Composition Portfolio

Learning Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• use music notation effectively and communicatively
• implement key technical devices and formal procedures in your own composition
• compose middle-length works (i.e. 5-12 minutes)

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• advanced technical devices and formal procedures that have developed during the second half of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries
• good-practice within conventional musical notion
• important aesthetic issues relating to music composition.

Over the 24 teaching weeks of the module, approximately 8 classes are dedicated to lectures where compositional approaches and techniques are presented. Examples of topics that may be explored include:

 Musical textures

 Orchestral composition

 Theatrical music

 Advanced systems based composition

 Conceptual music

 Collage

 New Complexity

 Modular form

Examples of specific pieces will be considered and analysed include:

 Luciano Berio, Sinfonia

 Henry Purcell, Fantasia in three parts

 Richard Ayres, Trumpet Noncerto

 Joanna Bailie, Artificial Environments 1-5

 Johannes Kriedler, Fremdarbeit

 Karheinz Stockhausen, Kreuzspiel

 Igor Stravinsky, Symphonies of Wind Instruments

 Arnold Schoenberg, Farben

In addition, you will write at least one work (and usually two) that will be performed and recorded by professional musicians.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include:

 Lectures

 Group and individual tutorials

 Workshops with professional musicians

Learning activities include:

 Individual study

 Library-based research

 On-line based research

 Analysis/listening to contemporary scores

 Close critical reading of texts

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

Pierre Boulez (1991). Stocktakings from an Apprenticeship. Oxford.

Christophe Cox and Daniel Warner (2007). Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music. New York: Continuum.

Arnold Schoenberg (1975). Style and Idea. London.

Michael Nyman (1999). Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond. Cambridge.

Arnold Whittall (1999). Music Composition in the Twentieth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Assessment strategy

All work is coursework.

The students submit one five minute composition towards the end of the first semester (25% of final grade) and a portfolio of compositions with a total duration of fifteen minutes (75% of final grade) at the end of the academic year (this element is the final assessment).

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External