As some one who has a music degree and has also written jingles and pop songs, I can answer the question, why do the academics get angry at you for doing deep-dive videos? Because you’re so much better at teaching it than they are. You’re showing them up. People like you, Ryan Leach, Rick Beato, Paul Thompson - I’ve learned far more, far better from you than I did in college or even OTJ in Nashville studios. The cream rises to the top, and there’s no longer anyone to hold you down so they can keep their vaunted position which they earned by playing the academic game rather than by being great teachers.

"Why are you playing chords without the root note?!? Are you looking for trouble?" Love it!! Your perspective is mine.

As a disabled composer, I cannot express enough how much I appreciate this discourse.

I live by Rick Beato's philosophy of music theory being simply a way to name the things you hear. Another wise thing I heard from a music school colleague once: "music dictates music theory but music theory doesn't dictate music."

I love how you're not only in a power position, but you're using your experience and platform to break down the system one myth at a time.🔥 I wish your videos were around 20 years ago. Would have saved my sanity in music school. I remember saying that I liked 50 Cent and a violinist was like, 'I didn't know the symphony orchestra was lowering their standards for good brass players'. I cold turkeyed on music after graduating. Thank you for this F the system video 🤘🙏

You're not only a composer, you're a speaker. You can blow me away in a voice without any emotion. You are so great.

It's insane how mature you are while being so young. I might have needed half of my life to get near your wisdom. Please spread it around and never stop. It's incredibly refreshing.

“Who decides what’s good?” The listener. It doesn’t matter if it is a music theory masterpiece or the biggest mess of theory to ever exist. If people like it then it is good

All the great classical composers were graduates? The influence, discovering the self and the eager to learn and self improve comes from the poor class people. everyone struggled succeeded and left a legacy in a way or other. You are the greatest example and the BRAVE Anne! behind your words I felt the pain and the struggle and probably the hidden tears that led you to success. You are blessed, keep spreading wisdom and knowledge to all of us.

The problem with most film music academics is that it's more about your arguments for why you write something than the real thing you're expressing in music. The latter ensures that it is more about the technique than the music. You are right that expensive education is no guarantee of success. What you do in practice, including the awards, makes you.

Very well said! When I first got into classical music I went through a phase of evaluating all music based on qualities of Stravinsky - but that was such an adolescent and foolish way to look at music. There's a heart within most music that goes well beyond any theory. I would say one big thing "theory" has helped me with is being able to understand and dissect other people's music, and quickly - which has definitely helped me massively with composing and conducting. You can learn more from studying other people's music than any textbook can teach you! Loving this channel, thanks for sharing

OMG this is a must watch for everyone not just students not just musicians. I already appreciated and respected you but this takes you to another level. Thank you so much for doing this for all of us.

here goes a token of my appreciation, and a middle finger to all those elitists that told you that you can't give it away for free. For me music is a hobby for which I wouldn't pay the price of a degree, both in time and money. I'm learning so much with resources like your channel and other similar ones. My contribution is just a small thing to encourage you to continue. I assume there are young people who are also learning with your channel and have a brilliant future in music. Thanks Anne-Kathrin!

I just discovered you through the AWFC newsletter (hello fellow female film composer!). I love your thoughts and couldn't agree with you more. I have also struggled so much in my career with the classical world as well. Your video felt so validating. ❤️ Thank you!

You are so right, I am being told I can not study because Im not worthy or I am not privileged enough financially. I already have a degree and have learnt more on youtube or private classes. thank you for sharing your knowledge

"The joke's on them now!" Indeed Anne-Kathrin! Another great, inspirational video, thank you so much for sharing :)

Your channel us honestly incredibly underrated. You deserve way more subscribers. I follow some other composing channels and they don't talk about stuff this and it's really important.

I was an above average technical player when I was 18. I went for an audition for a scholarship at Berkeley. The people at that table were condescending and dismissive. The head of the guitar department wanted to get me in, but was overruled. It set up this false narrative in my head for years that I wasn't good enough. I can't help but think how different things might have gone if I'd been able to get the education. Ps... I'm really enjoying your videos. Thank you for making them.

