Trailer Music Writing
Cohort 1
A six-week live program — July 7 through August 14, 2026. Four live Zoom sessions with Dr. Smith, peer critique, and a finished submission-ready cue by week 6.
The self-paced course,
made live.
The Trailer Music Writing 101 course gives you the blueprint. This cohort is where you apply it — with direct feedback on your actual work, a peer group of serious composers, and a finished cue at the end of six weeks that you can submit the day the program ends.
Format
Six structured weeks, one focused topic per week. Lesson material is delivered by email each week. All cohort members join four live Saturday Zoom sessions with Dr. Smith for direct teaching, work critique, and Q&A.
Community
Every cohort member gets access to a private cohort Discord channel for the duration of the program — peer feedback, work-in-progress sharing, and direct communication with Dr. Smith between sessions.
What You Finish With
A completed, submission-ready trailer cue plus a Certificate of Completion from ComposeProduceMusic.com. You leave week 6 with something you can send to a music supervisor immediately.
Four live Zoom sessions.
All included.
Every enrolled student — Core and Coaching — attends all four live Saturday sessions with Dr. Smith. Sessions run 45 minutes and are recorded. If you can’t attend live, the recording is added to your library the same day.
What happens
each week.
Every week has a clear focus and a deliverable. Weeks with a live Zoom session are marked with a green indicator.
What Makes Trailer Music Work
Understand the genre, the market, and what music supervisors actually need. Map your emotional concept and section plan before writing a single note.
The 5-Section Blueprint
Build your complete cue structure using the proven 5-section trailer framework. Bring your section plan to the first live Zoom session for direct feedback.
Instrumentation & Sound Design
Build your sonic palette — braams, impacts, risers, strings, brass. Learn what separates a professional trailer sound from amateur production.
Harmony & Emotional Targeting
Map your chord choices to emotional cues. Write melodic material that serves the picture without competing with it. Peer review of harmonic content.
The Composition Process — Full Draft
Complete your full instrumental trailer cue. Submit your draft before the live session for direct feedback from Dr. Smith on your work in progress.
Mix, Master & Submit
Final mix and delivery prep — loudness targets, stem exports, metadata. Submit your finished cue. Coaching tier members receive written feedback before this session.
Two ways to
join the cohort.
Both tiers include all 6 modules, all 4 live Zoom sessions, and all recordings. The Coaching tier adds personal written feedback on your submitted cue before the final session.
- All 6 weekly lesson modules delivered by email
- All 4 live Saturday Zoom sessions with Dr. Smith
- All session recordings added to your library
- Private cohort Discord community access
- All course articles, diagrams, and reference materials
- Weekly peer review sessions
- Certificate of Completion
- Everything in the Core tier
- Personal written feedback from Dr. Smith on your submitted cue
- Submit your cue by August 7 — receive written critique before the final session
- Priority Discord access — Dr. Smith responds directly
- Certificate of Completion
Both tiers include:
Six weeks of direct access
to Dr. Smith.
Dr. Smith is a working composer with 30+ years of sync placement credits on NBC, CBS, Fox Sports, Bravo, the NFL, NBA, Netflix, and the Smithsonian Channel. He has been teaching the craft and business of music at the university level for over 30 years at Bowie State University, Howard University, American University, and others.
He is a published author of multiple books used in his own university courses, including Compose and Produce Music Like a Pro, Hip Hop as Performance and Ritual, and Jazz as a Language. The Trailer Music Writing Cohort is his direct application of that career — six weeks of live teaching, listening, and critique built entirely around one outcome: a finished cue you can submit the day the program ends.
Write a cue that’s ready
to submit.
Six weeks. Four live sessions. A finished trailer cue. Direct access to a composer with 30+ years of sync placements. 25 spots — first come, first served.
