The 🗝️ to writing SUPREME THEMES... starting from a basic melody - feat. Esin Aydingoz

Esin Aydingoz, Assistant Chair of the Screen Scoring Program @Berklee and successful film and media composer, takes you on a melodic journey.
She has written a simple melody and explores how to turn it into a multitude of interesting and captivating arrangements.
As a special treat, you can download her theme and all variations in notated form in a PDF for free here :
drive.google.com/file/d/1p9gc...
Follow Esin on Instagram: / esinaydingoz
Virtual Orchestration is a collaboration between Berklee College of Music (Boston, USA) and Orchestral Tools (Berlin, Germany).
Video creation credits:
Video idea, Script 📜 and Music 🎶 : Esin Aydingoz
Script Consultation 🔍 and Director 📣 : Eduard Flemmer
Camera 🎥 and Editing ✂️ : Fabián Barba Hallal
Lighting 💡 and 2nd Camera 🎥 : David Kudell
Motion graphics 🎨 : Michael Logar

[@georgepavlov3350]

You are a gem.I’m an 82 yr old singer song writer whose written 100s of songs with lyrics over the yrs and even tried Nashville in 1960s but nothing ever published …Oh to be young again and yes you are an inspiration…Thanx

[@virtual.orchestration]

Hey George, what an amazing comment! Thank you so much for watching our videos and finding some inpiration in them. What a great life it must be to look back at it and and see that you filled it with music. The entire Virtual Orchestration team wishes you the best and most of all, good health and joy and many more inspirational moments and years to come.

[@BrewskaySA]

She leaves me in awe of her piano skills, its very inspiring!

[@claudioragazzi9330]

Endless Imagination! All coming from a simple idea. Brilliant! Brava! Bravíssima Esin, you RocK!

[@JERRY_HEIL]

Such a great lesson, thank you, Esin! That’s what I always did but never knew that it’s a common “composers” thing!

[@juanandrade5659]

This is the best thing I’ve seen seen here. Thanks for sharing, appreciate it.

[@maestrojon]

Love these videos. I find these videos a great supplement and reminder for me, someone who can't find the time to compose every day.

[@ErtywekPL]

Thats like a fundamental knowledge if you want to create music.

[@rasihozturk]

Enlightening and inspiring for aspiring composers! Not only a technique to practise, but also a proof of the importance of analysing different styles and genres for a composer!

[@markelvinstudio]

So many moods from one theme, demonstrated in a way that is easy to follow

[@Monomorphismus]

I was thinking: "Ok, I can follow. Still I can follow. Can follow. WHAT?" - Thank you for the PDF.

[@savagerift8727]

Really unbelievably cool! Thanks so much!

[@virtual.orchestration]

Thank you for watching and leaving a comment.

[@owenathanael]

YES ESIN!

[@RobTube1963]

Brillant, thanks Esin sharing your talent with us, many piano lessons in one Video

[@MalikAmer87]

what a wonderful video 😍🙏.

[@virtual.orchestration]

Hey Malik, what a wonderful and nice comment 💛

[@LukeTruanMusic]

Great video, Esin! Packed with many fun examples of creating a basic melody, developing the melody, creating variations, and expanding on the melody, rhythm, and accompaniment!

[@fatihoral]

1B benim tercihim. Diğerleri de güzel..👏👏

[@ailtonsinezio6570]

This was very interesting to watch. I'm absolutely in love with this channel!

[@virtual.orchestration]

Thank you so much, Ailton. Lots of love back for you too.💛💛💛

[@ravivpinhas9740]

Brilliant!!! Pls more in depth 🙏🏼

[@grobinson9352]

Thank you. Taking one idea and super sizing it opens a whole new world. Thank you.

[@virtual.orchestration]

A new phantastic point of view ... Thank you so much 🔥

[@mr.chisels729]

Great video and examples of the multitude of variations possible on a short theme...very inspiring!!

