February 22, 2024 • 60 mins
In this episode of the podcast, we welcome Frank and TC from the Music Interval Theory Academy, who introduce a groundbreaking approach to music composition. By focusing on a three-step composing process that veers away from traditional music theory, they offer new creative strategies and methods that not only challenge conventional composing techniques but also opens up a world of innovation for composers and musicians alike!
Watch this episode on YouTube!
https://youtu.be/9TI9jeddzt8
00:00 - Intro & welcome
02:05 - Weekly check-in
10:35 - Frank and TC from The Music Interval Theory Academy
12:45 - The 3-Step process for composing
24:07 - How is music interval theory different?
37:29 - The problem with composing and editing at the same time
39:20 - TC's thoughts on intervalic thinking vs diatonic theory
42:50 - How do you balance the interval process with keeping the music usable?
45:41 - More about the Music Interval Theory Academy
54:07 - Where to find Frank and TC online
57:05 - Outro and how you can join the 52 Cues community
Music Interval Theory Academy
https://musicintervaltheory.academy/toolkit
T.C.'s IMDb
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0153845/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_0_nm_2_q_Thomas%2520Chase%2520Jones
Frank's IMDb
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3934435/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_0_nm_4_q_Frank%2520Herrlinger
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Frank (00:00):
If you want to be more interesting with the music you
compose.
I think just having a freeingapproach is key, because there
is so much music out there and,honestly, you won't have a
career by just running into thesame four chords that everybody
used in the charts like 10 yearsago.
You won't have a career period.
Dave (00:20):
That's what I believe and chances are every blues musician
said uh sir, actually, butthat's a whole different genre.
Frank (00:31):
Exactly so.
Again, when we talk aboutproduction and you know being
interesting with sounds, forexample, then you can compensate
a lot for ordinary chordprogressions.
Dave (00:53):
What is happening, everybody, and welcome back to
another episode of the 52 Cuespodcast, your weekly insight
into all things production andlibrary music.
Whether you're just curiousabout the sync industry, or
maybe you're a production musicveteran, I promise you you're in
the right place.
My name is Dave Croft and it isso good to be with you today.
And if you find this episodehelpful, then why don't you give
(01:14):
it a thumbs up here on YouTubeor a five star review over in
the podcast app of your choice?
And, while you're at it, goahead and subscribe, because I
talk about production andlibrary music every single week.
Today's episode wouldn't bepossible without the incredible
support of our members,subscribers of 52 Cues, who not
only keep our community aliveand thriving, but as member
(01:36):
subscribers they get access toextra perks and benefits like
live streams, workshops, qbreakdowns, weekly feedback
sessions, tons and tons of videoarchives and the opportunity to
submit to real music libraries.
So if you're ready to getstarted on your career and make
a serious push into productionand library music, then why
(01:57):
don't you join us over at 52Cues?
It's free to sign up andmembership start at around four
bucks a month.
So how has my week been.
It is week nine here.
Right, I'm losing track.
I'm totally losing track of theweeks.
It's week eight, I'm sorry.
How?
How is my week eight been?
(02:18):
Well, last week, you know, wehad the Ready for Sync Live,
which I have really, reallyenjoyed, and if you haven't
checked out that episode, besure to do that.
And I am knee deep into my nextproject for a library that I'm
working on.
I for now, the sixth year in arow, I have been writing music
for a documentary that comes outafter the Masters Tournament,
(02:41):
so this is my sixth year doingit.
It's really interesting.
It's bespoke production music,it's not scored, but it is
custom production music that isused specifically for this
project.
And so they they the referenceswe got, and I can't remember if
I mentioned this two weeks ago,but the references that we got
were from Dunkirk and the DarkKnight, and so that kind of sent
(03:04):
us into some weird dark tensionterritory, which we really
haven't done before in my fiveyears of doing this.
Before we haven't really donethat, but it was really fun
exploring that, exploring thesounds of Hans Zimmer and how he
uses pulses and drones in theDark Knight and the Dunkirk
soundtrack, and I even leaned alittle bit into 1917, which I
(03:28):
know is Thomas Newman.
But considering that ThomasNewman and Rachel Portman had
been two really big referencesin the years previously, I
thought that was fair game.
So I used a little bit ofinfluence from the 1917
soundtrack.
Well, they have as much as theyneed for that.
So the cue that I am playingthis week for you is called.
(03:49):
It's called a comeback and it'sa little bit more uplifting, a
little bit more in line withwhat what they're they've been
using in the past.
So we're going to listen tothat here in just a second.
But it's been a really goodweek We've.
We've tied up some projects inthe briefing room over at 52
cues, published some some albumsand just this morning, wrapped
(04:11):
up some deliverables that hadbeen kind of lingering around
for quite a while.
And I had a thought in themiddle of doing this and it took
a few hours, like three or fourhours of focused work to wrap
up those deliverables for aclient.
Once I had those in place andwhen I got done with it I
(04:32):
thought man, why did it take solong to do that?
And I was kind of kickingmyself a little bit, but I knew
that it was going to take justlike four uninterrupted hours to
knock that out, and so I justkind of kept putting it on the
back burner until eventually,you know, I get an email and the
(04:53):
library is like Dave, I reallyreally need these.
So I had to push everything outof the way and focus on it.
But on the other side I waslike, oh, I felt really I felt
kind of stupid for waiting solong to do those deliverables,
and so I've done a podcastepisode before on if it's your
(05:13):
job to eat a frog it's a MarkTwain quote about eating your
frogs If it's your job to eat afrog, then best to eat it first
thing in the morning.
Just get it out of the way andboulders and if you have a
really big boulder, don't focuson the little pebbles, focus on
the big thing.
And that's what I really shouldhave done.
And so it was a little bit of areminder to not procrastinate,
(05:39):
to not do the heavy liftinguntil the last minute, because
it's just going to loom over you.
And it did it kind of.
You know, the last few weeksit's just been lingering there
and just chewing at me and I usethis phrase often.
You know, the sword of Damocleswas just swinging at me and
just waiting to kind of take myhead off.
(06:02):
And I'm going to commit tomyself to not do that as much.
And I just wanted to encourageyou and I just want to share
that little experience just thismorning where I wondered why it
took me so long, why did I putthat off so when it just took a
few hours?
But it's done and I feel reallygood about myself.
(06:23):
I feel lighter, you know, and Ineed to remember this feeling.
You need to tell Dave Dave thisis Dave Dave you feel really
good when you take care of yourbusiness, so take care of your
business earlier so that youdon't have to worry about
damaging any relationships.
So that's been my week, weekeight, and I've been writing a
(06:45):
ton of these cues for thismaster's movie documentary and
so we are going to check out.
It's called a comeback and thenwe will talk about it on the
other side.
So that was, it's called acomeback, and I really enjoy
(09:43):
writing these cues because youget to branch out of the
standard kind of productionmusic groove, you know two
minutes, or a minute and 30 andlike build breakdown, you know
build button and so I can.
They can breathe a little bitmore and they're much more kind
of underscore and I enjoy andI'm really thankful for this to
(10:04):
be my sixth year doing those.
And as far as where you can seeit, I think they do air it on
CBS or maybe even CBS sportsnetwork and I think I've gotten
some royalties from in-flightmovies before.
I think this has shown up likeDelta in-flight system.
They track those kind ofroyalties Pretty sure I've seen
some of those.
So that's really cool and foryou, friends and family
(10:28):
subscribers, I will be doing abreakdown of this cue later this
week.
So for our topic today, I amreally happy to welcome to the
podcast Frank and TC from theMusic Interval Theory Academy.
A fantastic talk and, like Imentioned in the interview
(10:50):
that's coming up, they reallydid.
The whole theory music intervaltheory approach has really
opened my eyes to a whole newway of thinking about composing
and of scoring and writingproduction music.
So without further ado, here ismy recent interview with TC and
Frank from the Music IntervalTheory Academy.
(11:13):
You know it's not every daythat you run across a podcast
which really changes the way youthink.
And the Music Interval Theorypodcast with TC and Frank.
Love you little jingle has donethat for me, because being able
(11:33):
to talk about advancedtheoretical concepts and
challenge your creative processwas super inspiring to me, and
so when I had the chance towelcome Frank and TC from the
Music Interval Theory Academy, Ijumped at the chance.
Frank, tc, welcome, welcome,welcome to the 52Q's podcast.
Frank (11:59):
Many, many thanks, Dave.
That is fantastic.
We are very excited about thisinterview, this chat, and I
think we have some fantastictopics that we can maybe scratch
or go deeper we will see but weare very excited and, yeah,
thanks for having us.
T.C. (12:18):
Yeah, this has been something I've personally looked
forward to for a few weeks now.
Dave (12:23):
Yeah, excellent, excellent , excellent.
And I mean we're gonna havelinks to TC's IMDB, which goes
back what?
40 something years, almost 45years, and we're gonna have
Frank's credits.
So these are pros, let's justsay and I don't want to waste
any time like shredding bios andeverything you can check all
that out.
We'll have that in the shownotes.
(12:45):
But I want to start with thething that made me really
excited.
I remember I was like four inthe morning.
I'm having my morning walk andI'm listening to episode 10 of
the Music Interval Theorypodcast and it is the three-step
process for composing.
And I'm telling you guys, it isfundamentally like oh my gosh,
(13:07):
let's talk about this.
Frank, can you unpack that alittle bit?
Or TC, talk about thethree-step process, how it came
about and how that can really beapplied, whether you're a
production music composer or asongwriter, or if you write
music for cartoons.
Frank (13:25):
Yeah, well, maybe before we jump into the three steps,
which we will do in probably 30seconds, let me give you a quick
story.
What you don't know about meyet is that my father, he was in
the German military, so he wasa Lieutenant Colonel, which is
(13:48):
high rank, and then when he camehome, which was every two weeks
or so, he kind of couldn't letgo of his role, which means we
had a lot of discipline at homeand a lot of structure, which I
believe is a good thing to somedegree, because that made me
(14:08):
question almost everything,since I'm a creative spirit and
I developed let's call it, ahealthy problem with authority,
and I want to emphasize healthy.
So I question a lot of thesethings that he wanted to enforce
in the family, which also ledto this compositional career in
(14:33):
the end, because he was alwaysagainst it.
Now we are on the same side andI proved him well.
This was a good decision.
So all good on that end, and heknows about that.
But, this being said, I thinkhaving a process to composition
was always a thing that I wassearching for for years.
(14:54):
And you see, and I, we studiedthe conventional way first,
which is good, no question aboutthat.
But one of the issues that Ipersonally always had was that
to some degree, you couldn'texplain how to compose.
You could explain techniqueslike, for example, this is how
(15:15):
you write a melody and thismakes a melody strong and this
is a great chord progression,what that is a bad chord
progression.
