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Vivian Aguiar-Buff sits cross-legged and looks directly at the camera in this portrait set against a gray background
Vivian Aguiar-Buff on Hans Zimmer, DreamWorks, and Her Emmy Win

What do Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight, and Gabby’s Dollhouse have in common? Emmy-winning music supervisor Vivian Aguiar-Buff helped shape their sound. In this deep-dive interview, the Music Supervision and Film Scoring instructor reflects on her path from law school dropout to Remote Control Productions, the secrets behind music supervision, and why being part of a creative team means leaving your ego at the door.

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Circle of Fifths
Circle of Fifths: The Key to Unlocking Harmonic Understanding

The circle of fifths is arguably the most helpful way of visually organizing Western music theory’s 12 chromatic pitches for learning. This primer, featuring excerpts from Music Application and Theory and Music for Beginners will give you several new tools to commit this concept to memory.

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An MC raises a fist while rapping into a microphone during an onstage performance at a hip hop concert.
How Hip Hop Culture Became a Global Force in Black Creative Expression

Take an in-depth look at the rise of Hip Hop Culture—from Bronx block parties to global stages—as a powerful expression of Afro-Diasporic identity, resilience, and artistry in this lesson excerpt from Black Creative Expression.

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Huey Lewis is pictured on the cover of his 2020 album, "Weather."
Huey Lewis and the News on His Hearing, the Power of Love, and More

Huey Lewis: Some of his lies are true, including the ones about stowing away on a plane to Europe, playing soccer with Black Sabbath and Ozzy, and being dressed by Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy. He also touches upon his meteoric rise to fame in the 1980s and his struggles with Ménière’s disease.

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Bleu McAuley

Bleu McAuley has written songs for the Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, and Selena Gomez, earning gold and platinum records for his work. He is an award-winning songwriter, producer, composer, and recording artist who has released six studio albums and several cult side projects. His music has been featured in global campaigns and hit shows including Shameless, The Good Place, Insecure, and by brands such as eBay, Swarovski, and Bose. Bleu also wrote and produced songs for Disney’s Legend of the Neverbeast, including a duet with KT Tunstall. For Berklee Online, he authored the course Songwriting Sync Success: The Art and Craft of Licensing, Film/TV, Advertising, and Production Music.



A man with a plaid shirt sits at a mic in a recording studio, presumably to record a guitar part for a song he is hoping to one day land a sync licensing deal with.

Sync Licensing Success for Songwriters

By Bleu McAuley

Music for advertising is much like other types of custom songwriting: if you want to win the game, you must know the rules of that game. Once I figured out what game I was actually playing, I started to have success with sync licensing.

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