Savannah composer Richard Sortomme teaches world how to compose music through new YouTube series

Pieces by Mozart, Brahms and Beethoven line the shelves and surround Richard Sortomme as he dances his fingers along the keys of his keyboard beside his computer desk.

It isn’t just classical composers that adorn the walls of Sortomme’s music sanctuary at his Savannah home, but his original compositions as well. “Ten” sits on the keyboard stand, and Sortomme demonstrates a few notes in a similar fashion as his most recent YouTube video that focuses on sketching out ideas for music.

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“It's really hard to talk about music,” he says. “It's hard to talk about writing — writing words.”

With his latest venture, a YouTube channel dedicated to teaching the next generation of composers the inner workings of the craft, Sortomme is doing just that — talking music.

It started with a phone call

Sortomme said the idea began in 2020 when his web designer reached out about updating the way his website was formatted.

The designer felt it was a bit outdated compared to other composers and wanted to bring out a lot of Sortomme’s previous work to be available for usage fees by orchestras and other organizations around the country.

That process got him thinking about getting his name out there more and driving people to his work on the website.

“I started by making scripts of the different sections, and then it was about my composing studio. I wasn't going to go into the weeds deeply about how to write music or anything like that," he said. "As you can see, in here, I'm surrounded by a lot of personal things — ceramics from my kids and photographs. And in addition to all my assets, CDs, and hundreds of scores, it's just a comfortable, super great place to work. And that's what I wanted to impart in the video.”

Naturally though, the first one fell flat.

“My wife was filming me on the iPhone and she said it’s too stiff,” he said. “And so we finished a take. And I've spliced it together and sent it to Michael in New York, and he hated it. And (my wife) Carol hated it.”

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He got good advice — make it conversational and keep it simple. And most importantly, keep it shorter. The second try was more streamlined. ‘I sent it in an email blast to friends and family. We have a very close friend who's a very famous film editor in New York. He wrote back and he said, ‘Ricky, it's great. What kind of a teleprompter did you use?’”

Film composing on YouTube with a side of Big Macs

Sortomme has two videos out so far — one on writing music and the other on sketching out ideas. He said he plans to continue doing the MasterClass style lessons with new topics and finds the advent of technology to be an interesting tool in getting people engaged in the music-making process.

“There wasn't any music software to help as an aid (when I started writing music). And I think as a tool, that's the single biggest difference with people engaging now.”

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The other major difference was what was being taught to modern composers. For Sortomme in his days at The Julliard School, there was a focus on musical theory and other concepts. Now “it was more about what they felt about music and what they wanted to express,” he said.

“I think that I went there a little bit in my opening remarks (of the second video) when I just played those three notes and I said, which is true, that (those notes are) not much I don't know where (the notes) came from, I don't really care, because I really don't think that much. An idea can come to you…you can sit there for two hours and come up with nothing, and then walk down the street, and then the lights go off, and it comes into your mind. And that's what I think composing ideas is about.”

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Sortomme’s channel got a bump when he got back in touch with a former friend of one of his children, Kevin Strahle, also known as the extreme eating L.A. Beast. A competitive eater based in Los Angeles, Strahle offered up notes on getting more exposure on YouTube and included Sortomme and his music in a video for his more than 2.7 million subscribers.

“When I spoke to Kevin in his last video where he runs four quarter miles punctuated by eating double Big Macs around the Ridgewood, New Jersey, track. I sent him a bunch of music and he used four pieces of my music in his video,” Sortomme said. “That was the leap…this is a longtime family, and family and friends mean a lot to me. So, that's how we took that leap. And you know, it's worked out well.”

More subscribers flocked over to Sortomme’s channel, and he was happy to see a lot of them engaging in his videos (even though some may have been disappointed he wasn’t pounding burgers while explaining Ravel.)

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Despite the strange bump on YouTube, Sortomme said he’s happy to continue creating the videos and helping people who are interested in classical music and composing to gain a better understanding of how the process works. While the method and delivery may seem a bit unconventional, Sortomme said he leans on a piece of advice he got from a music executive in Los Angeles, to whom he pitched some film scores.

“Don't worry about where your music ends up; if it ends up in a song or ends up in a film. Your job is to get your music heard, period. And I sort of never forgot that.”

Find videos by Richard Sortomme on YouTube by searching “Richard Sortomme” in the search tab or by going to his website at richardsortomme.com.

Zach Dennis is the editor of the arts and culture section and weekly Do Savannah alt-weekly publication at the Savannah Morning News and can be reached at zdennis@savannahnow.com.

This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Georgia composer starts music composition series on YouTube