I’ve never said “F@$% YEA” so many times whilst watching a KZfaq video. Thank you for what you’re doing Anne, love everything about it, God speed!

Danke! Du sprichst mir aus der Seele!!!👏👏👍 Ich werde genau dieses Video meinen SchülerInnen zeigen und es mit ihnen besprechen! Wie du sagst, Uni/Kons gut und wichtig, aber nicht als Hüter der "reinen Lehre"! Alles Liebe aus Wien

Thank you so much for this video, it‘s very inspirational. My dreams of becoming a Tonmeister and creating Music in general shattered at the entrance exams and I turned my back on music for many years. With your content and the way you present it, you inspire and motivate me to be creative again. Which is the most important thing for me with any teacher. And on top of that, there is brilliant information, structured in a way that makes the topics more accessible to me.

You, talking about the gate keepers, fittingly with Satie in the background, underlining your point! Best greetings from Germany!

Liebe Anne-Kathrin, vielen vielen Dank für deine Videos, deine Meinung und deine Expertise. Ich kann so gut nachfühlen, was Du in diesem Video sagst. Ich habe selbst mit 20 zur Musik gefunden und bin auf dem Weg Medien Komposition zu studieren, entweder an einer Uni oder eben auf eigenem Wege, wenn es nicht anders gehen sollte. Danke für all dein großzügiges Wissen - du bist auf diese Art eine Bereicherung und tolle Begleitung. Roman aus Marburg in Hessen :)

So young and so wise. Thank you for this video. I will be forever grateful and your fan. God Bless.

"I am convinced half of their chords are just clusters" ..cracked me up! Very thoughtful and genuine perspectives throughout the whole video.. thank you so much for sharing your experience!!

You make music and how we create it so friendly. Thank you for this useful encouraging video ..🌹 enjoyed the Satie in the background too. After 50 years in the music and entertainment business, I am doing it purely for fun.. and so lucky I can. ❤️ from 🇿🇦

I spent this video pointing at the screen in fervent agreement but keeping quiet bc I didn't want to miss the next sentence. You preach it, Ms. Dern! Yes! I can personally attest to many points made here.

I agree and resonate. In a way i'm happy that I studied a lot by myself and from private tutoring rather than going to a music school. It made me understand things independently, albeit slower, but on a much deeper and personal level. Thank you for your channel, information and liberating views.

Wow! Your major poins are so true in almost any of so called academic art education. Not just music. Coming from field of architecture this sounds almost too familiar. Small group of elitists defines what's good and what's not. When at university in our first year, we were kind of separated in two groups: those who are bad and those who had "talent". The judgement was not done regarding Your skills. It was done looking at Your personal style: do You look like an architect? and speak like an architect? It kind of opened my eyes about academic art education. I have witnessed it too many times, if You serve the elitist continuum and fit in that or if You have connections, You can publish anything that has difficult words and complicated sentences as an academic paper even if there's no sense in it and no one can understand your thinking. The ones who speak clearly and can make the common understand their point are considered heretic and dangerous by the elite. Sometimes it has even qualities of a religious cult. I think there's not one sacred truth in what's art, music or architecture. There are many of truths in all of those. There are many ways of looking at things or hearing things. This is why I don't want to teach at academic level.

Hoi Anne! :) Nu heb ik je gisteren pas ontdekt op YT via je Modulation video en nu lees ik pas dat je in Nederland hebt gestudeerd! Wat enorm leuk om te lezen. Ik had geen idee dat die 'vooropleiding' van het conservatorium iets typisch Nederlands was. Ik heb ook die vooropleiding gedaan en ben het met je eens dat het een mooie oplossing is voor mensen die enorm talentvol zijn maar nog net niet goed genoeg noten kunnen lezen of zo. Hoe dan ook; Ik ben blij met je video's en waardevolle lessen! Enne.... Als je ooit nog in Nederland komt.... Laten we een bakkie doen ;) Groetjes!