[@virtual.orchestration]

Thank you so much for your valueable feedback 💛and that Esin could inspire you.

[@tallypianist]

Great video thanks ❤

[@seanmcmahon5250]

Bravo Esin!

[@virtual.orchestration]

Yes, your Assistent Chair has done an amazing job here !

[@seanmcmahon5250]

@@virtual.orchestration Yes, Esin is incredible!

[@esinaydingoz1797]

@@seanmcmahon5250 Like Chair, like Assistant Chair 😍🥰

[@zoaltamam]

Esin, you are awesome! I found this video by cheer chance, just browsing orchestral programming and stuff. I will sure subscribe and explore all other videos on your channel. This one has been really creative for any serious music writer. One's ability to express different emotions, using the musical tools at our disposal, is the secret of everything I guess. Thank you so much for sharing this wonderful video

[@baptistepalacin7716]

The Romantic Variation was just amazing! Thanks a lot for this video! 🙂

[@virtual.orchestration]

Thank you that you appreciate the Romantic version.We also think it's stunning. Thank you, Esin 💛

[@arabicman866]

Amazing

[@SpeakOfTheDavel]

Extremely helpful and motivating, thankyou! 🎉

[@derlump85]

Wow that is such inspring! Very sympathetic and skilled piano player!

[@virtual.orchestration]

Thank you for sharing that. Yes, Esin is amazing. 🔥🔥🔥

[@paulc3037]

Wow, what a wonderful video - informative and very inspirational! Thank you! :)

[@christianrooversmusic]

Awesome playing

[@gotmoresoul]

Literally the exact inspiration I needed at this very moment. Thanks

[@virtual.orchestration]

So nice that you share that with us, thank you 💛

[@tgunersel]

Yaşayın :) Thank you so much :)

[@ValerieVoixoff]

So inspiring ! Thank you for sharing.🤩💜

[@virtual.orchestration]

Thank you for letting us know you like it, Valérie. 💛

[@CankatGuenel]

Amazing, and inspiring. Thanks Esin.

[@virtual.orchestration]

Thank you. Definitley, Esin is truely great.

[@dafingaz]

Fun stuff!

[@imanuelgarayar]

Muy genial! Melodía, sí! 😄

[@virtual.orchestration]

Muchas gracias 💛

[@rodterrell304]

excellent , thanks for showing this to us.

[@virtual.orchestration]

Thanks for taking a look.

[@johnhaynesmusic]

Wow, what a fantastic overview of writing in different styles. Thanks for sharing!

[@virtual.orchestration]

Yes, Esin has done a tremendous job with all her variations. 🎹 She is just a musical genius.

[@brettchassen2888]

Myyyyyyyy Goodness you can play. What awesome resource you guys (and gals) are creating 👍🏻

[@virtual.orchestration]

Yeah, Esin is incredible. Thank you for your positive words and for leaving a comment.

[@MarcoHerbert]

Great Video. I loved the romantic version ;-). I´ve listend to it at least 20 times 😂😂

[@kamihuntermusic]

Really cool and inspiring! Thank you so much.

[@virtual.orchestration]

Thank you, Kami for your positive energy and kind words 💛.

[@acevaptsarov8410]

Loved this!!

[@virtual.orchestration]

We love your appreciation.

[@BrettWMcCoy]

Very inspiring! Despite having a master's degree in music (from Berklee, of course!), piano/keyboard skills was a major hole in my skillset (guitar is my main instrument), but I started taking real piano lessons last Fall and it really opened up a lot for me musically!

[@virtual.orchestration]

Hey Brett, thank you for sharing that experience with us. We believe that community can enrich and inspire each and every one of us. We hope you keep on playing 🎹 + 🎸 and enjoying making music 🎶

[@cumhurcemoglu4432]

Gönülden tebrikler. Resmen Bir Türk olarak sizinle gurur duyuyorum. Başarılar daima seninle olsun. Ayrıca yeni evliliğinizde mutluluklar dilerim...