You can label those things tosome degree, but then if you
talk to successful composers,most of them explain to you
things like well, I just feelwhen it's ready, you know it is
a feel thing, and to me this isnot really relatable because I'm
(15:40):
not feeling what you're feelingRight.
So you can't teach that, it'snot possible.
And that made us think.
I would say, think about howcan we put this all into easy
steps.
And I think that is actuallyalso the moment.
Now, tc, I want to transitionto you.
Maybe you want to give us thethree steps and what they stand
(16:03):
for and how everybody can usethem, actually not only in
composition.
This is part of the creativeprocess in general, I would
almost say.
But, tc, please feel free totalk us through the steps and
what they are.
T.C. (16:17):
OK, well, I'm happy to do that.
The first step is gathering.
And what's nice about gatheringis you don't have to be
creative to gather, you justhave to search for things that
are interesting.
For example, if I wanted tobake a pie and I wanted to be a
(16:40):
berry pie, I go out into theforest looking for berries and I
see some berries and, oh, thatmight be good.
I'm not looking for aparticular kind of a berry, I
just want to.
I know I want to generally tobe a berry pie.
So I gather the berries andthen I see strawberries and I
see blueberries and I see otherkinds of berries and I gather
(17:03):
them all together.
And in the process of doing thatI relax my mind and I get
connected to what we call thecreative pool.
And when you're connected tothe creative pool, there is no
time.
That's what happens to artistswhen they realize they've been
(17:25):
sitting for three hours and wow,where'd the time go?
Well, it's because you're in aflow.
So we realized that writer'sblock generally happens if you
don't gather first, if you don'ttake the time to gather.
So we gather musical ideas, notworried about whether it's good
, bad, the producer is going tolike it.
(17:46):
Even if you like it or not,it's just another idea.
And so, basically, you gatherand then pretty soon you realize
, oh, that gives me that idea.
And then the next step is sketchand the sketching.
This all came to me from anoverwhelming amount of work that
I had to do.
(18:07):
Personally, I used to do twoshows a week composition,
production and they were liveorchestras, so you didn't have a
full week plus they would editand you'd have to do so.
I had to find ways to composefast, and so this came out of
(18:30):
years, several seasons, ofrealizing it's got to be a step
process.
So gathering is the first stepand you don't think about it
very hard, you just say, well, Iwant to write a piece and it's
in this kind of genre.
The next is sketching, butthere's not a defined line
between them.
So you could go into sketchinglooking at some of your
(18:52):
gathering and say, wow, thatgives me this idea and gives me
that idea, and you develop awhole bunch of the little
gathered parts until longerparts.
The secret that a lot of peopleforget is you can go back.
You can go back to gathering Ifyou say, oh, I need to know a
little bit more about thisparticular interval, because I'm
(19:13):
at a place where I need somemore.
So you can go back and forth.
So you start to sketch.
And the thing is, when I workedat Warner Brothers for seven
years doing Batman, I would gointo the library and look at
sketches from John Williams, allkinds of main composers, and I
(19:37):
realized I didn't know how tosketch.
How do you sketch?
And it's really quite easy, andsketches are different for
everybody.
You know, john Williams andJerry Goldsmith had eight-stage
sketches, strings up, stringsdown.
But as you get better andbetter at it, you need less and
(19:58):
less, because when youorchestrate you're developing
too.
So we have gathering, sketchingand development, and the
development is the orchestrationand this is what we teach how
to do all three of those.
I hope I didn't get too farahead of myself, no, no.
Dave (20:17):
I think that makes perfect sense and from the production
music side of things Iabsolutely resonate with wow,
you have to write a lot and youhave to write it quickly and you
are writing to briefs andyou're writing to somebody
else's need, Like you can't justwrite whatever you want to
write and it is what it is andtake it or leave it.
You know you have a scene tofill, you have an emotion to hit
(20:37):
, and being able to sustainablycreate is vital for anybody
looking to make a career inmusic production, especially for
media.
So the idea for gathering forme is doing your reference work,
you know, maybe listeningthrough a bunch of patches and
(20:58):
seeing if something kind of youknow resonates with you, and the
sketching is putting kind ofnotes in the DAW, kind of some
rough ideas, and then thedevelopment, the final
orchestration, like you said,into Mix and Master and
Deliverables and all of that,and so I think there's plenty,
plenty of overlap and I see howyour experience in the animation
(21:21):
industry completely correlatesto the production music industry
for sure.
T.C. (21:27):
Yes, I've been very lucky and blessed.
And I'm very lucky to have metFrank, because he and I met in
Vienna in a lecture series andit started off where he was one
of the students and the nextyear he was also one of the
lecturers.
(21:47):
That's what a good composer hewas already, but he was also
I'll just say this quicklybecause I don't want to eat up
too much time but Frank was theone guy out of the whole class
that on the breaks would end upexplaining what I was talking
about to everybody.
Frank (22:10):
Yeah, this is kind of true.
Sorry for that.
T.C. (22:13):
Oh, I was very, I'm very happy.
So well, no.
Dave (22:16):
I think any educator, you know when, when, when you find
those students who are wow, yourecognize it in them.
You're like you know what.
They've not only got the goods,but they have the drive they're
, they're good to work with,they're easy to work with.
You know, we were talkingearlier before we started
recording how being easy to workwith and pleasant to be around,
(22:37):
being good natured, affable,all of those things I mean, they
are a real currency in theindustry, because talent alone
will only get you so far, and ifyou're a big jerk, you know
your talent level has to beexponentially higher than if you
can just get along, you know.
And so having students whoresonate with you, who you see,
(22:59):
clearly, oh, there's somethingthere you want.
You usually want to keep thempretty close, so I get it.
T.C. (23:06):
Yeah, well, we have a very , I think, positive culture in
the academy and that has a baseof give more than you take, and
so it doesn't matter whereyou're at in the educational
levels, try to give backwhenever possible, and that's
(23:28):
what Frank has in a big way, andso he gives a lot and that's
what all of our people do.
They try to give a lot.
So the members they learn fromeach other, they learn from us,
and you know I'm learning fromyou right now, dave.
Oh, I'm still a sponge.
(23:52):
I love to learn from people.
So I think your podcast isexcellent.
I appreciate that.
You're really great at the wayyou talk to the audience.
Dave (24:02):
Well, thank you, man, that you honor me, thank you, thank
you so much.
I want to change gears andFrank music interval theory.
How is that different from justthe music theory that I know, I
learned, you know, in the, inthe dungeons of music school,
you know, and just sweating overstaff paper and and, and, yeah,
(24:24):
and, coronaries and ulcers?
Can you unpack what you mean bymusic interval theory?
Frank (24:34):
Yeah, of course.
Well, one of the of the thingsthat I want to start with when
you ask that question is theproblem with conventional theory
.
For me right this is just apersonal opinion, obviously is
that it teaches you techniquebut not really how to put this
all into action and theapplication, and this became a
(24:57):
problem to the degree that,again, here it comes with my
healthy problem with authority.
I remember if I may, let megive you another quick story,
and and this is really true whenI started music in Cologne in
Germany.
Back then I had a musicprofessor and once he would give
(25:19):
us an assignment and thatassignment was something like
well, right, in the style ofBach, and we analyzed a few of
those pieces and I did myassignment, my homework, I
turned it in and I actually gota bad grade for that and I, well
, I got to the.
To the professor.
They asked why is that?
(25:39):
What did I do wrong?
And he said well, frank, lookat what you did right here.
You wrote a tritone.
We would refer to this as a sixinterval, because it's six
chromatic steps from one note tothe next.
And I said yes, I know, I didit purposely right.
And he said, well, this iswrong.
And I asked well, why is thatwrong?
He said, well, bach didn'twrite any tritones.
(26:02):
And then I said what, wait asecond, give me one minute.
And I went to my place and Ifound him two examples where
Bach actually did write tritones.
And then he just turned to meand said well, frank, you are
not Bach.
And this is what what it didfor me.
Like, okay, if that is the wayconventional music theory tries
(26:23):
to well, bring up those youngand aspiring composers, I'm done
.
Yeah, I'm really done.
I'm.
I'm sorry, but I'm not gonnalearn anything from that
approach.
So that was for me the first,the first moment in my it wasn't
a career back then but in my,you know, music profession that
(26:43):
I realized, okay, I don't wantto continue that way, there has
to be something else.
And I was pretty frustrated atthat time because I couldn't
compose like all these you knowgreat guys that I admired back
then, tc being one of them,funnily enough, and I told you
that a few times, tc, that Igrew up on the shows that you
(27:04):
scored, like you know, the gummybears, duck tails, elven and
the chipmunks and what, whatelse I'm not quite sure there
are, you know, endless exampleshere.
But the point is I listened tothe music and I had no clue how
to write something like that,although I went through the
conventional way and then atsome point I, you know, got into
(27:26):
touch with the intervals ingeneral, and this made me think,
because of two reasons actually.
The first reason was thatintervals they lead to other
musical places that are noteasily reachable via
conventional theory, becauseconventional theory suggests a
clear path to.
(27:47):
You know more or less theWestern diatonic system that we
know and and love.
I still write a lot in that, inthat system, of course I like
the sound, but the problem iseverybody sounds pretty much the
same if they follow the sameguidelines.
And so the first thing is newmusical places, which was a big
(28:09):
point for me.
The second one was it gave mesomething I could rely on,
because here it comes, intervals, they have a nature to them,
and this might sound abstract,but honestly it's not.
It's actually pretty simple toput into action, because if you
isolate intervals, then youpretty much realize what the
(28:32):
nature is by looking at theharmonic series, right?
So if you take a two interval,let's say that is for the
diatonic guys out there.
It's a major second.
That's.
That's the interval.
It's two chromatic steps and ifyou play that on the piano it
doesn't sound stable.
It wants to move some place,right.
Usually it wants to resolve inthe way of the authentic cadence
(28:55):
, and that is what everybodytalks about and it works.
It's a cliche and that is good,but but guess what?
Everybody's gonna go that way.
So let's be different, let's bemore interesting in the music
that we present to our clients.
Right, and one thing that, forexample, we can do is that you
can look at the resolution.
If you play a two interval andI'm gonna be a bit nerdy here
(29:18):
the the top guy moves up by, youknow, five intervals.
That's part of the resolution.
The lower guy goes down justone chromatic step, and that is
what the authentic cadence is,this typical right in a triad
progression.
Now you can look at those twomovements and you can reflect it
right.
(29:39):
So you can look at the upper guy, let the upper guy move up by
one chromatic step.
Take the lower guy, let it movedown by five chromatic steps,
and now you just reflected theresolution.
It sounds great.
But here it changes the key,the musical key.
Now you're not writing in thediatonic system anymore,
(29:59):
although the nature of theintervals is still the same.
