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Learn Classical Composition

Immerse yourself into the beauty of classical composition and allow your creativity to flourish with music the world has yet to hear.

 

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The Art of Storytelling Through Music

Music is a universal language—one that profoundly shapes our lives. After seeing how drastically composing music has changed my life, I want to share my passion with others. For a limited time, I’m offering private 1-on-1 composition lessons, open to all skill levels. The lessons take place via Zoom and are fully personalized, so I only take in a few students a year. Below are some of the topics I cover:​

  • Music fundamentals

  • Intervals

  • Diatonic functional harmony

  • Cadences

  • Secondary function harmony

  • Basic modulations

  • Melodic & harmonic sequences

  • Neapolitan chords

  • Augmented sixth chords

  • Musical form

  • Orchestration and instrumentation

  • Composing for chamber ensembles

  • Composing for full orchestra

  • Orchestral theory of layers

  • Ear training

  • Melodic dictations

  • Harmonic dictations

  • Improvisation

  • Four-part writing

  • Common tone chords

  • Borrowed plagal cadences

  • Chromatic mediants

  • Advanced modulations

  • Direct modulations​

  • Chromatic mediant modulations

  • Chromatic inflection & harmonic symmetry

  • ​Non-functional linear chromaticism

  • Late-romantic harmonic progressions

  • The omnibus progression

  • Modal interchange

  • Intervallic expansion

  • Formal analysis of classical works

  • DAWs & MIDI

  • Automation & aleatoric VSTs

  • Sampling

  • Film scoring

  • Species counterpoint

  • Melodic writing in counterpoint

  • Voice leading principles

  • Canon

  • Fugue and fugal techniques

  • Imitative counterpoint

  • Non-imitative counterpoint

  • Invertible counterpoint

  • Double and triple counterpoint

  • Stretto

  • Mirror inversion

  • Diminution and augmentation

  • Third cycles & the whole-tone collection

  • Pentatonicism

  • Octatonicism

  • ​​Motivic parallelisms

  • Bitonality & polytonality

  • Diminished dominant chord

  • Diminished neapolitan chord

  • Extended tertiary harmonies

  • Harmonic planing

  • Wagnerian harmony and the Tristan chord

  • Leitmotifs

  • Text & music

  • Set theory & free atonality

  • Tone rows and transformations

  • Quartal and quintal harmony

  • Polyrhythm and polymeter

  • Minimalism

  • Neo-classicism

  • Neo-romanticism

  • Metric modulation

  • Asymmetrical meters

  • Microtonality

  • Cluster chords

  • Polyharmony and polychords

  • Schenkerian analysis

  • Harmonic reduction

  • And more!

Lessons also include complete analyses of works from the following composers below (and more), as well as live compositional practice and composition assignments based on that week's topic.

  • Palestrina

  • Bach

  • Handel

  • Haydn

  • Mozart

  • Beethoven

  • Schubert

  • Chopin

  • ​Liszt

  • Wagner

  • Tchaikovsky

  • Brahms

  • Saint-Saëns

  • Dvořák

  • Debussy​​

  • Alkan

  • ​Rachmaninoff

  • Schoenberg

  • Thalberg

  • Stravinsky

  • Prokofiev

  • Shostakovich

  • Khachaturian

  • And more!

Thanks for submitting!

Book a Private Lesson

Fill out the submission form with why you want to pursue lessons or email me at Music@Joshuakyan.com. If accepted, a student interview will be given free of cost.

 

From there, I'd construct a personalized course syllabus and set up your private student portal, where our class notes, assignments submission box, & readings would be located.

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