[@gilesmoss5860]

Great video! I loved how a simple melody can be adapted. My piano skills are NOWHERE near Esin's but even a relative beginner can get loads of use out of these suggestions. Keep up the excellent work.

[@virtual.orchestration]

Thank you Giles for your supporting words ✍️ . We try to keep it up💪.

[@can1424]

✨

[@lololololalso]

Harikasiniz 🌼

[@virtual.orchestration]

Teşekkürler 💛

[@TangentMoon]

Great video, wonderful variations! What I'd love to see is how to vary a theme within the same piece to stop it getting too repetitive. I think many composers (especially me!) struggle with where to take an initial idea to keep it interesting and captivating

[@virtual.orchestration]

That is a great video suggestion. I can tell you from my own experience that we had an exercise in class that helped me, though it was a little exhausing: Pick 3 film genres (and each time you do the exercise, pick 3 fresh / different ones) [e.g. Western, Sci-Fi and Fairy Tale] and arrange your theme/melody for an imaginary scene in that genre. After that, look at your 3 arrangements / mockups and pick things you like in the different variations back into your original composition. I don't know if that helps, it definitely helped me coming up with new ideas, melody lines, variations and accompaning patterns that I wouldn't have come up with without that exercise. ✍️✍️✍️

[@jenssieckmann]

Thank you very much. This is an area it really have to improve. Varying motifs and themes. Most times I try to implement to many ideas into a single piece and that kind of dilutes and weakens it.

[@virtual.orchestration]

Hey Jens, thank you for your comment 💛. Cool that Esin could show you a new angle how to work with motifs and themes.

[@adnangungor2096]

hemen herkesin mesleğinde,sanatında ifşasından imtina ettiği sırrı(gizli olanı ) okadar naif okadar tevazu içinde izah etmişsiniz ki ..aynı uzayda aynı maddeyi kullanıp zaman ve tasarıımla oynayarak farklı duygulanım v veya hissiyat uyandırabilme dinlenyenlerde bir mucizenin açık edilmesi değilse nedir? şu an şaşkınlığım ve saygım boy ölçülemez halde,,..yanlış anlaşılmasın ,çalmanız yeteneğiniz ayrıca değerli ama yaptığınız burada paha biçilmez,,teşekkürler.

[@ha_tinkerer1191]

Wonderful teaching and iterative examples. For those of us who are visual learners, may I please suggest that when playing in future videos a camera shot from directly above the keys be used? It will help reinforce the auditory learning. Thanks!

[@virtual.orchestration]

Thank you for the feedback 💛. It sometimes is challenging to find a balance between presenting knowledge and having visually appealing shots that are not too repetitive 🎹. We will consider your idea for future videos. We hope that the notation PDF in the video info will help and reinforce your learning experience as well.

[@berkayozozturk]

😍😍😍

[@virtual.orchestration]

💛💛💛

[@HamlinandJolliffe]

Wonderful video! I notice that it says 'steinway' on the soundboard but 'Yamaha' above the keys..what's with that?

[@yaroslav_kniazev]

Hello ! Super ! These are great lessons for beginners, and those with some experience as musicians and composers ! I sincerely hope you will continue your journey endlessly !)

[@virtual.orchestration]

Hey Yaroslav. Yes we also hope you will stand with us on this journey 🚋, helping us with sugesstions, comments and criticism.

[@yaroslav_kniazev]

@@virtual.orchestration Thank you very much ! I'm sure you won't get any criticism from me!)

[@CarlosSanchezcsbphoto]

Very interesting video and very well produced. Congratulations! It would be great to be able to see the score at the same time as the music; it would be very illustrative and much more didactic for those of us who are studying.

[@virtual.orchestration]

Hey Carlos. That's why you can download the score in the info text. 🎼 So you can read it while watching the video and do that at your own pace.

[@CarlosSanchezcsbphoto]

@@virtual.orchestration Woowww, great. Thank you very much!!!!!

