How to Write Fantasy Music Step-by-Step

All the decisions, from melody to production, that go into writing Fantasy music.
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[@RyanLeach]

🐉 Check out the Hollywood Fantasy Orchestra from EastWest! www.soundsonline.com/orchestral/hollywood-fantasy-orchestra

[@jloiben12]

Please do way more of these types of videos

[@legoreemv]

0:00 Intro 1:28 Main Melody 4:18 Ad 5:10 Harmony 8:29 Accompaniment 10:29 Orchestration 11:55 Production

[@strayingwill]

As a composer with ADHD, this video was super helpful for me setting my process straight. Thanks for this, Ryan!

[@RyanLeach]

I sympathize!

[@borkhthree-jackdaws5918]

Could you do more like this? For different genres? Scifi, war music, action, etc

[@RyanLeach]

Sure

[@borkhthree-jackdaws5918]

@@RyanLeach thank you! I'm a very amateur composer, and I struggle most with knowing what kind of keys/scales/chords fit best with a given genre. I love your content, thank you!

[@cameronpeterson1175]

This was my favorite video of his. Seeing the start to end process is awesome! Yes! More!

[@sj-comps]

​@@borkhthree-jackdaws5918 For me it is like that: Ionian: Peaceful, happy Dorian: Medieval, Fantasy, adventurous Phrygian: dark, middleeast, intense Lydian: Mystical, Fantasy Mixolydian: Medieval, peaceful, a bit more action than ionian Regular Minor (Aolian or smth like that i forgot): intense, sad Locrian: I have no idea, this mode is weird af

[@RobinsMusic]

locrian is indeed weird af@@sj-comps

[@Roescoe]

This video made me realize I naturally come up with fantasy themes and I need to embrace those and fill them out like a fantasy composition.

[@iamfrankbiesta]

Man, your explanations are always so clear. Where some others need 40 minutes, you present everything in a relatively short time span. Well done (again)!

[@g.p616]

After the fifth watching, got to say; Ryan is a brilliant talent and communicator!…… His approach is so incisive and delivered with such clarity.

[@BryceFulgham]

I am such a sucker for fantasy music and am so glad you made this video. The process of breaking things down from this overbearing tasks to just a small to do list was amazing. Maybe I should just make an 8 bar melody every day if I'm in a block cause now I feel ready to orchestrate it properly even if I have to come back to it another day.

[@RyanLeach]

Come check out our discord, every third month we do a theme of the day challenge that might be really motivating for you

[@killgriffinnow]

I’ve found fantasy music often really likes to shift from the “black keys” (sharps and flats) to the adjacent “white keys”, which feels quite unusual. “Hedwig’s theme”, “The One Ring Theme” “Down By The River (Baulder’s Gate III), “Over Hill and Dale (Witcher III)”…maybe the fact that it is so unusual gives it an otherworldly feel?

[@PelleKuipers]

Hedwig's Theme definitely has a very unique note choice that makes it feel mythical. Those intervals keep surprising, especially the ending notes with their odd big jumps.

[@CT-sp7uq]

What

[@MysteriousMusician33]

The black keys are just one form of the pentatonic scale, a 5 note scale. A minor version of this scale is often used for guitar solos. The white keys are just the other notes. There are a total of 12 notes in an octave, with the 13th just being the first note again. Any visual correlation here is incidental as composers don’t typically write music to play with colors on the piano. Still, it’s an interesting observation.

[@Kosmokraton]

​@MysteriousMusician33 I mean, they said "adjacent white keys", so doesn't it really just come down to lots of half steps? This will almost always mean moving between adjacent white and black keys.

[@nstrug]

@@Kosmokratondoesn’t he mean moving from minor to parallel major? Classic example is the GoT theme.

[@johnmcallistermusic]

Great video! In addition to your melodic/harmonic composing, I always appreciate your EXCELLENT orchestration skills!

[@monohive]

You're an incredible educator Ryan. This was such a great video and kudos on the production quality. Cheers!

[@robertwisden7202]

Brilliant, thanks Ryan. I love how you put your previous video tutorials to use and illustrate how to use them in a real project. I will be studying this for a few hours over the next week. Great stuff!

[@ElizaMaxwell347]

Great video! This is definitely going to help me in writing my orchestral pieces. Thanks so much for the video!

[@SheikhSoundz]

Dang that final piece was amazing 😢

[@1hotday1]

Awesome video, Ryan. The process you use is really neat. Thinking of how we work is very beneficial. Thanks!

[@nicoclous5762]

This is one of the best Videos I have ever watched, we need more like this.

