Duncan Lorien is returning to Melbourne in September for another in his series of internationally renowned Understanding of Music Seminars.

Since first visiting Melbourne in 1995, Duncan now teaches his seminar in over 14 countries worldwide, including a large program in Vienna, the "home of classical music."

Duncan's seminars are designed to help both the music student and teacher to overcome problems in reading, playing and even composing music by dramatically boosting their understanding of all key musical concepts from scales and modes, to chords, fingering patterns and sight reading.

The seminar comes with glowing testimonials from the likes of Carlos Campos an instructor at Berklee College of Music who says, "I would recommend this course to every student of music."

The seminar does not replace being taught music, but rather complements it, as students who have done the seminar routinely become easier to teach, while many music teachers around the world find the seminar to be very motivating and inspiring.

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Students speak about him in superlatives — the gush of the converted for a music teacher they say changed their lives.

But Duncan Lorien, on his way to Australia for the sixth time, says what he does is quite simple, but very effective.

So effective the Hungarian Government pays school music teachers to attend his seminars, he says.

Lorien, who studied classical piano from the age of four, went backwards to move forward. He spent 30 years researching music history to discover the best way to teach it.

"I’m not teaching anything new at all. It’s very old," he says from his home in Boston.

"For the ancient Greeks it was standard for every child, by the age of 11, to play at least two instruments. There was no concept of talent or natural ability. These are myths that have gradually crept in.

"What made the Greek concept so successful was that it was linked in with everything else. I just turned my attention back to something that worked.

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This goes out to all you musical artists who think you don't need a seminar like Duncan Lorien's "Understanding Music" course.

Well maybe you don't. But take it from someone who has been a professional musician for 40 years and a successful and professional composer/songwriter for 30. The one thing I have found to be true about the top composers and musicians in my field is they never stop learning.

Even though I have music in over 50 films, including an Academy Award nominee and Emmy winning shows, and I have scores and songs in 3 animated TV series, and I just finished scores for two top Discovery channel specials one on Lance Armstrong and another on the Titanic with James Cameron...I still found time to do Duncan's seminar. You know why? Because he has what no other course offers. The most revealing information and truth regarding the real source of western music as we know it.

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I didn't believe the hype, but thought the seminar might make for a good story-the educational equivalent of tales about shonky businessmen making a fortune from people who hope to become instant millionaires.

I admit that I couldn't quite suppress the hope that maybe I could learn to play the newly restored baby grand piano that had belonged to my great grandmother.

But it was the sort of hope that fuels the purchase of a lottery ticket-you don't really believe it will happen. Just look at the gushing tributes on his website and you'll see what I mean: "This was the happiest two days of my life!" Did real people write this stuff?

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