[@jabra48]

🔥 This is incredible. Wow!! I learned so much from watching this. I especially enjoyed Romantic and Halloweeny. 👏👏👏👏

[@virtual.orchestration]

Thank you so much, and great that you liked the special Halloween variation 🎃

[@esinaydingoz1797]

Thank you very much! So happy to hear that you enjoyed the video! 🤩😍

[@PaulieDC]

Very good lesson, and very helpful to go a step at a time, and playing it in all different styles... thanks! Just curious... when we watch your hands playing up close, it's a Yamaha Grand. But when camera 2 is pointing at you through the piano, it says STEINWAY on the cast iron frame. Did you have to go back and record the speaking parts so the music stand wasn't blocking your face? Interesting bit of "mystery" in the video, lol! 😉

[@ericnichols9223]

Came here to say the same! Such a mystery!

[@RLeaguer_Saint]

What a great resource this channel will be. Thank you for sharing your insights - really inspiring. One suggestion: since this is a collaboration with Orchestral Tools, perhaps the midi would be useful to share too, rather than just sharing the score? Thanks again for the video.

[@virtual.orchestration]

Thank you for the compliment and the idea. We will think about it and let it sink in. 💛

[@AlistairMelville]

Just brilliant *****

[@virtual.orchestration]

Thank you, Alistair, for leaving the comment.

[@AlistairMelville]

@@virtual.orchestration It is videos like this which inspire me to keep learning and composing new music for my aerial photography. Thank you Esin.

[@AlistairMelville]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/hYvCloKGfb9oqLs

[@virtual.orchestration]

Hey Alistair, your music is beautiful and heartfelt. Keep on composing 🎶

[@AlistairMelville]

@@virtual.orchestration Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to my music.🙏

[@lumpichu]

Play along if you wish - in your dreams

[@user-zu2fl8dt6p]

🙂🙏

[@virtual.orchestration]

💛

[@camelCased]

Thank you, the video mentioned a few crucial moments and music terminology that I was missing. For me as a total amateur, the composing flow usually is different from professionals who often start with chord progressions. I'm taking a walk and whistling some melodies, and then suddenly I have something that feels exciting to me. So I start thinking about what mood, rhythm, and general vibes I would want to have for this melody. It gets fleshed out in my mind, I come up with some possible alternations and breaks, and it feels so nice in my mind. But I have no idea about chord progressions because, well, I can't read notes. Technically, I can but they just don't "sound" in my mind. So, I get home, enter the melody in my DAW, and, knowing the basic theory behind minor/major three-note chords and their "extended editions", I create the basic progression that "feels right" (as in - feels similar to what I'm used to enjoying in other cinematic pieces). And then I usually get stuck. I don't know how to develop the idea further. Sometimes the melodic pieces that sounded nice together in my mind lead to clashing chords that do not want to smoothly progress into each other creating strange-feeling gaps or jumps, as if I suddenly have changed the key of the song without intending to. However, sometimes my experiments lead to something beautiful that I could not imagine in my mind. I had an uncle who plays violin in an orchestra. He listened to one of my "best" pieces, and at one moment he said: "Oh, that was an unusual chord transition, but it sounds so nice. How did you come up with that?". And I had to admit I had no idea what I was doing, I was just dragging chord notes around until they caused the emotional response I wanted to have when listening to that particular fragment of the song. 😄

[@ContentWizard]

I would pay for a full version of "Variation 8!"

[@virtual.orchestration]

Well, the question in the air is "how much" ? 😜

[@ContentWizard]

@@virtual.orchestration Well, considering you would probably make quite a bit of it through streaming as well as possible sales on iTunes and Amazon, I personally would pay five times the normal going rate for a copy of the tune (a song on iTunes is usually around $0.99) - it doesn't sound like much, but I would pay five USD for an MP3 of a full version (at least 2 1/2 minutes) of that amazing new age style of Variation 8! FYI, it brings to mind a couple of my favorite solo piano artists, namely the awesome Steven Cravis as well as the great Christine Brown! David Nevue also comes to mind :-)

[@esinaydingoz1797]

Should we do an Esin Aydingoz x Orchestral Tools album? 🧐🤔🤗

[@lumpichu]

Do Yamaha pianos contain Steinway parts or what? :)

[@davidmcpoland5286]

Nice! Suggestion - It'd be great to see timestamps added to future videos.