[@douglasbradley7244]

Love the process and watching you work through it as you are explaining it. Thanks, Ryan!

[@GTORT]

Literally the best channel on this whole platform.

[@MrFalkbossa]

Very nice litte piece of music, good instruction! Thank you Ryan. Please more of this!

[@amaurimontalvo3014]

Ryan, This is an excellent video as always, your explanations are so clear, you are a great communicator. I wanted to compose a piece of this style but I didn't know where to start, thanks to you now I'm going to try. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[@janekalbinsky]

Thank you for this video. It's really interesting to watch other people's workflow. Also... That song is beautiful!

[@alexconnolly5448]

It really hit hard when you said Procrastinating things instead of starting from scratch because man I do that a lot of the time. Honestly this video has inspired me to go through the ways I like to arrange big band chart

[@CJCalvertMusic]

Fantastic video Ryan!

[@KevinOShaughnessyGuitar]

Thank you for this. When I was in college, I had a tonal harmony text that included a similar method for composition as a suggestion for non-composition students. My professor dismissed the method out of hand so, being younger and impressionable, I dismissed it too. This video, and your related orchestration video, just put orchestral composition into such focus for me. Thank you again!

[@Somanybeats]

This was really good bro. Thank you

[@arataka57]

Bravo, specially for showing us steps!

[@timothyreynolds6255]

Thanks for a great video. I'm motivated!

[@munkyman33]

Great video. Time to watch again with an open google doc to take a ton of notes!

[@AugmentedWaves]

Great video, will incorporate some of the tips into my writing!

[@BradenHerndon]

Dude, I've watched two of your videos and have already composed something well beyond my previous skill level. My journey's only just begun, but damn! Thank you for the great educational content.

[@oliverdiamond6594]

good job

[@tara8862]

Great video, thank you🙏🌻

[@corrosive135]

Love your channel. It has been very helpful and improved my work considerably. Could you make a video about parallel 5ths in more detail? Thank you for all these videos.

[@CallMeHunta]

Great video as always

[@barakarbel6424]

I love your videos they are great. Thank you

[@ifthis_]

Oh this is fantastic! Would love to see this with other genres.

[@uffevonlauterbach]

Bravo! That was so cool!

[@danilokb]

Fantastic video Ryan, me as a new composer beginner thank you so much sir.

[@yonghaozhao4426]

Thank for share！

[@brettclarinmusic]

This was a fantastic video. As others asked, do other styles, please! And I need to go back and watch your Pillars course again!

[@wayneneilson]

Brilliant video session Ryan - I am also thrilled you used the original keyboard cat 🐈 🐱 video - you just got a new subscriber 🎉❤

[@ontrada]

Really fantastic video!

[@rodterrell304]

Fantastic tutorial Ryan and a really nice piece. I must remember to use the sentence form more often. Thanks for posting this.

[@RyanLeach]

sentence form never fails me :-)

[@fuzzydunlop1988]

This is pretty amazing. I'd be so proud if I could do that. Haven't composed anything in years.

[@Andrewtm23]

that was awesome Ryan

[@konradkaranowski6553]

Great video as usual. I would kill for a video like this but for composing a full piece. The tutorial on how to develop a motifs, reuse themes etc.

[@ChronoMune]

Who would you kill?

[@RyanLeach]

Don’t kill anyone I’ll add it to my list of videos to make

[@claudio8019]

Great stuff. I agree, a tutorial as to how to manage a longer piece would be really helpful. I think many can manage an 8 or 16 bar chunk, but how to continue, aaah.... that's usually a real mystery😅

[@robyking1052]

I am impressed with your lesson can I have your private commication

[@kimdavis2433]

I'm more interested in writing pop and electronic music than orchestral, but I clicked on this video at the perfect time because I was wondering to myself just a couple days ago about a way to "sketch" songs before filling in the details like how visual artists sketch :) I wasn't sure what that would look like so it's great to see a concrete example.

[@johnkim791]

Really beautiful

[@spriggan3935]

Excellent explanation for an excellent piece of music. It reminds me my friend Richard Harvey's stuff. ;-)

[@DarkSideofSynth]

Great tips and approach

[@HGECSTJOBL]

Merci. Très pédagogique

[@hilanoga1486]

Thanks!

[@Urocosmos]

Thanks.

[@jonwatte4293]

"that Renaissance faire vibe" 😂

[@drjtwoodrow]

It'd be nice to see the DAW and midi roll for these melodies, harmonies, and accompaniments.

[@ae-tm8dg]

that is an amazing thumbnail

[@LonelyWarrior39]

Great video! What sample libraries are the best for epic music or cinematic music?

