The Film Composer’s Recipe Book

Scoring blueprints for 8 film & TV genres.

Explore melody, harmony, time, and orchestration with practical starting points for your next sketch.

The Film Composer’s Recipe Book by Robert Rodriguez

What’s inside

Eight genres, four musical ingredients, and a place to start when the page is blank.

A peek inside Heroic Action sample page with ingredients and directions for melody, harmony, time, and orchestration

Try one ingredient

Sketch a heroic cue.

Pick a musical ingredient and try it at your keyboard.

Melody

Try a leap of a fourth or fifth. Repeat it as a short motif and see how it feels.