I love this. So true. I’m a generation older but I’m totally inspired by young people who really want something so much that they will make the most interesting and exciting art and if they need to learn something they can find it on KZfaq

I have just recently discovered your channel and I am in awe at the level of insight you posses regarding music. This video in particular is a master class in what music making should be about-life affirming creative expression. I have been a victim of gate keeping in academia and its soul destroying arbitrary judgements about talent. Thank you for making your experience and knowledge available for all of us.

Incredible Anne-Kathrin! Thank you so much for truth-telling!

Genuinely thank you for your shared thoughts! I do hope that these video will help someone who need them in the right moment to decide and not give up music creation just because they don't have formal degree or have been rejected. Also thank you for sharing your personal story. I'm pretty sure you already making difference. Real one.

Wijze woorden weer Anne, Zo nuchter , ( like the coloring of your hair ) Chopin in the background again , love it !

This video deserves many more views and many more thumbs up! And not only from people interested in music, also in other fields. This is an important discussion in general!

This is a testimony to persistence and not giving up. I learned more about music after I left university than I ever did during the years I studied it there. As you said, everyone learns differently and a classroom isn’t always conducive for all. Plus, I found the level of teaching was much better In faculty of arts compared to fine arts.

Thank you very much for sharing so openly your experience. I like your human perspective, i.e. talking real things and knowing the diversity of people. btw a big respect for your eloquence. You and Jürgen (Klopp, FC Liverpool) are my motivators in learning languages. Cheers from Freiburg.

You're amazing Anne-Kathrin, thanks for sharing 👏👏👏

I'm slowly learning about composition, orchestration (even playing the piano) on my free time. I have a good career, but it is not my passion. I don't have the energy to do formal studies on the side, and I certainly don't feel comfortable giving up my very well paid job, and not be able to support my family on the hope that I become successful at creating music one day. I hope I can create good music one day, and I appreciate all the help that people like Anne-Kathrin provides to people like me.

What you are describing is basically what goes on everywhere in all areas of life. People try and protect their jobs and salaries by making out that they are unique. The best example is in the professions, like law and medicine. It’s simply everyone just protecting their jobs and income

I like your start, nice nature, normal approach to reach me, not fancy introduction, just calm and easy. Great. Then a very interesting topic, I've lived it through, and your opinion is so true. 😀😃😄

Your channel is the best. Thanks so much for sharing your time, talent, and wisdom. God Bless.

Love the start of this video.. buckling up!

Just a small token of my appreciation for this wonderful and inspiring video as well as a few others of yours I have enjoyed watching. Keep on keeping on 😊

Very good! Very philosophical, very democratic and it shows a free spirit and free person. I have been through some of that shit and could identify myself on your positions. I’m very glad to have crossed my way with yours. It’s been a pleasure and a good surprise

Congratulations for your spirit, fighting for your believes. (Proficiat!)

I've only been composing for about 5 years, but I've developed a passion for it. However, at the age of 60 I'll not be going back to University, so I rely on channels like yours to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. Your channel is by far the best in my opinion - you just tell it like it is. I watch other channels, such as Rick Beato, but he can be somewhat elitist - he has his conceptions about what a "proper" song is and if it doesn't meet his criteria then it's garbage. I believe that music is more than the sum of it's parts and that if a piece of music makes you feel something, then it's done it's job. I'm not completely ignorant when it comes to music theory, I've been a gigging musician for over 40 years. When I look back at my earlier work, I often prefer it to what I'm currently doing. When I first started, I went out of my way to break as many musical rules as I could get away with and still have it sound coherent. Most of it didn't work, but every now and again I'd come up with something amazing. I know a lot more now and the overall quality of my work has improved dramatically, but I find it harder to recreate the raw inspiration of the music I created at the beginning when my knowledge was limited. Thanks for the amazing work you do with your channel.

