Music Composition:
Beginning the Journey
ONLINE
February 3–May 4, 2020
Each composer’s path is a unique. This course will focus on creating a melodic line, harmonizing it, developing it, and finally orchestrating it. We will examine diatonic music, modal music and loop-based music. Other topics include setting lyrics or text to music, using harmonic and rhythmic devices, and basic counterpoint. Participants will emerge from this course having discovered their own path as a composer. A working knowledge of music theory is helpful, but no previous composing experience is required.
Instructor: Vincent Leonard
Producer and composer Vincent A. Leonard Jr. has had works premiered nationally and internationally. He is published by Arrangers Publishing Company, Educational Programs Network, and National Music Works. He co-authored Recording in the Digital World; Finale: An Easy Guide to Music Notation; Sibelius: A Comprehensive Guide to Music Notation; and Musical iPad. In 1996, he and fellow producer and engineer Jack Klotz Jr. formed Invinceable Entertainment and 3 IPS Studio, and have released two CDs, Magic Up Our Sleeve and On the Brink of Tomorrow. Compositional credits include the feature film Running On Empty Dreams, theme and episode music for the Captain Courteous radio series, and numerous theater pieces and industrials. Leonard has provided orchestrations for world premiere productions of Redwall for Opera Delaware, Elliot and the Magic Bed, Isabelle and the Pretty-Ugly Spell and The Little Princess for Upper Darby Summer Stage. Also widely known as a copyist and arranger, he has worked on projects with Peter Nero, the Philly Pops Orchestra, Doc Severinsen, the London Symphony Orchestra, Chuck Mangione and Leslie Burrs, and in musicals by Duke Ellington, Alan Menken, Kurt Weill and Mitch Leigh. Leonard is a member of NARAS and ASCAP, and is active as a clinician and music software beta-tester for Apple computers.
Course Details
Music Composition: Beginning the Journey
Course Code 7760
Instructor: Vincent Leonard
3 Graduate Credits
Tuition
$1,050, due in full with registration
Online Chat Sessions
TBD
Required Text(s)
None
Software/Hardware Requirements
Access to a Mac, PC or Chromebook, connected to the Internet.
MECA Online Course Details
VanderCook Online is powered by Schoology (www.schoology.com). Through this learning management system, you'll be able to interact directly with your instructor, students in your classes, and members of the greater VanderCook Online community.
Spring 2020 MECA courses officially begin on Monday, February 3. Soon after you register, you'll be added as a new Schoology user. Be on the lookout for an email from Schoology with log-in instructions. Once you are given credentials, simply visit www.online.vandercook.edu to login. On the morning of February 3, you'll have access to your classroom and course material.
Some courses have specific online chat meeting times (please see course descriptions), while others have a flexible meeting schedule. You can expect all courses to meet together in a live online chat. If a live meeting time doesn’t work, you can work with your instructor to make other arrangements.
You’ll have the opportunity to work at your own pace each week while completing assignments and posting responses to discussion questions. You’ll constantly be interacting with your instructor and classmates online, and working through new material each week. We know how crazy school schedules can get, so our instructors try to make everything as flexible as possible!
Online grades will be reported by mid-May. If you are in need of a transcript please visit the online transcript request page. If you are in need a quick turn around time for your transcript please submit the transcript request to the registrar prior to the end of your course(s).