It's a resolution and it itresolves in a very acceptable
way to our ears.
So this is not stuff that thatsounds weird in the end, since
it's all part of you know moreor less the observation that we
have from nature right, but ituntethers it from diatonicism
(30:24):
and yet still captures thebehavioral aspects of, of
harmonic motion.
Dave (30:32):
And so, as somebody you know, my, my, my masters is in
jazz and it's all about the keyand what chords are you, are you
in, and everything, and even asthings are getting, you know,
harmonically intense, you'restill this movable diatonic
system right, which is great andthat's.
You know, I've been playing foryears and years like that.
(30:52):
But what you just said, andeven just now, after I've
listened to all your podcastsand everything just now, I'm
like oh, that's, that's.
It's kind of freeing and I'mrealizing that for the DAW
composer, if you're watchingthis or listening to this, and
your, your life isn't, you know,dots on a staff, but your, your
(31:15):
life is, you know parameters.
In a DAW or in a piano world,you already exist in a step, a
chromatic step environment, sothat you know if I need to
modulate up a minor third.
You don't think minor third anda key whatever.
I know the interval was inminor third.
My apologies to all you perfectpeople out there, but you know
(31:38):
I'm going up three half steps.
You know bup, bup, bup and done.
That's how I think when I'm inthe piano role.
I'm gonna modulate this and Ijust, you know, up arrow, up,
arrow, up arrow and it's done,and so that creates a connection
point that transcends, like,the music theory aspect, because
(31:59):
music theory can be superintimidating for folks who
haven't come through auniversity system.
You know who, maybe they'reself-taught or maybe they're not
.
In piano lessons was a lifetimeago, but that approach applies
so directly to MIDI composers.
It's staggering.
Now I don't, I don't know ifthat was on the outset, if that
(32:20):
was the goal, but that's, that'show it's super resonating with
me and this is also part of howwe compose.
Frank (32:29):
Really I know from TC, for example.
He likes to work inside a musicnotation program and more the
conventional way most likely, Ibelieve.
For me it is Cubase.
It is really just moving arounddots, more or less Obviously.
I do read music notation and Ifeel home with that as well, but
(32:49):
it's not the way how I composeand produce.
It is all inside Cubase andit's all with just moving around
those colorful dots andeverything.
And if you are used to lookingat those empty spaces between
the notes, which is thechromatic steps more or less
(33:10):
that's your grid it becomes veryeasy to see and you see all the
opportunities that theintervals bring, like this two
interval it wants to resolve,because what is also interesting
at two can be part of a biggerstructure.
And out of a sudden let's, forexample, put another five on top
.
Now you have a two plus five.
(33:31):
So we have three notes, we havethe two interval and the third
note, which is a five, on top ofthe middle one.
A lot of guys would refer tothat structure as a sus two
triad, for example.
And it is valid.
It's totally valid.
But the problem with that is,it puts immediately the root
tone into the structure and itanchors everything.
(33:54):
It puts you on a scale, it putsyou on a key and, as you said,
it's not really freeing anymore.
It's the opposite, actually,and sometimes that's exactly
what you want.
So I'm not saying that this isnecessarily a bad thing, but if
you want to be more interestingwith the music you compose, I
(34:15):
think just having a freeingapproach is key, because there
is so much music out there and,honestly, you won't have a
career by just running into thesame four chords that everybody
used in the charts like 10 yearsago.
You won't have a career period.
Dave (34:31):
That's what I believe and chances are every blue musician
said uh, sir, actually, butthat's a whole different job.
Frank (34:42):
Exactly so.
Again, when we talk aboutproduction and being interesting
with sounds, for example, thenyou can compensate a lot for
ordinary chord progressions.
So there are several layers.
I understand, of course, but ifwe stick to the notes, then it
is a good thing to be moreinteresting and you don't have
(35:04):
to write weird stuff all daylong.
So you can just use two bars ofa turnaround and make this pop
and then you go back to C major,f, major, whatever.
Dave (35:15):
Yeah, and this is also If you've ever been watching a film
or you know, gummy bears orwhatever, which still blows my
mind, the gummy bears, it's yeah.
We're sitting here with likenostalgia.
Royalty here.
If you've ever wondered, wow,where did those ideas come from?
How in the world did they comeup with this?
I'm in my little diatonic boxin one, six, four, whatever.
(35:38):
If you've ever wondered how theyjust conjure this up, it's
stuff like this, right, theydon't just sit there and tinkle
around on the piano and hopesomething works out.
They have this whole box ofcrayons that you didn't even.
It's not that you can't have it, you just didn't even know it
existed.
You know, you're sitting therewith your four colors that I
guess you got from therestaurant.
(35:58):
You know, because they let youdraw on the table and you're
like I can make my four colors.
There is plenty of people whohave an entire career of
coloring with four crayons andthat's fine.
And in the production musicworld we have to be careful that
we can't go so far off the gridand off the map that now
suddenly it's pulling focus.
So there is a balance there.
(36:18):
But if you're looking for howdo you get to that next level.
You listen to something you'relike where in the world did that
come from?
It's stuff like this.
Frank (36:29):
It's stuff just like this and that connects strongly to
the three step process.
Because if you look at thethree steps and just to remind
everybody here, it was gathering, sketching and developing.
So if you look at gathering andsketching, that is a big part
where you trust your emotionaldecision making.
You're not judging the idea,just put stuff on the table that
(36:51):
resonates with you emotionallyand then in the developing phase
, this is the moment where youcan bring in skills like, okay,
let's orchestrate this, let'swrite this out as a SATB choir,
whatever.
And this requires skills forsure.
This is more the logical sideof your decision making.
Dave (37:12):
It's the craft.
It's what I call the craft.
There's a creative, artisticside, and then there's the craft
work Not a German EDM artist,but there's the craft work of
the muscle memory, of doing thethings repeatedly, over and over
and over.
Frank (37:29):
Yeah, and one of the big secrets that revealed themselves
to me by following this processand this is also not a joke,
I'm not making this up is thatthe moment you write, or you
compose and edit at the sametime, you create a big problem
for yourself, and that is what Iused to do for years.
(37:51):
Without knowing, withoutknowing so, I would spend, let's
say, three hours on working onjust four bars and those four
bars.
After those three hours, theysounded fantastic to me,
fantastic Well developed andwith a lot of details, and
everything was in there.
I even started the mixingprocess, I believe, for the four
(38:12):
bars, and then you transitioninto bar number five.
That is completely empty.
There is nothing in there, andnow you start that fear inside
you how can I catch up to thefour bars?
Those are brilliant, and I haveliterally no clue what to do in
bar number four.
Dave (38:32):
That's like an author writing a completed book one
chapter at a time, not justwrite the book, get it edited,
send it off, publish it, get thecover art done for one chapter.
No, I'm totally in agreement.
I think the creative processand I did a whole episode on
right brain versus left brain Iknow the science on that is a
(38:54):
little squirrely, but let's justfathom the concept, the process
.
There's a creative flow, stateprocess, tc, what you were
alluding to and then there's theanalytical, the editing process
, and those should be somewhatseparated lest you run the risk
of pulling your flow to ascreeching halt.
It just grinds it down, itslows it down.
T.C. (39:19):
Yep, that's right.
I'd like to address what youhad asked before, just to unpack
the difference between innervolic thinking and diatonic
thinking.
Volic thinking starts outsideof diatonic, so you're outside
(39:43):
of a key, you're free and youlearn how to get into a key.
Diatonic theory takes probably20 times longer, but they
eventually learn how to get outof it, like a jazz musician
eventually learns how to get outof the key.
So it's much quicker to startfree and learn how to get in the
(40:07):
key than it is the other way.
And so that's, I would say,just in a general statement.
We start outside and get ininstead of starting inside and
get out.
Dave (40:20):
Which is funny because my very first theory lesson that I
remember is whole, whole, half,whole, whole, whole, half.
Two, two one, two, two one.
So we started out innervolically.
But as soon as we understoodthe little pattern, now it's
like key keys and you're lookingat all the same notes are on
(40:40):
the page, but this one has apound symbol, this one has a
little B in front of it.
What does all that mean?
Right, for my little drummerbrain, 18-year-old drummer brain
, sitting in a music theoryclass for the first time ever,
it was mega-overwhelming.
Not to mention, you get stuckinto this keyboard To this day.
I think this is why I have sucha hard time with guitar and I
(41:03):
did an episode a while back on.
Hey, I'm learning guitar and Isuck at it and that's okay,
because guitarists justnaturally think inner volically
and you can just go up a stepand it's all.
You shift your whole hand upand yeah.
So I could see this being ahuge benefit for guitarists and
TCM noticing some fineinstruments hanging behind you
(41:23):
right now.
T.C. (41:25):
Oh, yeah, I have a lot of them, but I want to address
something that you just said.
Okay, because you said wholestep, whole step, half step,
whole step, whole step, wholestep, half step, right.
So I want to give you atheoretical look at that.
The reason why that sounds likethe Ionian scale or a major
scale is where the ones are inrelation to one another.
(41:52):
Okay, so if I were six apart, ifI change that and make them
five apart, I change my tonalityand I'm in a whole new Ionian
by just looking at where theones are, the ones meaning half
steps, right.
So between, if I'm in C, E andF is one, and B and C.
(42:13):
If I change that to E and F andI move the B and C down to B
flat and A, I'm at a completelydifferent key.
Just by moving that one, Idon't even have to know what the
other guys are, and you'll hearthat you're in a new tonal
center, and so that's kind ofwhat I mean by we start on the
(42:34):
outside and learn how to get in.
Dave (42:35):
I feel like I feel like Neo seeing the matrix for the
first time right, and it's nolonger like there's this, like
you could see the code behind itand I could understand.
I could understand why this isso kind of freeing.
Now my question for you is andTC, I'll ask you, as someone who
has written a ton of music formedia, film and TV, some of
(43:01):
these can yield some well, let'sjust say, some really
chromatically bonkers stuff.
So how do you, how do you workin the music interval theory
process and yet still stick towhere it's usable.
It's not pulling focus, it'snot so far out that suddenly
(43:24):
it's not working for TV.
How do you balance that?
T.C. (43:28):
Well, you start with simple ideas and I way I work is
I use for guitar.
You're good, you want to learnhow to play guitar.
I use matrices on the guitarinstead of chord shapes and
matrix.
For example, if an intervalcombinations, an interval
(43:50):
combination is just twodifferent intervals.
So if I tell you, because you'rea jazz musician, so I would say
, if I have a B flat, 13th chord, I want to try it on top.
So I have an A flat, a D and aG.
Between the A flat and the G isan 11.
(44:11):
Elevens resolve to nines.
