This course shares insights into the process of composing music, all with the aim of developing your skills and confidence as a composer. You might be a musician looking to take your composition skills to the next level, or you might be a teacher in a secondary school searching for new techniques to share with your own students.
You might already have a developed working knowledge of tonality, in which case, we will complement that knowledge by introducing alternative scales and chord structures. We’ll be focussing on everything involved in writing for live acoustic instruments, using some form of notation. We’ll look at ways to push the boundaries of traditional notation, as well as introducing alternative approaches, such as graphic notation and indeterminacy. We’ll explore ways to maximise the effects you can create using instruments as well as to expand your rhythmic palette. A feature of the course will be to introduce the concept of gesture as a key tool in your working method. It also presents ways to tap into your imagination as part of your process which has the potential to transform the way that you compose.
Musical examples are brought to life in this course in performances by Scotland’s foremost contemporary music ensemble, Red Note Ensemble.
Overview
Syllabus
- Working Methods and Gesture
- This module will explore composing working methods, introduce the idea of musical gesture and composing with 5 notes.
- Ways to Start a Piece
- This module will cover strategies for starting a piece, explore ways to develop your harmonic language, and deepen your understanding of intervals, scales and modes. Central to this will be the goal of designing your own personalised chords and scales.
- Notation
- This module explores various forms of notation, including advanced techniques in staff notation and graphic notation. A key principle explored in the context of expanded staff notation is finding ways to use push traditional boundaries of this system to capture your individual musical ideas. The world of graphic notation is also introduced, highlighting the breadth of approaches on offer and how the creative agency within the roles of composer and performer can vary.
- Instrumentation
- This week will explore ways to write for instruments which takes full advantage of their expressive and technical strengths. Through a study of specific examples, we will consider some general principles to do with sonic exploration of instruments. Key concepts to emerge this module will be timbre, idiomatic and extended performing techniques, register, and ways to combine (orchestrate) various instruments.
Taught by
Jane Stanley
