Performing and Composing: Skills and Process

Answered, not invented

Ask somebody who is stuck on a composition what the problem is and they will usually say they cannot think of anything. Almost always the real problem is the opposite. They have thought of several things, written each one down once, and produced four minutes that sound like a list rather than a piece. Composing at this level is not mainly about having ideas. It is about taking ONE idea and finding out what it can do, and about being able to say why every choice in the piece is there. That second part is what an examiner means by coherence, and it is why a brief matters so much. A brief is a question. It tells you what the music is for, roughly how long it should be, sometimes what it must include, and it is the thing every decision can be checked against: does this serve what I was asked for, or is it just something I liked. Work that way and the piece holds together, and you can explain it afterwards, which is a large part of the marks. This module is about that process and about the small set of moves composers use to develop an idea. Performing is a separate skill with a module of its own, writing music down belongs to the notation topic, and the elements themselves are defined elsewhere on this course.

Five words for composing

Four of these name moves you make on an idea. The first names the thing you are answering.

What has been done to the idea?

Which piece is composed?

Two learners submit a three-minute piece. One contains seven different tunes, each heard once. The other contains two tunes, each returning three times in altered forms. Which is likely to score higher, and why?

• The second, because developing a small amount of material is what makes a piece cohere
• The first, because it shows more musical invention
• Neither, since both are three minutes long
• The first, as long as the seven tunes are all good ones

A list, and a piece

Two ways of filling the same three minutes. The difference is not the quality of the ideas.

Compose in this order

Five stages of writing a piece to a brief. Put them into the order that produces something coherent.

• Read the brief and write down what the music has to do
• Find one short idea that suits it, and only one to begin with
• Try the idea several ways to find out what it can do
• Decide the shape of the whole piece and where the material returns
• Check every section back against the brief, and cut what does not serve it

What the brief is for

A composing brief is more than an instruction. Which THREE things does it actually give you?

• A purpose, so you know what the music has to achieve
• A test you can apply to any decision, by asking whether it serves the brief
• A way of knowing what to leave out, including ideas you like
• A starting tune to develop
• A guarantee of marks if it is followed exactly

Repetition is not development

This is the distinction the whole component turns on, and it is worth being precise about because the two look similar on paper. Repetition brings an idea back unchanged. It is genuinely useful: it gives a listener something to hold on to, it marks out the shape of a piece, and a chorus that returned different every time would stop being a chorus. But after a repetition the listener knows nothing they did not know before. Development brings the idea back CHANGED, and changed in a way that still lets you recognise it. Higher or lower, stretched or compressed, turned upside down, set against itself, given a different accompaniment or a different instrument. The test is a single question you can ask of any return: is this the same, or is it the same-but. If the answer is simply the same, it is repetition. Two consequences follow. First, a piece built only from repetition tends to feel static however good the original idea was, because nothing is being found out. Second, and this is what costs marks in the written parts of the course, a learner who cannot NAME what they did cannot explain their own piece. Saying that a theme comes back is a description. Saying that it comes back in inversion over a slower bass so the ending feels heavier is an explanation, and explanation is what is being credited.

Complete the composing sentences

The statement of what the music is for, which every decision can be checked against, is _____. A short musical idea that a whole piece can be built from is _____. Changing an idea so that it is recognisably the same and audibly different is _____. Repeating an idea immediately, starting on a higher or lower note, is _____.

One idea, four minutes

Here is how a short piece gets built from almost nothing. The brief asks for two to three minutes of music to accompany the opening of a nature documentary, and says it should suggest space and gradual awakening. Read as a question, that already rules things out: nothing sudden at the start, nothing busy, and it should go somewhere rather than sitting still. The idea chosen is four notes, rising slowly. That is all. Now find out what it can do. Played higher each time, it gains a sense of opening out, which is a sequence and it suits the brief exactly. Stretched so each note lasts twice as long, it becomes broader and more still, which suits an opening. Turned upside down so the notes fall, it becomes a way of settling, which is useful for ending a section. Set against itself in a second instrument a few beats later, the texture thickens without any new material arriving, which is how the music can grow without becoming busy. Now the shape. Begin with the idea alone and slow. Add the imitation. Let the sequence climb. Settle with the inversion. Return to the opening, once, unchanged, so the listener recognises where they started. Four notes and five decisions, every one of them traceable to the words space and gradual awakening. And when the evaluative discussion asks why the ending felt calm, the answer is already there.

Find the sentence that explains

Five sentences from a learner writing about their own composition. Tap the ONE that explains rather than describes.

• The main theme comes back near the end of the piece.
• I used a lot of different instruments to keep it interesting.
• The opening idea returns inverted over a slower bass, so the ending settles rather than lifting.
• I was quite pleased with how the middle section turned out.
• There are three sections altogether.

Explain your own choice

The evaluative discussion rewards explanation. Choose the option in each gap.

The composing run

Five quick questions on the composing process. Three lives.

Four minutes and nothing that fits

You have a brief asking for music to accompany a short film about a storm arriving over a quiet town. You have written about ninety seconds and you are stuck. Work through three decisions.

• You have three separate ideas, none of them developed. What do you do?
• The brief asks for something arriving gradually. Which move on your idea serves that best?
• One of your discarded ideas is the one you like best, but it does not fit the brief. What do you do with it?

Plan a composition

You are given this brief: two to three minutes of music for the opening of a documentary about a river, suggesting movement and gradual widening. Explain how you would plan the composition. Do not try to write the music itself.

• Say what the brief is actually asking the music to do
• Describe one short idea that would suit it, and say why
• Name at least two ways you would develop that idea, using the correct terms
• Explain the shape of the piece and where material would return
• Finish by explaining how you would decide what to leave out