So if I know that I can playthat chord and see a resolution
in there without having to learnanother chord, I can see the
resolution because the G willresolve to the F and that gives
you a nine from the A flat tothe F.
So what happens is that youlearn where the tonal centers
(44:39):
are in certain things and byknowing the interval.
For example, if I say what isthe root tone between C and D
flat?
It's D flat.
What's the root tone between Dand E?
It's an.
E.
Intervolically it's an E andthat's because of where it
(45:00):
occurs in the overtone series.
So if I just have those twonotes and Prokofiev did this a
lot he would use two notes toget to another tonality, and
that's one place that I startedwaking up to how to use interval
thinking.
It doesn't mean you can't bediatonic and tonal, just means
(45:22):
that you see other options,gotcha.
Dave (45:25):
Gotcha.
Yeah, don't mind me, I'll justbe over here, mind blown.
That's fine, and I hopelisteners, viewers, I hope
you're getting as much out ofthis as I am.
This is just a personal lesson.
This is what it is.
I'm just filming a coachingsession.
Appreciate it, guys.
Thank you guys.
Well, speaking of coaching,this isn't just a podcast that
(45:45):
you guys put together.
You have an entire academy.
Let's talk about the academy,what some of its goals are and
maybe how folks can get in touchwith you if you, like me, are
resonating with this.
Frank (46:00):
Maybe in the beginning, let's start with, there was not
even the idea of creating anacademy, right?
Because you see, you and I wemet, as you said, in Vienna at
one of those lecture series.
It was in 2015.
And back then it was anexchange of ideas.
Nothing, nothing more.
I wanted to learn from you andI was bugging you every night
(46:24):
after those lectures like pleasegive me some more and please
can I look at the score that youpresented today and stuff like
that, and you would give it tome.
And I spent half of my nightanalyzing these things.
And the next morning I cameback to you and was presenting
my ideas, which was more or lessthe analysis of what I assumed
(46:44):
you did, and you looked at thisand you said, well, frank, this
is great.
I have no idea if that was myinitial thought of how I
composed it, but let's try it.
Let's try it.
And why don't you compose apiece following the guidelines
that you have recreated out ofthe score?
And I did right.
(47:04):
So every time we exchanged someof those ideas, we had plenty of
materials that came out ofthose scores and musical
examples.
No text at that point.
It was not designed to beteaching material.
This was just my desire tofinally learn something that
would get me out of my ownfrustration, honestly.
(47:25):
And we ended up with a lot ofthese musical examples and we
showed it to the class.
And then I believe the wholeclass, which was 15 guys or
something they all came to TCand asked how they can continue,
because this one week in Viennahas ended, and they were
(47:47):
thrilled about well, this isgreat, we want to learn more
about that.
And then TC, you told me I canremember this Well, frank, why
don't you turn this thing intosome teachable materials?
And we did this and we startedgiving Zoom sessions.
Again, it was not the idea ofcreating an academy or even
creating a business around theacademy, it was really just Well
(48:11):
, this was interesting and someother guys wanted to learn more
about that.
Dave (48:15):
So just organically growing out of what was already
happening 100%, yep, 100%.
Frank (48:22):
And then at some point we decided that, since it took up
our whole day for I don't knowhow many months and years, and
we tried to organize all ofthese findings into lessons so
that they didn't go over an houron Zoom back then, because it
took a ton of time and we talkedto not quite sure about seven,
(48:48):
maybe sometimes seven guys a dayand tried to explain those
interval theory techniques tothem.
And at some stage we decided,ok, this can't be the way we do
it most efficiently.
This is not scalable, it justeats up all of our day and we
don't get to compose musicanymore, which was very sad
(49:10):
right Boy.
Dave (49:10):
do I understand that?
Frank (49:13):
Our goal kind of never shifted from.
We wanted to become and turninto the best versions of
ourselves.
So, yeah, that being said, wethought about a business model
and how to let this continuewithout our days being filled
with Zoom sessions, because thatis obviously something that you
(49:34):
want to reduce over time.
Everybody who did a lot ofthose will agree, I believe.
So, yeah, we came up with thosewith a platform.
Obviously, first it was just awebsite and then it became more
and more like all of the lessonsturned into video lessons.
But, funnily enough, the Zoomsessions they didn't stop Now.
(49:56):
They just moved from teachingsessions into implementation and
feedback sessions, which isfine.
We do these things up to thispoint.
The last one we had yesterdayat the Creative Campus, which is
also a part of the Academy,which was a very organic branch
almost, and this is more or lesslike our virtual space for the
(50:20):
members and everybody who'sinterested.
This is not member limited.
Honestly.
Everybody can visit theCreative Campus and we do those
sessions still up to this point,and it is such a fantastic
experience, I have to say so Ican't imagine doing something
else.
It's a perfect split of thetime between still being pro
(50:44):
composers and work in theindustry and do gigs like the
usual thing that composers doand still passing on some of
those intervallic findings tothose who are interested in new
methods and in breathing newlife and life and new colors
into their creations.
(51:04):
I think that's the whole point.
So it got to the point where weseem to attract very
organically the quote unquoteright people who are open to
trying something new, maybe evengetting out of their own
frustration and overcomingproblems and issues that they
(51:24):
had for years and decades.
Sometimes that is what some ofthe members really tell us.
If you get to talk to somebodywho retired out of the music
business and this was a recentcase I won't give any names, of
course, but he wrote me an emaillike a week ago and said well,
frank, I'm following the YouTubechannel for two years or so and
(51:48):
a week ago I retired.
Now I made the decision to jointhe Academy because I believe
this is just fantastic and afantastic addition to my musical
education.
I never heard about intervaltheory before, but this piqued
my interest and I think the wayyou present these ideas, this is
just a nice way for mepersonally, obviously, to get a
(52:11):
fresh perspective to musictheory and to music in general.
So half of the members they areperforming musicians as well,
so it's not just like that.
You have to be a hardcorecomposer to get value out of
this.
This also works on anyinstrument like the piano or the
guitar, and to see, that'smaybe the moment also where I
(52:33):
want to give everybody theopportunity to learn a bit more
about how these things can beapplied to the guitar, because
that is what you specialize inand created a ton of materials
over the last few years, andthat is fantastic.
Dave (52:49):
So I think it's a great opportunity for all the
musicians to get a freshperspective If they feel that
this would enrich their musicallife and, like I said, it's not
limited to just film, scoring,their applications across
instrument and whatever yourcareer goals are, if you want to
(53:11):
be a production music composerfilm games, television
commercials, jingles, I meanthis really does have far
reaching implications and justgives you a whole new way to
think about music theory.
So I would say, if you'refeeling kind of stuck and for
the record, this is not asponsored right, you're not like
paying, this isn't a 45 minutecommercial for me to but I just
(53:34):
really really believe in whatyou guys are doing and, as
somebody with a graduate degreein music theory or in music,
being able to hear whole brandnew ways to think about things
from a perspective that youhadn't before is super
refreshing and exciting, and soI, every time I listen to one of
(53:58):
your episodes, every time Iwatch a video, I come away
inspired, and so justcongratulations.
I wish you guys all of thesuccess.
If folks want to get in touchwith you, how can they do that?
Frank (54:13):
I think the easiest way is to come to the website,
because it almost works as a hubto all the other media streams
that we put out, and that ismusicintervaltheoryacademy.
Dave (54:28):
Super simple Musicintervaltheoryacademy.
And of course, we're going tohave links to all of that in the
show notes.
And if you're listening to thispodcast, as soon as this
episode is done, go listen totheir episodes.
It's really, really good.
And that little jingle.
I want to ask you all aboutthat jingle that's so crazy.
Frank (54:50):
May I give you some nice background information about
that jingle, because youmentioned this and we wrote it
together.
You see, we wrote this one forthe podcast and in there this is
a quick tip for everybodylistening.
And this is also true wheneverI don't know what to write like
not to write us blog, but Idon't have a clear idea yet.
(55:13):
I always start with a chromaticline, and that is not a joke.
I always start with a chromaticline and in that jingle the
chromatic line was the mentalbaseline.
You're not hearing it rightBecause it's just the voice on
top and the piano and stuff, butstill, if you get to see the
score and we have it actually,maybe we will do a little
(55:35):
teaching session on the jingleat some point.
But it is a mental root line.
I wouldn't call it aprogression, even because it's a
cycle.
The root cycle is just more orless the chromatic line, but
this holds the whole jingletogether.
So again, jazz theory right,and it sounds super like.
Dave (55:54):
What do you see, Anne Frank?
You land on the one.
It feels resolved.
There's tension, there'sresolution.
All those things that Bach didyou guys are doing Just so you
can go tell your musicinstructor or your professor
from way back in the day thatwe're using tritones and we're
not even sorry.
Frank (56:15):
And I'm proud of that.
Dave (56:16):
That's right.
Well, tc and Frank, thank youso much for joining me today on
the 52 Cues podcast.
Really really appreciate youand what you are bringing into
the music education space and Ijust want to encourage you keep
up the good work.
Really really great having youtoday.
T.C. (56:34):
Thank you, Dave.
Frank (56:36):
Many thanks for that, and , dave, maybe at some point we
can welcome you at the MusicInterval Theory podcast as well.
This is maybe the invitationalready.
We will stay in touch, so ifthat is something that you might
be interested, we are all open.
Dave (56:52):
That's already a yes, that's an automatic yes.
Sir, I will see you over inMida, happy to join you over
there.
Well, dave, many thanks.
T.C. (57:03):
Thank you, Dave.
Dave (57:05):
Once again, a huge word of thanks to Frank and TC from the
Music Interval Theory Academyfor joining me on the podcast
today and, of course, we'regoing to have all their links in
the description below.
Also a huge word of thanks tothe family, friends and neighbor
subscribers of 52 Cues who paytheir actual real life money to
keep all of this going.
You notice you didn't hear anyembedded ads for meal plans or
(57:27):
mattresses or earbuds, but theMida folks, they didn't pay for
this.
I just think they're a greatidea.
So that's not a sponsoredsegment or anything.
No, we are supported fromviewers, listeners and
subscribers, just like you.
So if that sounds likesomething you want to be a part
of, help support the channel andget all of those subscriber
(57:47):
perks like workshops, livestreams, hours and hours of
video archives, new breakdowns,and our briefing room allows you
to pitch to real musiclibraries and head over to
52Cuescom.
It is free to join andsubscriptions start at around
four bucks a month.
But that is going to do it forme this week.
You definitely want to tune innext week because I'm afraid.
(58:09):
I'm afraid we need to talkabout AI again.
We talked about AI before andabout.
Is AI coming to take our jobsand it's still not time to sound
the alarm.
I don't need to pull the firealarm, but, man, just this past
weekend, open AI released Soraand some video clips which were
(58:31):
jaw dropping, and I think itwould be naive to not have a
sobering discussion about whatthat means and the implications
for us in the production musicworld.
