A course of study in composition, taught by Greg Spero

Learn to hear it, then learn to write it.

57 lessons from slow scales to a finished score. Every lesson has Greg's video, the reading, the exercises, and the checkpoint you must pass before the next one.

Start Lesson A1 Read the method

Ink print of a keyboard and staff paper, the course cover illustration

Part A

Foundations

Hands, scales, theory, all the modes, goal notes, motivic development, notation. Twenty lessons anchored on Greg's Weekly Piano videos.

20 lessons · about 8 months

Part B

The Composer's Path

The source course, lesson by lesson, mapped onto the music you want to write: Meshuggah, Radiohead, King Crimson, Hamasyan, Nancarrow.

37 lessons · about 12 months

How every lesson works

Watch: Greg's video for the lesson, with the moments to take from it.
Listen: Repeated listening before any theory. Sing it, tap it, then look at the score.
At the piano: The physical work. Keys, fingerings, voicings, tempos.
Exercises: Three to six, each with a testable done-when.
Compose: One bounded prompt with hard constraints.
Checkpoint: What you must play or show Greg before the next lesson.

The library

The source course (Understanding Music from a Compositional Perspective, 240 pages) hosted in full, its bibliography, and every article, book, and score the lessons cite. Metal, rock, jazz piano, rhythm, touch, notation.

Open the library

1: source course, 30 lessons
211: sources in its bibliography
525: modern sources, all verified
106: Weekly Piano videos