UreMusic Education is written by Kevin Ure - composer, author, and music educator - as the free reading room for the audiation-based composition and ear training courses at UreMusic.com.
Background
Kevin holds bachelor's and master's degrees in music composition and has spent more than 25 years teaching musicians. As a university professor for eight years, he taught over 70 music courses to more than 1,000 students, covering music theory from the undergraduate through doctoral levels alongside composition, counterpoint, ear training, and form and analysis. He is the author of The Elements of Music Composition and Music Composition Technique Builder, two books that grew out of a long search for a better way to train the composer's inner ear.
The Teaching Philosophy
Kevin's central claim, tested across decades of teaching, is that more theory knowledge does not by itself make better composers. What transforms a composer is audiation - the trained ability to hear music in the mind before writing it down. His courses are built on that foundation: he developed over 2,000 audio training files while building his own hearing, and refined the method through the students who struggled the way he once did. The result is a curriculum - including the 16-unit Flawless Ear Training program and the Composing Hour Masterclass Series - that teaches composers to become their own best instructors rather than imitators of their teachers.
His role model in this is Nadia Boulanger, the legendary teacher who shaped many of the twentieth century's leading composers by developing their individual voices rather than imposing her own. That principle runs through everything on this site: rules are compressed experience to be understood and used, not commandments to be obeyed.
About This Blog
The articles here cover composition technique, music theory, ear training, orchestration, musical form, and music history - free, practical writing intended to give you a taste of the approach behind the full courses. Good starting points are the featured post on audiation-based composition instruction and the Composing and Ear Training labels in the sidebar.
Study With Kevin
The complete curriculum - structured composition lessons, the Flawless Ear Training program, the Practice Room, and Kevin's books - lives at UreMusic.com, with additional essays at ComposingHour.com. For questions, course information, or commission inquiries, contact kevin@uremusic.com.