So you definitely want to tunein next week.
So I hope you've had a greatweek eight and I know that you,
my friends, are going to have anamazing week nine.
(58:52):
How do I know that?
Because I trust and believethat the universe has amazing
plans just for you.
Until next time, peace.
The 52Cues podcast iscopyrighted 2024 at 18 Studios.
All Rights Reserve.
The music played on the podcastis copyrighted of their
respective owners and is usedwith permission and for
educational purposes only.
(59:12):
For more information, includingjoining the community or
becoming a member subscriber of52Cues, head over to 52Cuescom.
If you want to be more interesting with the music you
compose.
I think just having a freeingapproach is key, because there
is so much music out there and,honestly, you won't have a
career by just running into thesame four chords that everybody
used in the charts like 10 yearsago.
You won't have a career period.
Dave (00:20):
That's what I believe and chances are every blues musician
said uh sir, actually, butthat's a whole different genre.
Frank (00:31):
Exactly so.
Again, when we talk aboutproduction and you know being
interesting with sounds, forexample, then you can compensate
a lot for ordinary chordprogressions.
Dave (00:53):
What is happening, everybody, and welcome back to
another episode of the 52 Cuespodcast, your weekly insight
into all things production andlibrary music.
Whether you're just curiousabout the sync industry, or
maybe you're a production musicveteran, I promise you you're in
the right place.
My name is Dave Croft and it isso good to be with you today.
And if you find this episodehelpful, then why don't you give
(01:14):
it a thumbs up here on YouTubeor a five star review over in
the podcast app of your choice?
And, while you're at it, goahead and subscribe, because I
talk about production andlibrary music every single week.
Today's episode wouldn't bepossible without the incredible
support of our members,subscribers of 52 Cues, who not
only keep our community aliveand thriving, but as member
(01:36):
subscribers they get access toextra perks and benefits like
live streams, workshops, qbreakdowns, weekly feedback
sessions, tons and tons of videoarchives and the opportunity to
submit to real music libraries.
So if you're ready to getstarted on your career and make
a serious push into productionand library music, then why
(01:57):
don't you join us over at 52Cues?
It's free to sign up andmembership start at around four
bucks a month.
So how has my week been.
It is week nine here.
Right, I'm losing track.
I'm totally losing track of theweeks.
It's week eight, I'm sorry.
How?
How is my week eight been?
(02:18):
Well, last week, you know, wehad the Ready for Sync Live,
which I have really, reallyenjoyed, and if you haven't
checked out that episode, besure to do that.
And I am knee deep into my nextproject for a library that I'm
working on.
I for now, the sixth year in arow, I have been writing music
for a documentary that comes outafter the Masters Tournament,
(02:41):
so this is my sixth year doingit.
It's really interesting.
It's bespoke production music,it's not scored, but it is
custom production music that isused specifically for this
project.
And so they they the referenceswe got, and I can't remember if
I mentioned this two weeks ago,but the references that we got
were from Dunkirk and the DarkKnight, and so that kind of sent
(03:04):
us into some weird dark tensionterritory, which we really
haven't done before in my fiveyears of doing this.
Before we haven't really donethat, but it was really fun
exploring that, exploring thesounds of Hans Zimmer and how he
uses pulses and drones in theDark Knight and the Dunkirk
soundtrack, and I even leaned alittle bit into 1917, which I
(03:28):
know is Thomas Newman.
But considering that ThomasNewman and Rachel Portman had
been two really big referencesin the years previously, I
thought that was fair game.
So I used a little bit ofinfluence from the 1917
soundtrack.
Well, they have as much as theyneed for that.
So the cue that I am playingthis week for you is called.
(03:49):
It's called a comeback and it'sa little bit more uplifting, a
little bit more in line withwhat what they're they've been
using in the past.
So we're going to listen tothat here in just a second.
But it's been a really goodweek We've.
We've tied up some projects inthe briefing room over at 52
cues, published some some albumsand just this morning, wrapped
(04:11):
up some deliverables that hadbeen kind of lingering around
for quite a while.
And I had a thought in themiddle of doing this and it took
a few hours, like three or fourhours of focused work to wrap
up those deliverables for aclient.
Once I had those in place andwhen I got done with it I
(04:32):
thought man, why did it take solong to do that?
And I was kind of kickingmyself a little bit, but I knew
that it was going to take justlike four uninterrupted hours to
knock that out, and so I justkind of kept putting it on the
back burner until eventually,you know, I get an email and the
(04:53):
library is like Dave, I reallyreally need these.
So I had to push everything outof the way and focus on it.
But on the other side I waslike, oh, I felt really I felt
kind of stupid for waiting solong to do those deliverables,
and so I've done a podcastepisode before on if it's your
(05:13):
job to eat a frog it's a MarkTwain quote about eating your
frogs If it's your job to eat afrog, then best to eat it first
thing in the morning.
Just get it out of the way andboulders and if you have a
really big boulder, don't focuson the little pebbles, focus on
the big thing.
And that's what I really shouldhave done.
And so it was a little bit of areminder to not procrastinate,
(05:39):
to not do the heavy liftinguntil the last minute, because
it's just going to loom over you.
And it did it kind of.
You know, the last few weeksit's just been lingering there
and just chewing at me and I usethis phrase often.
You know, the sword of Damocleswas just swinging at me and
just waiting to kind of take myhead off.
(06:02):
And I'm going to commit tomyself to not do that as much.
And I just wanted to encourageyou and I just want to share
that little experience just thismorning where I wondered why it
took me so long, why did I putthat off so when it just took a
few hours?
But it's done and I feel reallygood about myself.
(06:23):
I feel lighter, you know, and Ineed to remember this feeling.
You need to tell Dave Dave thisis Dave Dave you feel really
good when you take care of yourbusiness, so take care of your
business earlier so that youdon't have to worry about
damaging any relationships.
So that's been my week, weekeight, and I've been writing a
(06:45):
ton of these cues for thismaster's movie documentary and
so we are going to check out.
It's called a comeback and thenwe will talk about it on the
other side.
So that was, it's called acomeback, and I really enjoy
(09:43):
writing these cues because youget to branch out of the
standard kind of productionmusic groove, you know two
minutes, or a minute and 30 andlike build breakdown, you know
build button and so I can.
They can breathe a little bitmore and they're much more kind
of underscore and I enjoy andI'm really thankful for this to
(10:04):
be my sixth year doing those.
And as far as where you can seeit, I think they do air it on
CBS or maybe even CBS sportsnetwork and I think I've gotten
some royalties from in-flightmovies before.
I think this has shown up likeDelta in-flight system.
They track those kind ofroyalties Pretty sure I've seen
some of those.
So that's really cool and foryou, friends and family
(10:28):
subscribers, I will be doing abreakdown of this cue later this
week.
So for our topic today, I amreally happy to welcome to the
podcast Frank and TC from theMusic Interval Theory Academy.
A fantastic talk and, like Imentioned in the interview
(10:50):
that's coming up, they reallydid.
The whole theory music intervaltheory approach has really
opened my eyes to a whole newway of thinking about composing
and of scoring and writingproduction music.
So without further ado, here ismy recent interview with TC and
Frank from the Music IntervalTheory Academy.
(11:13):
You know it's not every daythat you run across a podcast
which really changes the way youthink.
And the Music Interval Theorypodcast with TC and Frank.
Love you little jingle has donethat for me, because being able
(11:33):
to talk about advancedtheoretical concepts and
challenge your creative processwas super inspiring to me, and
so when I had the chance towelcome Frank and TC from the
Music Interval Theory Academy, Ijumped at the chance.
Frank, tc, welcome, welcome,welcome to the 52Q's podcast.
Frank (11:59):
Many, many thanks, Dave.
That is fantastic.
We are very excited about thisinterview, this chat, and I
think we have some fantastictopics that we can maybe scratch
or go deeper we will see but weare very excited and, yeah,
thanks for having us.
T.C. (12:18):
Yeah, this has been something I've personally looked
forward to for a few weeks now.
Dave (12:23):
Yeah, excellent, excellent , excellent.
And I mean we're gonna havelinks to TC's IMDB, which goes
back what?
40 something years, almost 45years, and we're gonna have
Frank's credits.
So these are pros, let's justsay and I don't want to waste
any time like shredding bios andeverything you can check all
that out.
We'll have that in the shownotes.
(12:45):
But I want to start with thething that made me really
excited.
I remember I was like four inthe morning.
I'm having my morning walk andI'm listening to episode 10 of
the Music Interval Theorypodcast and it is the three-step
process for composing.
And I'm telling you guys, it isfundamentally like oh my gosh,
(13:07):
let's talk about this.
Frank, can you unpack that alittle bit?
Or TC, talk about thethree-step process, how it came
about and how that can really beapplied, whether you're a
production music composer or asongwriter, or if you write
music for cartoons.
Frank (13:25):
Yeah, well, maybe before we jump into the three steps,
which we will do in probably 30seconds, let me give you a quick
story.
What you don't know about meyet is that my father, he was in
the German military, so he wasa Lieutenant Colonel, which is
(13:48):
high rank, and then when he camehome, which was every two weeks
or so, he kind of couldn't letgo of his role, which means we
had a lot of discipline at homeand a lot of structure, which I
believe is a good thing to somedegree, because that made me
(14:08):
question almost everything,since I'm a creative spirit and
I developed let's call it, ahealthy problem with authority,
and I want to emphasize healthy.
So I question a lot of thesethings that he wanted to enforce
in the family, which also ledto this compositional career in
(14:33):
the end, because he was alwaysagainst it.
Now we are on the same side andI proved him well.
This was a good decision.
So all good on that end, and heknows about that.
But, this being said, I thinkhaving a process to composition
was always a thing that I wassearching for for years.
(14:54):
And you see, and I, we studiedthe conventional way first,
which is good, no question aboutthat.
But one of the issues that Ipersonally always had was that
to some degree, you couldn'texplain how to compose.
You could explain techniqueslike, for example, this is how
(15:15):
you write a melody and thismakes a melody strong and this
is a great chord progression,what that is a bad chord
progression.
You can label those things tosome degree, but then if you
talk to successful composers,most of them explain to you
things like well, I just feelwhen it's ready, you know it is
a feel thing, and to me this isnot really relatable because I'm
(15:40):
not feeling what you're feelingRight.
So you can't teach that, it'snot possible.
And that made us think.
I would say, think about howcan we put this all into easy
steps.
And I think that is actuallyalso the moment.
Now, tc, I want to transitionto you.
Maybe you want to give us thethree steps and what they stand
(16:03):
for and how everybody can usethem, actually not only in
composition.
This is part of the creativeprocess in general, I would
almost say.