Thanks for posting this. I actually went to U of MD school and got a music degree. There definitely felt like there was a fair amount of gate keeping in certain aspects of things. When I was there they were leaning heavily into the Avant Garde side of music and it was sort of looked down upon if you didn't take part in that ( or at least it felt that way) There was a big focus on what they called "new music" and it was kinda just weird and sometimes off the wall stuff ( a friend performed a piece where he dissassembled his trumpet as it went on which was pretty amusing) But ultimately they definitely focused more on the experimental side of things. I definitely appreciate this video. You made some excellent points. We certainly had some super well trained people who couldn't write music to save their life. And some others who were not as good at things like theory, who were able to just write some amazing things. But if you didn't know your theory? Pssshhh what a peasant. Anyway, thanks for sharing your thoughts on this. This definitely needed to be said. Keep the awesome videos coming

Hi Anne-Kathrin. I live in Italy and here everybody can freely have access to every kind of school, conservatory, university. In Italy the school is 90% public and in the public school you can find the highest level teachers. Nobody in Italy has never been told "you are too poor to study with us". I'm a "jazz composition" teacher in the italian conservatory and, obviously, we have entrance tests, but we also have pre-academic classes in order to offer education even at a basic level. And I can say without any doubt that most of our students reach a very good level when they complete their "academic journey" with us and some of them have already become wonderful professional musicians (both instrumentalists and arrangers-composers). I'm so sorry when I hear that academic educations kills creativity. It's the exact opposite! Me, as a teacher, I always try to find ways to encourage my students in being creative! Academics absolutely don't kill creativity; I'd better say bad teachers kill creativity! Thank you for your very good and interesting videos! All the best! Vito Andrea Morra from Bari (Italy).

God bless you Anne-Kathrin!!! precisely the point I was raised with both worlds . . . B R A V O !!!

I have no degrees past high school. 25 years. Music is beautiful thank you for your videos. Always thought how orchestras are written. And it appears that it really is complicated. Internet slowly erases the gatekeepers that's damn right.

What a great video. I really appreciate your words here. It's basically the same reason, I didn't study music at a school. My education was basically to low, to even set a foot on the campus of music universities. So I just did my own research, read books, took a few classes from udemy, and luckily found your KZfaq Channel, which actually gave me all informations to build my career up to now. I'm very happy to have the chance accessing videos by professional content creators and industry professionals like you here on KZfaq. Thank you for this video and your inspiring words Anne-Kathrin ☺

You're totally right! Thanks for sharing your knowledge and experiences.. Life is life and you have to live it with your own means as well as with your own madness and creativity.. See Egberto Gismonti who started is mastering of music first by going from Brazil to France and studying with the great Nadia Boulanger.. then going back to Brazil and immerse himself in the life and culture of Brazilian indian forest people to understand their relation to music, sounds, nature and universe.. he then came out with a profound and highly personnal music style which will stand up the changes of times..

Watching your videos and implementing your advice, I've learned in one month more than since I started learning music 2 years ago. None courses and\or KZfaq videos are even close to what you share! Keep it up🔥

Well said. Especially student debt - it's a way for other people to get hold of your future earnings so never borrow a cent more than absolutely _absolutely_ necessary.

bravo bravo……ich kann nur staunen wie wunderbar Anne ist

6:20 about this topic I’d like to add that a genius of composer such as Jerry Goldsmith learned almost everything privately (excluding few classrooms), with great teachers of course, but outside any form of college and conservatory…

Too bad I can’t “like” this video more than once. You spoke my mind all throughout.

"I have a problem with that." Anyone with a shred of human decency should have a problem with that. Cheers for this video, elitism and gate-keeping are such out-moded mentalities. Write what you want to write, like what you want to like, and just let the bitter people fade into oblivion. 💙

Love your perspective, Jazz guitarists and pianists often leave out the root , especially in the lower register in order to free up those low frequencies so the bassist has freedom to use substitute notes.

Thank you Anne-Kathrin; inspirational and empowering!

I completely agree with you on every point. What you say applies not only to music, but to the entire school and university system. I grew up making music, in very different genres. However, I never became a professional musician, but continued to work in the natural sciences. But even there, it has to be said that the establishment has completely shot itself in the foot. Science, just like the music world, has to completely reinvent itself. And I think music has even made a good deal of progress on the right path.

