and I'm a composer, producer and educator. I live in the UK. I love music, I love the internet and I love teaching as I learn. Please get in touch if you want, i'm super friendly. :) 

icon
More courses by Jack Vaughan

$11.99

$15.99

icon
More Music courses

$16.99

$109.99

$15.99

$19.99

$69.99

$129.99

icon
Reviews

4.9

1,679 ratings on Udemy

Select a bar to show only those reviews.Select the bar again to show every rating.

By Dahlan TH Saragih on 1/8/2024

Good explanation and teaching material. I have been playing for a while and knew a lot about the content, but this course (fairly short course) has given me structural knowledge improvements and opened my mind to the endless source of inspiration from the 12 notes/keys. Thank you very much for this course. Note# It would be better if the sound of the pedals could be removed from some video materials

By Andreas Lagoudakos on 7/12/2023

This course was exactly on my expectations. Jack explained key concepts with an easy to understand way and also made the things that most students fear seem very easy. I really liked the way he recommended composing music and I have seen a rise on my composing skills. If you already know theory, the first chapters may be boring, but the next chapters are worth it all.

By Brendan Chaplin on 11/22/2020

Really enjoying this. Appears deceptively simple but in truth sophisticated and very practical. Focusing strongly on the importance of humble practice.

By Pradhamarao on 11/15/2020

Thanking you sir

By Francis Eduardo Santamaria on 10/24/2020

I took Piano for 2 years at 17 yrs old and played by ear for the next 20 years. this lesson so far gave me a better footing , a good review , as well as timing.Im excited for the next lessons..though I 'm not a techie person at 73 yrs old.That..I'm kind of anxious! How can playing by ear integrate or marry with this method?

By Ralph Gutierrez on 10/21/2020

yes, I like how the author explains the concepts and shows examples

By Jordan Cowe on 9/15/2020

It's a great course, and just for the clarity of instruction and content alone, it deserves 5 stars. It could benefit from more structured exercises, however, to help you consolidate the information you're taking in. If you don't have much background the pacing definitely requires that you practice and come up with exercises outside of the course in order to keep up with the material. I'm making card decks in Brainscape to challenge me to drill the information and practice getting it under my fingers. The assignments are great challenges, but you really need a bunch of practice after each lesson before you'd be ready for the assignment. This course is already one of the best I've taken on udemy in any subject, but with just a few structured exercises per lesson/section to practice, it would be absolutely perfect.
This is all really nitpicky though, if you take this course you will learn a bunch, so many things will make sense, and the quality of the music you make will improve. I had tried learning piano in the past and just kind of got bored and gave up, with this course and exercises based on it I'm enjoying being able to just sit down and improvise and play freely.

By Pato Maldonado on 9/12/2020

friendly

By Faye Miravite on 9/9/2020

I think the course is promising, well-organised to make the subject matter perceived in both a systematic but intuitive way. But I've just begun so will see how the course unfolds. Thank you.

By Santhosh on 9/6/2020

Some lessons are really good!

By Mark on 9/4/2020

I feel like I hit the jack pot! Online course vary wildly. I have a great deal of respect for how the information is being presented. This is the best I have come across.

By Ryan Hurd on 9/3/2020

yes. great so far

Showing 12 of 194 reviews

icon
Quality Score

No CourseDuck member has rated this course yet. Taken it? Give each part a thumbs up or down.

Content Quality
/
Video Quality
/
Qualified Instructor
/
Course Pace
/
Course Depth & Coverage
/

Overall Score : 98 / 100