[@mattwallis1893]

Great vid

[@StefanGraz]

Thank You! Could you do a mixing tutorial in Logic? As a classical educated composer this is my main obstacle or sticking point as of now. I'm also Dorico as well with Note Performer and EW Hollywood Orchestra with the optional NotePerformer Playback Engine. However, the sound is not as good as if it was produced in Logic Pro.

[@Cameron_Norby]

I may or may not end up using this video to help me get over the block I'm in for the October competition...

[@henryauden618]

Hey Ryan, such a great tutorial! I'd be nice to see other videos in such format: explain the process step by step on various examples. I've got a question (probably, a silly one) to you about one of the steps: Let's say, that I came up with the harmony (basic chords, maybe with 7ths). And later on I added individual instrument lines ALL in accordance with the chords used. But later on, I decide to jam a bit on a keyboard and come up with a line that sound good (it more or less fits the scale(s) used) on top of the whole piece, but the notes of that line add to the chords in that way that chords become extended, polychords, etc. So the question: should I care that my initial chords are transformed now and I must denote it the score (w/ chord names) and in my head OR should I treat the initial harmony only as a scaffolding/baseline that outlines the overall intent? Thanks!

[@RyanLeach]

I would say always treat each step like scaffolding. I try to get as "complete a version as possible" of each step before moving forward, but know that I can always go back and change something (and usually do). The only reason to denote it in the score is if it's helpful to you or for someone else, otherwise I wouldn't be too worried about getting the exact specific chord symbol

[@Marijnzor]

Excellent video! Also, when you said that "lesser artists borrow, great artists steal" was said by Stravinsky that's not 100% correct. It was actually me who said that. I did. I said it first and It's my quote. ;)

[@JazzumJones]

Hey Ryan, I was wondering, since you've got videos on ABA form, do you think in the future you'd make a video on what to do with a C section?

[@luisacosta2890]

Final fantasy I love it

[@AidanBrowning-jt4cz]

I would try using the Lydian mode

[@georgechadwick8642]

Parallel 5ths? I can hear my old uni lecturer screaming from 100 miles away lol. Great video :)

[@TheirSavior]

Love your workflow. I remember you saying chromatic medians have a fantasy vibe. How often do you use them in your fantasy music?

[@RyanLeach]

pretty often. In this example I guess just the F to D qualifies

[@marialazarevamusic]

Oh that's an interesting detail that you export midi from your notation program to your daw. I thought you were composing and producing from the beginning in the daw. Interesting technique - I should try this approach!

[@RyanLeach]

it's more work but I tend do be more intentional and loop much less often when I work in notation for as long as I can

[@ontrada]

What is the name of your notation software?@@RyanLeach

[@RyanLeach]

@@ontrada Dorico

[@ontrada]

Thank you!@@RyanLeach

[@azesimmonsmusic]

“Write a brand new piece of music” is an overwhelming task that makes me want to go play Nintendo instead’ hits hard

[@Monomorphismus]

How long did the entire process take from start to finish?

[@MalivoCZ]

What software are you using?

[@spytihnev4080]

Lovely video, only one thing tho - those trumpet lines jumping an octave in legato are absolutely terrifying to play. It could be substituted with tenuto, rather than legato, the effect is the same and irl players will more likely to play it in tenuto anyway.

[@edbuller4435]

Cinderella surely....!?...Fantastic score!

[@RyanLeach]

whoops, mis-spoke! Definitely Cinderella

[@jmignosamusic6386]

Guys I’m having trouble importing my midi into my daw. I’m using Finale and FL Studio, by the way. When I import the MIDI file into the daw, it all goes into just one track and I can’t edit individual parts. I’m also VERY new to FL Studio so I might just be thinking about it wrong or doing it wrong, so any advice would be very helpful!

[@judedu2999]

subarashii!~~

[@Vitericus1]

It always looks so straight forward watching others do this, but I always run into one problem; creating a melody, no problem, creating the harmony, no problem. Then when you get to the part of, "sweeping violin lines, rhythmic texture in the horns, sparkly line in the celeste..." 90% of the time, none of those EXACT same texture elements I choose seem to actually work. So it's like, what actually IS the secret to writing textures that work?

[@RyanLeach]

check out the course Secrets of Orchestration from asgarzademusicschool.com, it's brilliant

[@innerthreatcircus5651]

I would love to be able to compose like this. I have a midi contrôler, dorico, Cubase, and a short motif. But can't get to move or sketch my motif or explore ideas in dorico due to my lack of music theory. Anyone here have time for private paid mentoring/classes to help me progress?