But, tc, please feel free totalk us through the steps and
what they are.
T.C. (16:17):
OK, well, I'm happy to do that.
The first step is gathering.
And what's nice about gatheringis you don't have to be
creative to gather, you justhave to search for things that
are interesting.
For example, if I wanted tobake a pie and I wanted to be a
(16:40):
berry pie, I go out into theforest looking for berries and I
see some berries and, oh, thatmight be good.
I'm not looking for aparticular kind of a berry, I
just want to.
I know I want to generally tobe a berry pie.
So I gather the berries andthen I see strawberries and I
see blueberries and I see otherkinds of berries and I gather
(17:03):
them all together.
And in the process of doing thatI relax my mind and I get
connected to what we call thecreative pool.
And when you're connected tothe creative pool, there is no
time.
That's what happens to artistswhen they realize they've been
(17:25):
sitting for three hours and wow,where'd the time go?
Well, it's because you're in aflow.
So we realized that writer'sblock generally happens if you
don't gather first, if you don'ttake the time to gather.
So we gather musical ideas, notworried about whether it's good
, bad, the producer is going tolike it.
(17:46):
Even if you like it or not,it's just another idea.
And so, basically, you gatherand then pretty soon you realize
, oh, that gives me that idea.
And then the next step is sketchand the sketching.
This all came to me from anoverwhelming amount of work that
I had to do.
(18:07):
Personally, I used to do twoshows a week composition,
production and they were liveorchestras, so you didn't have a
full week plus they would editand you'd have to do so.
I had to find ways to composefast, and so this came out of
(18:30):
years, several seasons, ofrealizing it's got to be a step
process.
So gathering is the first stepand you don't think about it
very hard, you just say, well, Iwant to write a piece and it's
in this kind of genre.
The next is sketching, butthere's not a defined line
between them.
So you could go into sketchinglooking at some of your
(18:52):
gathering and say, wow, thatgives me this idea and gives me
that idea, and you develop awhole bunch of the little
gathered parts until longerparts.
The secret that a lot of peopleforget is you can go back.
You can go back to gathering Ifyou say, oh, I need to know a
little bit more about thisparticular interval, because I'm
(19:13):
at a place where I need somemore.
So you can go back and forth.
So you start to sketch.
And the thing is, when I workedat Warner Brothers for seven
years doing Batman, I would gointo the library and look at
sketches from John Williams, allkinds of main composers, and I
(19:37):
realized I didn't know how tosketch.
How do you sketch?
And it's really quite easy, andsketches are different for
everybody.
You know, john Williams andJerry Goldsmith had eight-stage
sketches, strings up, stringsdown.
But as you get better andbetter at it, you need less and
(19:58):
less, because when youorchestrate you're developing
too.
So we have gathering, sketchingand development, and the
development is the orchestrationand this is what we teach how
to do all three of those.
I hope I didn't get too farahead of myself, no, no.
Dave (20:17):
I think that makes perfect sense and from the production
music side of things Iabsolutely resonate with wow,
you have to write a lot and youhave to write it quickly and you
are writing to briefs andyou're writing to somebody
else's need, Like you can't justwrite whatever you want to
write and it is what it is andtake it or leave it.
You know you have a scene tofill, you have an emotion to hit
(20:37):
, and being able to sustainablycreate is vital for anybody
looking to make a career inmusic production, especially for
media.
So the idea for gathering forme is doing your reference work,
you know, maybe listeningthrough a bunch of patches and
(20:58):
seeing if something kind of youknow resonates with you, and the
sketching is putting kind ofnotes in the DAW, kind of some
rough ideas, and then thedevelopment, the final
orchestration, like you said,into Mix and Master and
Deliverables and all of that,and so I think there's plenty,
plenty of overlap and I see howyour experience in the animation
(21:21):
industry completely correlatesto the production music industry
for sure.
T.C. (21:27):
Yes, I've been very lucky and blessed.
And I'm very lucky to have metFrank, because he and I met in
Vienna in a lecture series andit started off where he was one
of the students and the nextyear he was also one of the
lecturers.
(21:47):
That's what a good composer hewas already, but he was also
I'll just say this quicklybecause I don't want to eat up
too much time but Frank was theone guy out of the whole class
that on the breaks would end upexplaining what I was talking
about to everybody.
Frank (22:10):
Yeah, this is kind of true.
Sorry for that.
T.C. (22:13):
Oh, I was very, I'm very happy.
So well, no.
Dave (22:16):
I think any educator, you know when, when, when you find
those students who are wow, yourecognize it in them.
You're like you know what.
They've not only got the goods,but they have the drive they're
, they're good to work with,they're easy to work with.
You know, we were talkingearlier before we started
recording how being easy to workwith and pleasant to be around,
(22:37):
being good natured, affable,all of those things I mean, they
are a real currency in theindustry, because talent alone
will only get you so far, and ifyou're a big jerk, you know
your talent level has to beexponentially higher than if you
can just get along, you know.
And so having students whoresonate with you, who you see,
(22:59):
clearly, oh, there's somethingthere you want.
You usually want to keep thempretty close, so I get it.
T.C. (23:06):
Yeah, well, we have a very , I think, positive culture in
the academy and that has a baseof give more than you take, and
so it doesn't matter whereyou're at in the educational
levels, try to give backwhenever possible, and that's
(23:28):
what Frank has in a big way, andso he gives a lot and that's
what all of our people do.
They try to give a lot.
So the members they learn fromeach other, they learn from us,
and you know I'm learning fromyou right now, dave.
Oh, I'm still a sponge.
(23:52):
I love to learn from people.
So I think your podcast isexcellent.
I appreciate that.
You're really great at the wayyou talk to the audience.
Dave (24:02):
Well, thank you, man, that you honor me, thank you, thank
you so much.
I want to change gears andFrank music interval theory.
How is that different from justthe music theory that I know, I
learned, you know, in the, inthe dungeons of music school,
you know, and just sweating overstaff paper and and, and, yeah,
(24:24):
and, coronaries and ulcers?
Can you unpack what you mean bymusic interval theory?
Frank (24:34):
Yeah, of course.
Well, one of the of the thingsthat I want to start with when
you ask that question is theproblem with conventional theory
.
For me right this is just apersonal opinion, obviously is
that it teaches you techniquebut not really how to put this
all into action and theapplication, and this became a
(24:57):
problem to the degree that,again, here it comes with my
healthy problem with authority.
I remember if I may, let megive you another quick story,
and and this is really true whenI started music in Cologne in
Germany.
Back then I had a musicprofessor and once he would give
(25:19):
us an assignment and thatassignment was something like
well, right, in the style ofBach, and we analyzed a few of
those pieces and I did myassignment, my homework, I
turned it in and I actually gota bad grade for that and I, well
, I got to the.
To the professor.
They asked why is that?
(25:39):
What did I do wrong?
And he said well, frank, lookat what you did right here.
You wrote a tritone.
We would refer to this as a sixinterval, because it's six
chromatic steps from one note tothe next.
And I said yes, I know, I didit purposely right.
And he said, well, this iswrong.
And I asked well, why is thatwrong?
He said, well, bach didn'twrite any tritones.
(26:02):
And then I said what, wait asecond, give me one minute.
And I went to my place and Ifound him two examples where
Bach actually did write tritones.
And then he just turned to meand said well, frank, you are
not Bach.
And this is what what it didfor me.
Like, okay, if that is the wayconventional music theory tries
(26:23):
to well, bring up those youngand aspiring composers, I'm done
.
Yeah, I'm really done.
I'm.
I'm sorry, but I'm not gonnalearn anything from that
approach.
So that was for me the first,the first moment in my it wasn't
a career back then but in my,you know, music profession that
(26:43):
I realized, okay, I don't wantto continue that way, there has
to be something else.
And I was pretty frustrated atthat time because I couldn't
compose like all these you knowgreat guys that I admired back
then, tc being one of them,funnily enough, and I told you
that a few times, tc, that Igrew up on the shows that you
(27:04):
scored, like you know, the gummybears, duck tails, elven and
the chipmunks and what, whatelse I'm not quite sure there
are, you know, endless exampleshere.
But the point is I listened tothe music and I had no clue how
to write something like that,although I went through the
conventional way and then atsome point I, you know, got into
(27:26):
touch with the intervals ingeneral, and this made me think,
because of two reasons actually.
The first reason was thatintervals they lead to other
musical places that are noteasily reachable via
conventional theory, becauseconventional theory suggests a
clear path to.
(27:47):
You know more or less theWestern diatonic system that we
know and and love.
I still write a lot in that, inthat system, of course I like
the sound, but the problem iseverybody sounds pretty much the
same if they follow the sameguidelines.
And so the first thing is newmusical places, which was a big
(28:09):
point for me.
The second one was it gave mesomething I could rely on,
because here it comes, intervals, they have a nature to them,
and this might sound abstract,but honestly it's not.
It's actually pretty simple toput into action, because if you
isolate intervals, then youpretty much realize what the
(28:32):
nature is by looking at theharmonic series, right?
So if you take a two interval,let's say that is for the
diatonic guys out there.
It's a major second.
That's.
That's the interval.
It's two chromatic steps and ifyou play that on the piano it
doesn't sound stable.
It wants to move some place,right.
Usually it wants to resolve inthe way of the authentic cadence
(28:55):
, and that is what everybodytalks about and it works.
It's a cliche and that is good,but but guess what?
Everybody's gonna go that way.
So let's be different, let's bemore interesting in the music
that we present to our clients.
Right, and one thing that, forexample, we can do is that you
can look at the resolution.
If you play a two interval andI'm gonna be a bit nerdy here
(29:18):
the the top guy moves up by, youknow, five intervals.
That's part of the resolution.
The lower guy goes down justone chromatic step, and that is
what the authentic cadence is,this typical right in a triad
progression.
Now you can look at those twomovements and you can reflect it
right.
(29:39):
So you can look at the upper guy, let the upper guy move up by
one chromatic step.
Take the lower guy, let it movedown by five chromatic steps,
and now you just reflected theresolution.
It sounds great.
But here it changes the key,the musical key.
Now you're not writing in thediatonic system anymore,
(29:59):
although the nature of theintervals is still the same.
It's a resolution and it itresolves in a very acceptable
way to our ears.
So this is not stuff that thatsounds weird in the end, since
it's all part of you know moreor less the observation that we
have from nature right, but ituntethers it from diatonicism
(30:24):
and yet still captures thebehavioral aspects of, of
harmonic motion.
Dave (30:32):
And so, as somebody you know, my, my, my masters is in
jazz and it's all about the keyand what chords are you, are you
in, and everything, and even asthings are getting, you know,
harmonically intense, you'restill this movable diatonic
system right, which is great andthat's.
You know, I've been playing foryears and years like that.
