Production school

[vaziri07]

Hey everyone!

Yesterday I got back into making beats. I have neglected my 303 since I first got it, and had only made a single, mediocre track on it. I had also stopped making beats on FL for a looong time, but just yesterday I decided to take a try at making a dubstep beat and it's coming along nicely. Anyways, even when I was making hip-hop instrumentals (and for the dubstep one I'm currently doing), I was not even close to being considered "professional". I sorta just get on FL and fuck around. While making the dubstep though (since I find this style of music should be made more precisely), I kinda realized that I would really like to learn as much as possible about making music. I have never had a musical lesson in my life, the few guitar songs I know I learned by repetitively practicing tabs, I don't know the notes on a piano, I don't exactly know what harmonizing is or how to do it, how to tell a note by ear, what keys are or their importance, etc...
Aaaanyways, what I'm wondering, is if I were to take a college course for music production, would they teach musical theory, and if so would it be at a beginner level, or would they be focused on the programming and such? To me it is important that I learn both, I want to know how as much about musical theory as possible (for obvious reasons, to enhance musical capability and all), and I also wanna learn how to fine tune, master, etc, basically get a track to actually SOUND perfect, how to create certain sounds (like currently I'm at a loss for how to create a build up / climax for my dubstep beat) etc...

So yeah, long story short, my question is whether or not music production courses in college are usually taught at a beginner level, and whether or not they teach musical theory at a beginner level as well, and how focused a course would be on it.
This is something I really want to learn, but it would really suck if I got in there and the teacher was like "so, just switch into this key, F sharp, yadayada" and i was the only one not knowing wtf he was talking about.

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the long ass paragraph

[kel]

I did a 2-year program for audio engineering in 2002. learned a lot... they taught classes for music theory, business, soldering, acoustics, MIDI, mic placement, protools, surround mixing, foley/video stuff, lots of things. fast forward to today, I'm a pothead making resampled beats on a 404. but my friend that did the same program, he became a great piano player that can play by ear. all depends on what you get out of it i suppose.

[vaziri07]

thanks for the reply/info. Did you know (or HAVE to know) anything about the listed things prior to taking the course, or was it taught from scratch/at a beginner level? I don't even know what half of those terms mean, and wanna learn about them. I'd also love to learn how to play by ear, I might ask my stepdad to help me with that aspect as well as some music theory. In any case, my question is whether or not the course taught you things based on information you were expected to know, or if they taught you all of it?

Thanks again! (And there's nothing wrong with being a pothead, at the moment your being more productive with your SP-404 than I have ever been with my 303 im sure )

[vaziri07]

also, my aim is I guess to be able to actually produce the songs that I create in my head, to have enough knowledge about effects, mixing, the works to actually be like, "this is what I want it to sound like", and then make it sound like that.

[kel]

It was taught at a beginner level for sure. I already knew quite a bit about MIDI before I started, but other than that, nothing. I pretty much forgot most of the acoustics stuff (don't care, my room is carpeted now, sounds better) and the music theory stuff (don't play instruments). But I know protools inside and out because of the program which is cool. And understanding a patchbay came in handy. you will have access to a bitchin studio where you can reserve time and clock in/out... i did not take advantage of that for some reason but retained all of the knowledge. If you have the opportunity to do it, definitely not a waste of time.

[V-F!]

pm'd you!