Dear Anne, my most sincere congratulations for all the content of your YT channel. Greetings from Argentina

I love this argument. Snobbery and exclusion doesn’t further Art. Also, the only way for art to progress is for artists to blend the sum total of their experience to the music or art. If you’ve heard Mozart, Duke Ellington, The Beatles and Danny Elfman, bring all of that influence through your music. Whether you formally analyze and study or just depend on your ears and taste, it’s all good. It’s all the same. Nobody needs the approval of academia to make art. Educate yourself to the degree it helps you to express something that you are thinking and hearing but can’t get to. Thank you Anne!!

This video is incredible. Maximum respect for speaking up about this stuff.

Loved this video! I have been saying this in the UK for years. A very insightful look into a world that is changing slowly for the better. Great work and well said!

I agree 200% with every single word you spent about elitism in education. Respect!

Liebe Anne-Katrin, du bist großartig! Ich hab es jetzt erst verstanden!

I highly recommend Caustic 3, a $10 app that's like a scaled-down Ableton or FL Studio. It's changed my life. Even though I don't compose professionally yet, I love that the ability to compose has been unlocked and continues to grow.

As someone who got a degree in a different field and didn’t really delve into music composition until later in life I find channels like yours invaluable. With a family and a career going back to college right now isn’t an option and I can read the same textbooks that you read in college but getting a practical perspective isn’t easy to come by. Even teachers in colleges might have great academic knowledge but may have never worked as a professional composer so channels like this are a great educational resource even for those getting a degree in music.

Gatekeeping is probably the thing I abhor the most about my music profession. Thank you so much for this video. I had a similar journey as you, luckily eventually getting a partial scholarship. But I learned as much, if not more, outside of academia as inside. I just found you and I am fan.

Ich liebe deine Intros. Die allein sind den Klick schon wert.

I was great at school and could play guitar well, but I was self taught. Music classes were the hardest classes in college and had a pretty brutal environment. I still play music, study theory, and write songs, but it was clear that the classroom was not right for me and many others. Glad you found a home at UCLA and a career in music. You are such a fighter. Really enjoying your videos.

Just dropped in to say that me and three of my mates make this decision at Friday night beersies, but anyone can write in, we always try to take the public's opinions into consideration.

What a FANTASTIC video....outstanding! ..thank you.

Your experience in music academia is so similar to mine, but mine was all in the US. Basically, I was too poor to afford out-of-state tuition to go to California or New York, and while I was a very talented performer, my main instrument (bass clarinet) is not often found in orchestras and I'm not a good enough pianist to get into Berkley on just that. This left me stuck in Florida where (at the time I was first in school) there were no composition programs, only performance and education. So I ended up leaving music all together for about 10 years. Ended up going into health sciences. Now I'm doing music again, but on my own terms. I'm much happier this time around, not giving a crap about what anyone else thinks.

Liebe Ann-Kathrin, du sprichst mir so aus dem Herzen. Genau das war mein Thema heute. Unglaublich, kann KZfaq Gedanken lesen? Spooky. Anyway, ich bin dir super dankbar für dein Video. LG Lutz

Your Awesome! I am interested in learning more about music composing, not as a career or even for money, it is really just a hobby. I just enjoy learning (I am a teacher by trade). I really appreciate KZfaq channels like yours. I have zero interest in paying for more college. I guess you could even say I have a unique 'pathway', which I think is fine because in the end, I am just enjoying the process as I go. Thank you, please keep making more videos :)

Thank you for sharing your thoughts an knowledge with the world - This is highly appreciated, at least by me! As music goes, I am but a self-taught amateur, but I still strive to learn as much as I can, even as I am approaching my sixties... 'Right' music is what feels right to you, what you feel tells a story or paints a landscape or evokes a particular feeling. The elitism actually made me reconsider and back off when I contemplated joining the music industry in one way or another back in my early days. Instead I got a degree in electronics and today I work as a patent attorney, but I have never given up music - I play, and listen, and learn as much as I can whenever I have the time to do so.

Great video! I've been enjoying your videos, your music sounds great! Congratulations on successfully making it through the tough road of Education and not giving up.

100% confirm your point of view about studying! - the same to me - did/could not finish the university of audio engineering - but i was ask multiple times to teach there. - best greetings from vienna - close to synchron stage :) - thanks for your videos!