(30:52):
But what you just said, andeven just now, after I've
listened to all your podcastsand everything just now, I'm
like oh, that's, that's.
It's kind of freeing and I'mrealizing that for the DAW
composer, if you're watchingthis or listening to this, and
your, your life isn't, you know,dots on a staff, but your, your
(31:15):
life is, you know parameters.
In a DAW or in a piano world,you already exist in a step, a
chromatic step environment, sothat you know if I need to
modulate up a minor third.
You don't think minor third anda key whatever.
I know the interval was inminor third.
My apologies to all you perfectpeople out there, but you know
(31:38):
I'm going up three half steps.
You know bup, bup, bup and done.
That's how I think when I'm inthe piano role.
I'm gonna modulate this and Ijust, you know, up arrow, up,
arrow, up arrow and it's done,and so that creates a connection
point that transcends, like,the music theory aspect, because
(31:59):
music theory can be superintimidating for folks who
haven't come through auniversity system.
You know who, maybe they'reself-taught or maybe they're not
.
In piano lessons was a lifetimeago, but that approach applies
so directly to MIDI composers.
It's staggering.
Now I don't, I don't know ifthat was on the outset, if that
(32:20):
was the goal, but that's, that'show it's super resonating with
me and this is also part of howwe compose.
Frank (32:29):
Really I know from TC, for example.
He likes to work inside a musicnotation program and more the
conventional way most likely, Ibelieve.
For me it is Cubase.
It is really just moving arounddots, more or less Obviously.
I do read music notation and Ifeel home with that as well, but
(32:49):
it's not the way how I composeand produce.
It is all inside Cubase andit's all with just moving around
those colorful dots andeverything.
And if you are used to lookingat those empty spaces between
the notes, which is thechromatic steps more or less
(33:10):
that's your grid it becomes veryeasy to see and you see all the
opportunities that theintervals bring, like this two
interval it wants to resolve,because what is also interesting
at two can be part of a biggerstructure.
And out of a sudden let's, forexample, put another five on top
.
Now you have a two plus five.
(33:31):
So we have three notes, we havethe two interval and the third
note, which is a five, on top ofthe middle one.
A lot of guys would refer tothat structure as a sus two
triad, for example.
And it is valid.
It's totally valid.
But the problem with that is,it puts immediately the root
tone into the structure and itanchors everything.
(33:54):
It puts you on a scale, it putsyou on a key and, as you said,
it's not really freeing anymore.
It's the opposite, actually,and sometimes that's exactly
what you want.
So I'm not saying that this isnecessarily a bad thing, but if
you want to be more interestingwith the music you compose, I
(34:15):
think just having a freeingapproach is key, because there
is so much music out there and,honestly, you won't have a
career by just running into thesame four chords that everybody
used in the charts like 10 yearsago.
You won't have a career period.
Dave (34:31):
That's what I believe and chances are every blue musician
said uh, sir, actually, butthat's a whole different job.
Frank (34:42):
Exactly so.
Again, when we talk aboutproduction and being interesting
with sounds, for example, thenyou can compensate a lot for
ordinary chord progressions.
So there are several layers.
I understand, of course, but ifwe stick to the notes, then it
is a good thing to be moreinteresting and you don't have
(35:04):
to write weird stuff all daylong.
So you can just use two bars ofa turnaround and make this pop
and then you go back to C major,f, major, whatever.
Dave (35:15):
Yeah, and this is also If you've ever been watching a film
or you know, gummy bears orwhatever, which still blows my
mind, the gummy bears, it's yeah.
We're sitting here with likenostalgia.
Royalty here.
If you've ever wondered, wow,where did those ideas come from?
How in the world did they comeup with this?
I'm in my little diatonic boxin one, six, four, whatever.
(35:38):
If you've ever wondered how theyjust conjure this up, it's
stuff like this, right, theydon't just sit there and tinkle
around on the piano and hopesomething works out.
They have this whole box ofcrayons that you didn't even.
It's not that you can't have it, you just didn't even know it
existed.
You know, you're sitting therewith your four colors that I
guess you got from therestaurant.
(35:58):
You know, because they let youdraw on the table and you're
like I can make my four colors.
There is plenty of people whohave an entire career of
coloring with four crayons andthat's fine.
And in the production musicworld we have to be careful that
we can't go so far off the gridand off the map that now
suddenly it's pulling focus.
So there is a balance there.
(36:18):
But if you're looking for howdo you get to that next level.
You listen to something you'relike where in the world did that
come from?
It's stuff like this.
Frank (36:29):
It's stuff just like this and that connects strongly to
the three step process.
Because if you look at thethree steps and just to remind
everybody here, it was gathering, sketching and developing.
So if you look at gathering andsketching, that is a big part
where you trust your emotionaldecision making.
You're not judging the idea,just put stuff on the table that
(36:51):
resonates with you emotionallyand then in the developing phase
, this is the moment where youcan bring in skills like, okay,
let's orchestrate this, let'swrite this out as a SATB choir,
whatever.
And this requires skills forsure.
This is more the logical sideof your decision making.
Dave (37:12):
It's the craft.
It's what I call the craft.
There's a creative, artisticside, and then there's the craft
work Not a German EDM artist,but there's the craft work of
the muscle memory, of doing thethings repeatedly, over and over
and over.
Frank (37:29):
Yeah, and one of the big secrets that revealed themselves
to me by following this processand this is also not a joke,
I'm not making this up is thatthe moment you write, or you
compose and edit at the sametime, you create a big problem
for yourself, and that is what Iused to do for years.
(37:51):
Without knowing, withoutknowing so, I would spend, let's
say, three hours on working onjust four bars and those four
bars.
After those three hours, theysounded fantastic to me,
fantastic Well developed andwith a lot of details, and
everything was in there.
I even started the mixingprocess, I believe, for the four
(38:12):
bars, and then you transitioninto bar number five.
That is completely empty.
There is nothing in there, andnow you start that fear inside
you how can I catch up to thefour bars?
Those are brilliant, and I haveliterally no clue what to do in
bar number four.
Dave (38:32):
That's like an author writing a completed book one
chapter at a time, not justwrite the book, get it edited,
send it off, publish it, get thecover art done for one chapter.
No, I'm totally in agreement.
I think the creative processand I did a whole episode on
right brain versus left brain Iknow the science on that is a
(38:54):
little squirrely, but let's justfathom the concept, the process
.
There's a creative flow, stateprocess, tc, what you were
alluding to and then there's theanalytical, the editing process
, and those should be somewhatseparated lest you run the risk
of pulling your flow to ascreeching halt.
It just grinds it down, itslows it down.
T.C. (39:19):
Yep, that's right.
I'd like to address what youhad asked before, just to unpack
the difference between innervolic thinking and diatonic
thinking.
Volic thinking starts outsideof diatonic, so you're outside
(39:43):
of a key, you're free and youlearn how to get into a key.
Diatonic theory takes probably20 times longer, but they
eventually learn how to get outof it, like a jazz musician
eventually learns how to get outof the key.
So it's much quicker to startfree and learn how to get in the
(40:07):
key than it is the other way.
And so that's, I would say,just in a general statement.
We start outside and get ininstead of starting inside and
get out.
Dave (40:20):
Which is funny because my very first theory lesson that I
remember is whole, whole, half,whole, whole, whole, half.
Two, two one, two, two one.
So we started out innervolically.
But as soon as we understoodthe little pattern, now it's
like key keys and you're lookingat all the same notes are on
(40:40):
the page, but this one has apound symbol, this one has a
little B in front of it.
What does all that mean?
Right, for my little drummerbrain, 18-year-old drummer brain
, sitting in a music theoryclass for the first time ever,
it was mega-overwhelming.
Not to mention, you get stuckinto this keyboard To this day.
I think this is why I have sucha hard time with guitar and I
(41:03):
did an episode a while back on.
Hey, I'm learning guitar and Isuck at it and that's okay,
because guitarists justnaturally think inner volically
and you can just go up a stepand it's all.
You shift your whole hand upand yeah.
So I could see this being ahuge benefit for guitarists and
TCM noticing some fineinstruments hanging behind you
(41:23):
right now.
T.C. (41:25):
Oh, yeah, I have a lot of them, but I want to address
something that you just said.
Okay, because you said wholestep, whole step, half step,
whole step, whole step, wholestep, half step, right.
So I want to give you atheoretical look at that.
The reason why that sounds likethe Ionian scale or a major
scale is where the ones are inrelation to one another.
(41:52):
Okay, so if I were six apart, ifI change that and make them
five apart, I change my tonalityand I'm in a whole new Ionian
by just looking at where theones are, the ones meaning half
steps, right.
So between, if I'm in C, E andF is one, and B and C.
(42:13):
If I change that to E and F andI move the B and C down to B
flat and A, I'm at a completelydifferent key.
Just by moving that one, Idon't even have to know what the
other guys are, and you'll hearthat you're in a new tonal
center, and so that's kind ofwhat I mean by we start on the
(42:34):
outside and learn how to get in.
Dave (42:35):
I feel like I feel like Neo seeing the matrix for the
first time right, and it's nolonger like there's this, like
you could see the code behind itand I could understand.
I could understand why this isso kind of freeing.
Now my question for you is andTC, I'll ask you, as someone who
has written a ton of music formedia, film and TV, some of
(43:01):
these can yield some well, let'sjust say, some really
chromatically bonkers stuff.
So how do you, how do you workin the music interval theory
process and yet still stick towhere it's usable.
It's not pulling focus, it'snot so far out that suddenly
(43:24):
it's not working for TV.
How do you balance that?
T.C. (43:28):
Well, you start with simple ideas and I way I work is
I use for guitar.
You're good, you want to learnhow to play guitar.
I use matrices on the guitarinstead of chord shapes and
matrix.
For example, if an intervalcombinations, an interval
(43:50):
combination is just twodifferent intervals.
So if I tell you, because you'rea jazz musician, so I would say
, if I have a B flat, 13th chord, I want to try it on top.
So I have an A flat, a D and aG.
Between the A flat and the G isan 11.
(44:11):
Elevens resolve to nines.
So if I know that I can playthat chord and see a resolution
in there without having to learnanother chord, I can see the
resolution because the G willresolve to the F and that gives
you a nine from the A flat tothe F.
So what happens is that youlearn where the tonal centers
(44:39):
are in certain things and byknowing the interval.
For example, if I say what isthe root tone between C and D
flat?
It's D flat.
What's the root tone between Dand E?
It's an.
E.
Intervolically it's an E andthat's because of where it
(45:00):
occurs in the overtone series.
So if I just have those twonotes and Prokofiev did this a
lot he would use two notes toget to another tonality, and
that's one place that I startedwaking up to how to use interval
thinking.
It doesn't mean you can't bediatonic and tonal, just means
(45:22):
that you see other options,gotcha.
