Online Course – Certified Professional Internship in Contemporary Music at Berklee College of Music

Developing your musicality

• Course 1 • 15 hours • 5.0 (35 ratings)

Course Details

What you’ll learn

• Learn the basic principles and approaches required for understanding, creating, and performing contemporary music.
• If you are passionate about music and curious about how it works, or if you are a musician who learned to play by ear without formal studies, this course will offer you an in-depth introduction to key principles and approaches to understanding, creating, and performing contemporary music.
• Taught by Professor George W. Russell Jr. of Berklee College of Music, the course includes six lessons exploring harmony and ear training—two key areas for every beginning student at Berklee.

Main topics

• Major and minor pentatonic scales and how they are constructed.
• Intervals – how to sing them and how to find them in music.
• Central tone and how to find the tone of a song.
• Common rhythm divisions such as 4/4 and 3/4.
• Building chords – major and minor triads, and major chords with a dominant seventh.
• Building a common chord progression – the I IV V.
• Knowledge of blues and AABA music formats.
• Writing a basic chord progression to express your musical ideas.

Additional Content

• In addition to the video lessons, each class includes presentations and interviews with Berkeley students.
• Students share their musical journeys and offer guidance to those interested in studying music.
• The final task is to compose and perform a blues melodic riff using the minor pentatonic scale.
• The goal of the course is to share the joy of creating music and sharing it with others.

Writing: Writing texts

• Course 2 • 11 hours • 4.9 (25 ratings)

Course Details

What you’ll learn

• You have a composer inside you, wandering around asking if this is the right time to reveal yourself. Now is the time.
• This course is an invitation to let the composer within you come to light.
• If you haven’t written much, or any, music, this course will show you an effective process for composing songs to express your ideas and feelings.
• If you’ve already connected, you’ll see the process with new eyes.

The learning process

• The course will begin by examining the tools available, all centered around the fundamental concept of prosody.
• You will learn how to use your tools to enhance your message.
• You will work on both the music and the lyrics, although in order to work with the music you do not need to know how to read music or play an instrument.
• If you play a musical instrument, you will be encouraged to play and record your compositions from the assignments.
• If you don’t play music, the course will offer you several musical tracks to use.

Assignments and assessment

• The assignments will ask you to upload posts for peer review.
• The course is about composition, not interpretation.
• And most importantly, have a lot of fun.

Music production technology

• Course 3 • 17 hours • 4.9 (34 ratings)

Course Details

What you’ll learn

• Learn the music production process (including recording, editing, and mixing).
• Get to know the tools available for creating contemporary music on the computer.
• The tools for music production are accessible to everyone.
• Each lesson in this course will demonstrate a different set of tools for music production.

The production process

• We will examine the components required for recording audio on a computer.
• After recording, the sound needs to be organized on a timeline, a process known as editing.
• We will focus on the editing tools that are essential in producing contemporary music.
• After editing, the sounds need to be combined or mixed.
• We will explore the basic functions of mixing desks in hardware and software.
• We will examine compression, equalization, and delay.

Creativity in production

• The music production process depends on your creativity.
• If you have an idea in mind, you need to go through it step by step.
• Bring your dedication and creativity to this course.

Final production of the modern musician

• Course 4 • 9 hours

Course Details

What you’ll learn

• The music industry is undergoing huge changes.
• Musicians require a lifestyle in several different areas to be successful.
• The goal of the Modern Musician specialization is to offer students the fundamentals of music theory, production, and writing.
• The final production experience is your opportunity to use the talent and knowledge you have gained to create and deliver a finished song.

The final production process

• Develop a poem and an idea for the finished product.
• You will plan and execute the production, which will include the recording, editing, mixing, and publishing of the finished product.
• You will receive feedback from the peer review process.