I like your comment that people should be allowed access to learn what they want to the depth that they want. I am an engineer by training, and music came from playing when I was young, and listening and enjoying it later. I have read a few books, but that was enough so that I would have a language to express what I was thinking and feeling. As an adult, I wrote on the audience facing blog of my local symphony, they also had musicians and academic trained musicologists writing for them to help educate the audience, I was the non-professional writing so the audience could feel free to feel and think as they did while they listened and enjoyed the music. As a side benefit, I could carry a conversation with my now wife, who is a conservatory trained pianist. :-)

I love music. I want to learn more about it, write it, make it. I want to support my son, who wants to do the same. Those are reasons enough for me. I doubt either of us will go to school to do any of that, particularly me at this point in my life and yet...I don't think that will end up limiting us...particularly him. Some of the things he writes...it just amazes me, but we are both teaching ourselves and each other. We find communities and other resources to educate ourselves outside of academia and we are patient. You, Anne, are one such resource for me. Both what you say in your videos and how you say it are indeed a spark of inspiration and I'm sure many of your subscribers feel the same...not just me.

Hello Anne-Kathrin, I can share your opinion 100 percent. I also listen to a wide variety of music genres and create my own songs, which sometimes sound rocky, sometimes pop, sometimes orchestral and often just mixed. I love classical instruments as well as synthesizers or distorted guitars. I play acoustic and electric guitar as an autodidact. I like analogue and I like digital, even a mixture of both. If there's one thing I hate, it's the arrogance of some professional musicians, musicologists and other know-it-alls. Music is there to be enjoyed, whether as a musician or as a listener. Even supposedly unprofessionally arranged music can be loved. It's all a matter of taste and not of the artificially imposed tape measure. I'm really happy to have subscribed to your channel. Warm greetings from Germany!

Thanks a lot for this video ! I completely resonate with it ! It's so true. I think now in the 21st Century with all this technology & all the resources we have, ALL knowledge and education should be accessible to everyone. Why not allowing people to learn something they wanna learn ? It really just doesn't make any sense at all. Free Education is something we really need more of. Hope this will change more quickly ASAP. We would make so huge steps forward as society. People just need to get it. It's as simple as that.

I have independent concerns about the ready availability of putative information and the difficulty in developing the skills to evaluate and critique that putative information. It makes it too easy to think that one knows something that one does not, or to be overwhelmed by conflicting ideas without being able to get some foothold to begin making progress. But, it is better than no information being available. It's just that hearing/reading something, knowing that it is true, and knowing how to do things, are all very different. But that's much less specific than what you were addressing; and I really enjoyed hearing your views and experience. Thank you!

Great commentary! First time viewer. I'm very much an amateur composer and loved your analysis. Well done. I'll be coming back!

You are very right. I started to try to write music like the baroque duets for recorder I played with my teacher when I was 7, and 60 years later I still try to write music. And better said: trying is doing and I still like to do that and I never took official education to write music. But the times I tried to get education for my music by paid lessons I never succeeded in even entering basic education, so You are very right: they are gatekeeping and it's great there came internet to break that monopoly,

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. When I went to college (back in the 70's) I started with a double major...music (voice and piano) and psychology. The very first class I went to in the music department was for all music students, and the subject was basically "Are you good enough to be here?" The professor made it clear that many of us were not talented enough to major in music (even though he hadn't a clue of what we were capable of). Turned out the name of the department should have been "Music and Egotism". The level of elitism was suffocating. And to make it worse, my male voice teacher sexually harassed me during EVERY voice lesson with constant innuendo and off-color comments. He was possibly three times my age, and even invited me to his home (not as part of a group). I dropped the music major after the third semester and continued with psychology, eventually getting degrees in both Clinical and School Psychology, and having a great career. I've written music all my life, and now that I'm retired I'm learning music production from you and many other wonderful people sharing their knowledge and experience on YT. Thank you!!

For folks in the United States who feel compelled towards a formal education - consider junior/community colleges! Low or no cost, dedicated faculty, and usually small enough class sizes to allow for individualized attention.

