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MUSIC8026 - Composing Music

  • Offered for Year: 2025/26
  • Module Leader(s): Dr William Edmondes
  • Owning School: The School of Arts and Cultures
  • Teaching Location: Newcastle City Campus
  • Capacity limit: 100
Semesters

Your programme is made up of credits, the total differs on programme to programme.

Semester 1 Credit Value: 20
Total Credits: 20.0

Aims

Composing Music supports students to advance their composition practice. Students expand individual skill in composition as appropriate to their specific practice and genre. They are supported to consider areas of technique, aesthetic and creativity in relation to digital and analogue technologies, improvisation and communicating such ideas to performers. From experimental electronics, improvisation, jazz, classical, pop, folk, and turntablism, students engage with issues pertinent to the style in which they are working, and the emphasis is on contemporary approaches.

In short, the aim of this module is to allow students to become competent composers of their own design and making.

Outline Of Syllabus

The syllabus focuses on developing student's individual skills in musical composition in a mode appropriate to their specific practice or genre. One-to-one supervisions are supplemented by group classes each week in which various issues of technique, aesthetic positioning, and creativity are discussed and worked through. These range from the use of digital and analogue technologies to improvisation, and communicating ideas to performers using notations, etc.

There is no restriction as to genre or style, and a wide range of specialist teaching is available, from experimental electronics, improvisation, jazz, classical, pop, folk, and turntablism. Students are expected to fully engage with issues pertinent to the style in which they are working, and the emphasis is on contemporary approaches.

Commonalities across different musical traditions will be encountered, but so will identifying critical differences between practices. This helps to contextualise differences of approach, which feeds into the semester 2 Collaborative Music Making module.


Topics covered in the module may include the following:

  1. Techniques in different areas of composition;
  2. Individual creativity;
  3. Appropriate use of technologies;
  4. Communicating ideas to performers using notations and other indications during performance, or improvising as part of a group;
  5. Different genres and styles including experimental electronics, jazz, classical, pop, folk and turntabalism;
  6. Commonalities and differences in musical traditions.

Teaching Methods

Teaching Activities
CategoryActivityNumberLengthStudent HoursComment
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities Workshops 11 2:00 22:00 Workshops to develop compositional practices
Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities Project-related supervision 6 1:00 6:00 These will take the form of one-to-one lessons with the student's designated composition supervisor
Structured Guided Learning Structured research activities 11 4:00 44:00 Technical skills development 
Guided Independent Study Skills practice 16 8:00 128:00 Working on student's own composition(s)
Total     200:00  

 Teaching Rationale And Relationship

  • Workshops present repertoires, generic skills, and genre-specific knowledge in a classroom environment, sometimes incorporating practical exercises, listening session, or peer learning [K1, K2, K3, S3].
  • Project-related supervision consists of intensive one-to-one supervision as appropriate for the student's particular compositional practice [K1, K2, K3, S1, S2, S3].
  • Structured research activities are specific practical exercises or creative challenges set by the one-to-one supervisor, or from the workshop sessions [K2, S1, S2, S3].
  • Skills practice is the essential ongoing individual practice on the student's compositional practice that is necessary to build creative confidence and an ability to refine and develop their compositional vision into convincing completed works. It also fosters and develops self-critical awareness [K2, K3, S1, S2, S3].

Assessment Methods

The format of resits will be determined by the Board of Examiners

Other Assessments:
DescriptionSemesterWhen Set%Comment
Written exercise 1 A 20% A 1,200 word introduction to the music presented in the portfolio, challenges to the composer, and how these were addressed. This may draw on recordings of the student's work in progress reviewed during the module and is presented to the examiners with the portfolio.
Portfolio 1 A 80% A portfolio selected from work produced during the module. This may take the form of recordings, scores, documentation, audio-visual formats, etc.
 
Assessment Rationale And Relationship

Assessment 1: A portfolio of music (80%)
The portfolio is the principle mode in which the student's appropriate technical expertise and creativity is evaluated and is assessed against the following criteria:


1. Musical quality of the compositions submitted judged against relevant professional standards (K1; K3; S1)
2. The appropriateness of the presentation of materials for performers, or the production standards where recorded music is submitted (K2)
3. Creative imagination (S1; S2)
4. Technical competence, where relevant, and as appropriate to the genre (S1).


Assessment 2: Written Exercise (20%)
The written introduction gives the student the opportunity to briefly account for the music presented and their understanding of its challenges and how they have addressed them. This will usually constitute a critical introduction to the portfolio of music.

This is assessed as follows:

1. Knowledge of the genre and the student's work within that, where relevant (K1)
2. Ability to critically evaluate progress and quality of work, and identify areas that need working on (S3)
3. Where the submitted work sits in the contemporary musical world (K3)
4. The effectiveness in communicating conceptual aspects of the submitted work not evident through simple listening (S2)

Timetable