Music Creation Fundamentals

This is the perfect place to start if you’re just getting going and want to avoid months (years!) of wasted time learning bad habits and not finishing music. Classes included are:

Welcome to Live

This explorative entry-level class introduces students to Ableton Live – the industry DAW leader in electronic music production.  Students will establish a good workflow in Live as well as begin to understand the creative flow in the tool and Live’s incredible creative potential. You’ll learn the Pyramind music production process – the creative phase, the organizational phase and the presentation phase.

Subjects Include:

• Basic editing, arranging and mixing techniques

• Browsing, adding and managing sounds and files

• Exporting a final product for sharing with the world

• Efficient workflow techniques to build on as you grow

• The main GUI of Live

• The basic two-window relationship 

• The creative process of music production

• The basics of working with MIDI, Audio and FX

Music Theory with Live

Created by Chief Academic Officer Matt Donner, this must-have class is for every user of Ableton Live and walks you through the theory – and practical usages – of music’s most fundamental language. Learn why the best songs all use the “rules” of theory – and how to break those rules for maximum creativity! (Required reading: “Workflow – Theory, Songwriting and Piano”)

• Other major keys, the circle of 5ths / 4ths

• Moving beyond the major scale, the minor key C

• Chord progressions in minor, how to find chords that match one another

• Chord substitutions

• The basics of rhythm

• Working with tempo

• Major scales, notes, and their relationship to the keyboard

• Triads, chords, two-chord progressions, cadences, and major vs. minor chords

Audio Fundamentals I

Pyramind’s Audio Fundamentals online class is the first step in a two-course series. This class will begin to give you a comprehensive knowledge of audio, from the tiniest sounds to the interactions of drums and multiple microphones. Based on the Pyramind text on the subject, this course will demystify what sound is and how it behaves on its journey from your hands to your ears, through the instruments, mics, wires, computer and speakers. (Required reading: “Signal Flow – Audio Fundamentals”)

• Choosing a computer and DAW for the job

• Wires and connecting gear: why it’s really important to get right (and how almost everyone is probably using the wrong ones)

• Microphones: creative mic choices and placement

• Sound waves and the three ways to experience them

• Building sound from the “atomic particle of sound”

• How waves interact: the good, the bad, and the phasey

• Understanding the dB in wires, in the air, and in the computer

$495

• 21 Modules, 87 Videos!
• 1 year access to ALL the content
• 4 one-on-one mentorship hours with any mentor on our network!