To me, music is a natural wonder. Academics study, nature, trees, plants, oceans, etc.. But these things exist entirely without the academics and book writers. As does music. It's an innate part of the human experience. IMO 😊 And I love your channel, it is excellent. What you teach, and how you present it, enriches the experience of and deepens the skills and appreciation of others. Very well done.

Excellent video - thanks for sharing your views! In my case the classical elitism actually discouraged me from studying music after the Abitur. I always had the impression that in Germany it was particularly bad, but over time I saw that's it's pretty universal. With some twists and turns I ended up becoming a musician anyway, just instead of classical Western music I'm now doing classical Japanese music now (and some quite idiosyncratic stuff). So, I completely agree with what you're saying: The gatekeepers are losing their power; the floodgates have opened. There are more avenues to music than formal education, now more than ever! (I'm tempted to say: "Power to the people", but that's so melodramatic .... 😁)

This discussion is extremely important, more than we think. I would suggest that different members of vi-control post their take on this

(You're probably going to get quite a number of comment notifications from me; I've just discovered your channel and I'm so thrilled to have found a composer who is in my age group that I can really relate with -- so I'm basically going through and watching so many of your videos while I work). Truly appreciated this video and discussions. I have been composing orchestral music for about 15 years, but it's almost entirely been done "by ear" because I've never had the money for music education, despite trying multiple times over the years. I also have ADHD so I often have a difficult time retaining information, so this makes school settings more difficult for me, so there's been a legitimate question mark over whether or not an education would've even been good for me or if it would basically just shatter my poor fragile brain and body. I don't really know how to read or write music (though I've been very slowly trying to learn over the last two years). I did start getting REALLY interested in Music Theory during the pandemic and it quickly became a favorite topic. And similarly to you, it was interesting finding that I had already been using a lot of Music Theory "techniques" without even realizing it, I just hadn't known what to call them. Instead I was just composing and drawing from years of listening to composers like Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams, and implementing stuff I had heard them do. But to your point(s) on the problem of elitism, I have had a lot of trouble getting music gigs over the years because of my lack of education credentials. And this isn't just an issue in Music, but it's really part of a systemic issue especially in America where you have so many jobs that don't even want to see your application unless it has college credentials attached to it, even if the job in question doesn't even require skills learned from college. But yeah, unfortunately I've lost a number of gigs over the years because the client did some deeper digging on my background/portfolio and didn't find any kind of music education credentials. I have no idea how widespread this issue is in the music community, I'm hoping it's not THAT big of a an issue, generally, for composers like me. But in my little slice of the universe it's definitely been an issue. But I just carry on and do my thing and keep composing my own music, because ultimately I feel my "portfolio" should just speak for itself to any interested parties. But even aside from that, I just feel so much passion for music that not even the lack of an actual music career can keep me from just composing in my own time as a hobby. Thank you so much for your videos, and your very down-to-earth approach to the whole thing, instead of taking a more "ivory tower" approach. It truly means a lot, and I know not just to me.

I like that you put music by Satie in this video, it matches the topic

Another enlightening video by Miss Dern... I completely agree that people learn in different ways and these days there are so many opportunities available to study/learn and practice compare to twenty years ago. I also advise people not to get into heavy debts to study music and not just for people in the States, repaying 50-100k can take a lifetime unless you make it big, which can be a possibility, but sometimes life doesn't always go as planned... I personally faced the elitism of classical conservatoire and it wasn't pretty for someone who came with a popular/rock music background. Regarding the aspect of knowing and studying music theory, I personally feel that it doesn't hurt to educate oneself but without obsessing over and running the risk of getting stuck by internalizing too many concepts without putting them into practice in one's music. Thank you Miss Dern for this great video and keep these controversial topics coming. Kind regards and many blessings, MaxT

My neck is tired from nodding in agreement so much.

Well said. Music is value neutral, and that's why we love the arts. We all get to be right. (:

Thanks for posting this. You are so correct on the student loan issue. It is a travesty and should be done away with. There are so many ways to get education now. Your channel is among those I would recommend to anyone looking to further their training.