[@thecaptainsnark]

i have such terrible decision paralysis, it's the hardest part about attempting to compose music, even harder than the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing other than vibing.

[@Virtual-Media]

Was expecting a Disney toon to launch after your arrangement play though..

[@WalyB01]

What is life other than a long string of decisions. Composition = life ;)

[@goddess_ofchaos]

Love this video but a dream is a wish your heart makes is from Cinderella!

[@Promisebreaker222]

This is going to be nice i’m writing a symphony for a book i’m writing. I’m 13 and kinda just bored

[@kassemir]

Good video. Though, I would personally recommend doing a focused mixing session. You tend to do utility mixing when working on recording, you'll often run out of headroom and set either weirdly high levels or weirdly low levels. Also, setting up FX busses and such takes time, so I find doing it as I go along to be distracting.

[@ZhePorgi03141]

To create something that sounds like an old 80’s fantasy movie soundtrack essentially just use the major combined with lydian and mixolydian modes, also make it a waltz and use blues chromatic motion. Also use the blue note (flat 5th degree) of the relative minor key’s minor mode (that makes sense) so in C major it would be the mixolydian note but it will transition into minor, also add flares of minor 4 notes and blues stuff interjected into the main/current melodies harmony if you’re composing a harmony for it. Also decending minor thirds with some rythm mixed with major thirds like for the root chord and a great example of this perfectly summed up is the schegechi theme from JOJO’s bizzare adventure (anime) part 4.

[@PedroCristian]

The key word here is Dorian

[@omniscientomnipresent5500]

The trumpets seem to suddenly disappear on an unresolved short notes right before a measure beginning 😅 maybe you put the wrong volume indication accidentally? At 13:50. A fading note would be the best.

[@RyanLeach]

I intended for the sudden drop

[@Giorgi.Japiashvili]

Hate to be that guy but A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes is from Cinderella, not Sleeping Beauty

[@g.p616]

Ha... Ryan has never heard of Fantasy Football!

[@RyanLeach]

what makes you say that?

[@g.p616]

@@RyanLeach When you flashed up the Google search for FF, I got the impression it was new to you…. and because you’re American I thought maybe football was not your thing… but thinking about it, I guess FF is pretty easy to apply American football with all the stats they have🤔.

[@LavaCreeperPeople]

cool, i guess

[@frozencandy7294]

Wasted a lot of time figuring why a 58 bpm here didn't sound like your 58 bpm. Only to see at the very end of the video in your DAW that its at 87 bpm. You might want to put the correction edit when you show your online metronome in this video. Even your online metronome sounds so fast for a 6/8 at 58bpm. It sound around 80 bpm tbh. Am I missing something? Was kicked about composing something as I followed the tutorial step by step. But getting confused for the first 10 mins as to why my melody sounds so slow and thinking that I am doing something wrong got me disheartened. Kinda lost the enthusiasm by the time I figured it was 87.

[@RyanLeach]

Dotted quarter note is 58 bpm, but Logic tempo works in quarter notes. So they are both correct you are just comparing two different things

[@frozencandy7294]

@@RyanLeachHey thanks for the clarification. Got it. Learning a lot here. Great stuff! :)

[@mperstl13]

Hey. I enjoy your explanations very much, but when you talk about you would rather pick up your Nintendo instead of writng "brand new music" ( i assume so, because you accented the video that way in the black and white filter). Is it because you've already "seen it all", and the feeling that nothing is special anymore? That everything has "been done", and therefore experimentation feels pointless? I've got this vibe in other videos of you as well. Maybe my impression is very wrong - but are you burnt out in music?

[@RyanLeach]

It wasn’t about not wanting to write, it’s about being overwhelmed by the size of the task. I have the same thing with “make an entire new video” being easy procrastination bait too, and similarly I need to focus on one manageable step at a time

[@mperstl13]

​@@RyanLeach it all seems so fluid to me when you showcase how to compose + orchestrate + mix projects. Ofcourse I'm seeing it only through the lens of your cut yt video. the cadences for modes are completely different than for harmonic minor and major. In dorian for example, i, IV and VII seem very usable, since there is no diminished 5th on the VII chord. Does essentially all of this come down to voice leading, why VII sounds good in dorian? In maj for example VII is a shortened D5 chord, but it offers a completely different role than the VII in dorian. In traditional harmony, there is this rule, which is to use other triads than I, IV and V ONLY between the mentioned triads, since those define the key center. Do you pay attention to this when writing in modes?

[@RyanLeach]

@@mperstl13 I have a jazz harmony background, from that view bVII is a legitimate substitute for V coming from the natural minor. They both have a dominant function