[@virtual.orchestration]

@David. Great suggestion : Consider it done ;)

[@davidmcpoland5286]

@@virtual.orchestration 👍

[@SeanOReillySongs]

the fallboard says yamaha and the cast iron frame says steinway...?!?

[@virtual.orchestration]

Well, Sean, you found our easter egg. Actually someone else did find out that first but I guess they deleted their comment. Or maybe I was just hallucinating. Did anybody also also see that other comment ?

[@MyFeltMusic]

I noticed that, too.

[@yvawoo]

I am very confused. Piano fall board shows "YAMAHA" logo, then the metal frame shows "Steinway". The video appears to be shot in one place. The music stand looks the same. What happened? Is this some hybrid piano?

[@peterbufano4113]

YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

[@virtual.orchestration]

THXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

[@LeonardoMoraOfficial]

Wow! This is amazingly inspiring!!! ... Which program do you currently teach?

[@esinaydingoz1797]

I teach the graduating seniors in our undergraduate Film and Media Scoring program at Berklee's Boston campus. If you meant program as in DAW, we are mostly in Cubase!

[@Gardener7]

@@esinaydingoz1797 This video was very helpful! Do you have any other content we can watch? If you want an idea for a future video, I would suggest "How to develop a melodic idea to make a full piece."

[@virtual.orchestration]

Hey Stephen. What a great suggestion ! This would be a huge episode... but we do love your idea.... We'll think about it !

[@Gardener7]

@@virtual.orchestration Thanks! As a composer with dozens of short melodic ideas, I struggle with finding ones that sound related, but not too similar. So, it's easy to compose 4 bars of music, but writing a whole piece is very difficult.

[@armanscrap]

I love your eyes 🌞

[@virtual.orchestration]

We love everythign about @esinaydingoz 💛! Thank you for your comment, Aavee!

[@esinaydingoz1797]

@@virtual.orchestration You guys!!!! I love everything about you too! 😍🥰

[@Gardener7]

​@@esinaydingoz1797Are you going to make another tutorial? You are a great teacher. 😊

[@ConfuzenWorks]

Super power, seri, how very zoomy

[@rocketman374]

Thanks for the great video! One thing, tell the director to take it easy with the camera angles, my attention span isn't THAT short! ;-)

[@virtual.orchestration]

Hey Rocketman. Yeah, the director is all crazy about camera-angles. We will let him know and maybe provide him with some valerian for the next shoot.

[@rocketman374]

@@virtual.orchestration haha, sounds good! Either way, keep up the good work, I'm loving these videos!

[@artpozitif]

Esinnn. That was a wonderful experience watching you on youtube with such a great content. I was impressed by the way you conveyed emotions to the piano in different ways over the same motif. As an amateur,it was a very inspiring video for me and truely learned a lot from you. And also i want to congratulate the entire team behind this, especially @fabianbarbahallal and @david_kudell for the perfect imaging and production. 🙌

[@virtual.orchestration]

💛Thank you Cem, for your wonderful comment and paying respect to both Esin and our wonderfulCamera crew 🎥.

[@LoicRathscheck]

Very attractive, charming and as equally talented. :-) Also, you explain very well. Your short video taught me some new musical tricks. Thank you! Where can I hear your music? I am sure it is great.

[@virtual.orchestration]

Hey Loic, and yeah, @esinaydingoz1797 --- where can we listen to more of your music ?

[@LoicRathscheck]

@@virtual.orchestration Esin's music or my music? Maybe she has music on her youtube channel or a dedicated website. I will have a look