Dave (45:25):
Gotcha.
Yeah, don't mind me, I'll justbe over here, mind blown.
That's fine, and I hopelisteners, viewers, I hope
you're getting as much out ofthis as I am.
This is just a personal lesson.
This is what it is.
I'm just filming a coachingsession.
Appreciate it, guys.
Thank you guys.
Well, speaking of coaching,this isn't just a podcast that
(45:45):
you guys put together.
You have an entire academy.
Let's talk about the academy,what some of its goals are and
maybe how folks can get in touchwith you if you, like me, are
resonating with this.
Frank (46:00):
Maybe in the beginning, let's start with, there was not
even the idea of creating anacademy, right?
Because you see, you and I wemet, as you said, in Vienna at
one of those lecture series.
It was in 2015.
And back then it was anexchange of ideas.
Nothing, nothing more.
I wanted to learn from you andI was bugging you every night
(46:24):
after those lectures like pleasegive me some more and please
can I look at the score that youpresented today and stuff like
that, and you would give it tome.
And I spent half of my nightanalyzing these things.
And the next morning I cameback to you and was presenting
my ideas, which was more or lessthe analysis of what I assumed
(46:44):
you did, and you looked at thisand you said, well, frank, this
is great.
I have no idea if that was myinitial thought of how I
composed it, but let's try it.
Let's try it.
And why don't you compose apiece following the guidelines
that you have recreated out ofthe score?
And I did right.
(47:04):
So every time we exchanged someof those ideas, we had plenty of
materials that came out ofthose scores and musical
examples.
No text at that point.
It was not designed to beteaching material.
This was just my desire tofinally learn something that
would get me out of my ownfrustration, honestly.
(47:25):
And we ended up with a lot ofthese musical examples and we
showed it to the class.
And then I believe the wholeclass, which was 15 guys or
something they all came to TCand asked how they can continue,
because this one week in Viennahas ended, and they were
(47:47):
thrilled about well, this isgreat, we want to learn more
about that.
And then TC, you told me I canremember this Well, frank, why
don't you turn this thing intosome teachable materials?
And we did this and we startedgiving Zoom sessions.
Again, it was not the idea ofcreating an academy or even
creating a business around theacademy, it was really just Well
(48:11):
, this was interesting and someother guys wanted to learn more
about that.
Dave (48:15):
So just organically growing out of what was already
happening 100%, yep, 100%.
Frank (48:22):
And then at some point we decided that, since it took up
our whole day for I don't knowhow many months and years, and
we tried to organize all ofthese findings into lessons so
that they didn't go over an houron Zoom back then, because it
took a ton of time and we talkedto not quite sure about seven,
(48:48):
maybe sometimes seven guys a dayand tried to explain those
interval theory techniques tothem.
And at some stage we decided,ok, this can't be the way we do
it most efficiently.
This is not scalable, it justeats up all of our day and we
don't get to compose musicanymore, which was very sad
(49:10):
right Boy.
Dave (49:10):
do I understand that?
Frank (49:13):
Our goal kind of never shifted from.
We wanted to become and turninto the best versions of
ourselves.
So, yeah, that being said, wethought about a business model
and how to let this continuewithout our days being filled
with Zoom sessions, because thatis obviously something that you
(49:34):
want to reduce over time.
Everybody who did a lot ofthose will agree, I believe.
So, yeah, we came up with thosewith a platform.
Obviously, first it was just awebsite and then it became more
and more like all of the lessonsturned into video lessons.
But, funnily enough, the Zoomsessions they didn't stop Now.
(49:56):
They just moved from teachingsessions into implementation and
feedback sessions, which isfine.
We do these things up to thispoint.
The last one we had yesterdayat the Creative Campus, which is
also a part of the Academy,which was a very organic branch
almost, and this is more or lesslike our virtual space for the
(50:20):
members and everybody who'sinterested.
This is not member limited.
Honestly.
Everybody can visit theCreative Campus and we do those
sessions still up to this point,and it is such a fantastic
experience, I have to say so Ican't imagine doing something
else.
It's a perfect split of thetime between still being pro
(50:44):
composers and work in theindustry and do gigs like the
usual thing that composers doand still passing on some of
those intervallic findings tothose who are interested in new
methods and in breathing newlife and life and new colors
into their creations.
(51:04):
I think that's the whole point.
So it got to the point where weseem to attract very
organically the quote unquoteright people who are open to
trying something new, maybe evengetting out of their own
frustration and overcomingproblems and issues that they
(51:24):
had for years and decades.
Sometimes that is what some ofthe members really tell us.
If you get to talk to somebodywho retired out of the music
business and this was a recentcase I won't give any names, of
course, but he wrote me an emaillike a week ago and said well,
frank, I'm following the YouTubechannel for two years or so and
(51:48):
a week ago I retired.
Now I made the decision to jointhe Academy because I believe
this is just fantastic and afantastic addition to my musical
education.
I never heard about intervaltheory before, but this piqued
my interest and I think the wayyou present these ideas, this is
just a nice way for mepersonally, obviously, to get a
(52:11):
fresh perspective to musictheory and to music in general.
So half of the members they areperforming musicians as well,
so it's not just like that.
You have to be a hardcorecomposer to get value out of
this.
This also works on anyinstrument like the piano or the
guitar, and to see, that'smaybe the moment also where I
(52:33):
want to give everybody theopportunity to learn a bit more
about how these things can beapplied to the guitar, because
that is what you specialize inand created a ton of materials
over the last few years, andthat is fantastic.
Dave (52:49):
So I think it's a great opportunity for all the
musicians to get a freshperspective If they feel that
this would enrich their musicallife and, like I said, it's not
limited to just film, scoring,their applications across
instrument and whatever yourcareer goals are, if you want to
(53:11):
be a production music composerfilm games, television
commercials, jingles, I meanthis really does have far
reaching implications and justgives you a whole new way to
think about music theory.
So I would say, if you'refeeling kind of stuck and for
the record, this is not asponsored right, you're not like
paying, this isn't a 45 minutecommercial for me to but I just
(53:34):
really really believe in whatyou guys are doing and, as
somebody with a graduate degreein music theory or in music,
being able to hear whole brandnew ways to think about things
from a perspective that youhadn't before is super
refreshing and exciting, and soI, every time I listen to one of
(53:58):
your episodes, every time Iwatch a video, I come away
inspired, and so justcongratulations.
I wish you guys all of thesuccess.
If folks want to get in touchwith you, how can they do that?
Frank (54:13):
I think the easiest way is to come to the website,
because it almost works as a hubto all the other media streams
that we put out, and that ismusicintervaltheoryacademy.
Dave (54:28):
Super simple Musicintervaltheoryacademy.
And of course, we're going tohave links to all of that in the
show notes.
And if you're listening to thispodcast, as soon as this
episode is done, go listen totheir episodes.
It's really, really good.
And that little jingle.
I want to ask you all aboutthat jingle that's so crazy.
Frank (54:50):
May I give you some nice background information about
that jingle, because youmentioned this and we wrote it
together.
You see, we wrote this one forthe podcast and in there this is
a quick tip for everybodylistening.
And this is also true wheneverI don't know what to write like
not to write us blog, but Idon't have a clear idea yet.
(55:13):
I always start with a chromaticline, and that is not a joke.
I always start with a chromaticline and in that jingle the
chromatic line was the mentalbaseline.
You're not hearing it rightBecause it's just the voice on
top and the piano and stuff, butstill, if you get to see the
score and we have it actually,maybe we will do a little
(55:35):
teaching session on the jingleat some point.
But it is a mental root line.
I wouldn't call it aprogression, even because it's a
cycle.
The root cycle is just more orless the chromatic line, but
this holds the whole jingletogether.
So again, jazz theory right,and it sounds super like.
Dave (55:54):
What do you see, Anne Frank?
You land on the one.
It feels resolved.
There's tension, there'sresolution.
All those things that Bach didyou guys are doing Just so you
can go tell your musicinstructor or your professor
from way back in the day thatwe're using tritones and we're
not even sorry.
Frank (56:15):
And I'm proud of that.
Dave (56:16):
That's right.
Well, tc and Frank, thank youso much for joining me today on
the 52 Cues podcast.
Really really appreciate youand what you are bringing into
the music education space and Ijust want to encourage you keep
up the good work.
Really really great having youtoday.
T.C. (56:34):
Thank you, Dave.
Frank (56:36):
Many thanks for that, and , dave, maybe at some point we
can welcome you at the MusicInterval Theory podcast as well.
This is maybe the invitationalready.
We will stay in touch, so ifthat is something that you might
be interested, we are all open.
Dave (56:52):
That's already a yes, that's an automatic yes.
Sir, I will see you over inMida, happy to join you over
there.
Well, dave, many thanks.
T.C. (57:03):
Thank you, Dave.
Dave (57:05):
Once again, a huge word of thanks to Frank and TC from the
Music Interval Theory Academyfor joining me on the podcast
today and, of course, we'regoing to have all their links in
the description below.
Also a huge word of thanks tothe family, friends and neighbor
subscribers of 52 Cues who paytheir actual real life money to
keep all of this going.
You notice you didn't hear anyembedded ads for meal plans or
(57:27):
mattresses or earbuds, but theMida folks, they didn't pay for
this.
I just think they're a greatidea.
So that's not a sponsoredsegment or anything.
No, we are supported fromviewers, listeners and
subscribers, just like you.
So if that sounds likesomething you want to be a part
of, help support the channel andget all of those subscriber
(57:47):
perks like workshops, livestreams, hours and hours of
video archives, new breakdowns,and our briefing room allows you
to pitch to real musiclibraries and head over to
52Cuescom.
It is free to join andsubscriptions start at around
four bucks a month.
But that is going to do it forme this week.
You definitely want to tune innext week because I'm afraid.
(58:09):
I'm afraid we need to talkabout AI again.
We talked about AI before andabout.
Is AI coming to take our jobsand it's still not time to sound
the alarm.
I don't need to pull the firealarm, but, man, just this past
weekend, open AI released Soraand some video clips which were
(58:31):
jaw dropping, and I think itwould be naive to not have a
sobering discussion about whatthat means and the implications
for us in the production musicworld.
So you definitely want to tunein next week.
So I hope you've had a greatweek eight and I know that you,
my friends, are going to have anamazing week nine.
(58:52):
How do I know that?
Because I trust and believethat the universe has amazing
plans just for you.
Until next time, peace.
The 52Cues podcast iscopyrighted 2024 at 18 Studios.
All Rights Reserve.
The music played on the podcastis copyrighted of their
respective owners and is usedwith permission and for
educational purposes only.
(59:12):
For more information, includingjoining the community or
becoming a member subscriber of52Cues, head over to 52Cuescom.
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