The Composing Process: From Brief to Realisation

A question you write yourself

The composing unit asks for two compositions. One answers a brief set by WJEC. The other answers a brief you write yourself, and that changes what the work is. A brief is the question a composition answers. When somebody else sets it, your job is to interpret it. When you set it, you are also deciding what success will look like, and the specification then asks you to reflect on how well you responded to the brief. So the brief you write becomes the yardstick your own reflection is measured against. Carry one idea through this module: a brief you cannot fail is a brief you cannot evaluate against. A brief that says only that the piece should sound good gives you nothing to test at the end. What each element of music is, and how to develop an idea with musical devices, are taught in their own modules. This one follows a piece from the brief to the finished, realised result.

Five words for the composing unit

These describe the unit itself rather than the music inside it.

Two points a listener could confirm

Five lines from one student writing their own brief. Tap the TWO that give a point somebody could actually test once the piece is finished.

• The piece will be exciting and memorable from start to finish
• It will begin with one instrument alone and not reach the full texture until the final section
• It will be written in a style that I really enjoy listening to
• The opening melody will return near the end, changed so that it sounds calmer than before
• It will show everything I have learned about music this year

Which brief can be reflected on?

Four students have each written their own brief. When they come to reflect on how well they responded, which brief gives them the most to work with?

• A short piece for voice and piano to open a school concert, starting softly, building to a loud chorus, and ending on one held note
• A piece that captures exactly how it feels to be happy on a summer afternoon with friends
• The best and most impressive piece I can possibly write, in whatever style I end up choosing
• A piece that sounds as much as possible like the songs of my favourite band

Set by the board, set by you

The two compositions look alike on paper and ask for different work before the first note.

Match each composition to the best way to capture it

What earns its place in the log

A student is writing their reflective log for the piece to their own brief. Select every sentence that does the reflecting the specification asks for.

• My brief said the ending would feel calmer than the opening, and it does, because the tune returns slower and lower
• I first tried a busy drum part in the middle section and removed it, because it hid the melody my brief said should lead
• I kept the texture thin for the first half so that adding instruments later would feel like growth
• I spent a great deal of time on this piece over several weeks of lunchtimes
• I used a sequencer program and a set of sampled orchestral instruments
• I am really pleased with how it turned out and my friends liked it too

From your own brief to the finished sound

A student is composing to a brief they wrote themselves. Put the stages in order.

• Write the brief, making each point something a listener could confirm
• Try out several short starting ideas against the brief
• Choose the strongest of those ideas and develop it
• Arrange the developed material into a structure that does what the brief promised
• Realise the finished structure, live or through software output
• Listen back to the realisation point by point against the brief

You do not have to be able to play it

Two parts of this unit are about routes the specification lists, not about skills you may or may not already have. Realising. A composition can be realised through a live performance or through software output. Because software output is one of the listed routes, you never need to cut your music down to what your own hands can manage. Capturing. The specification lists staff notation, a lead sheet, graphic notation and a written commentary as ways of notating a composition. Staff notation is one of four, not the only one, and choosing between them is a judgement about what best shows the piece. ⭐ One caution. Those are the routes the specification names. How your centre wants the work presented is a practical question for your teacher, so ask early rather than assume.

Rule, good idea, or not true

For each statement about the composing unit, decide whether the specification sets it, it is simply good advice, or it is not true. Three lives.

Two runners, two goals

Two friends start running at the same time, and each writes a goal on the first page of a notebook. The first writes: get fitter. A month later she feels a bit better, probably. She cannot say whether it worked, because the goal never said what fitter would look like. Every run felt like progress and none of them could be judged. The second writes: run to the park gate and back without stopping, by the end of the month. A month later she knows exactly where she stands. She managed it in the third week, and she can say what made the difference: going slower at the start, and choosing the flat route. ⭐ The second goal was not more ambitious. It was more useful, because it was written so that the future could answer it. The month of running was the same for both; only one of them could look back and learn from it.

Finish the composing-unit sentences

One of the two compositions answers a brief set by WJEC, and the other answers your _____ brief. Because you wrote it, that brief becomes the _____ your reflection is measured against. A composition can be realised through a live performance or through _____ output. A song whose tune and chords are the whole idea can be captured on a _____ sheet, while a piece of swelling textures with no fixed pitches suits _____ notation. The reflective _____ is where you look back at how well you responded, the choices you made and how you used the elements.

Build a brief you can test

A student is writing their own brief. Choose the option in each gap that gives them the most to reflect on later.

Four decisions from brief to finished piece

A student is working on the composition to their own brief. Each stage sets out where they are and hands you the decision.

• They have written their own brief in one line: a piece that sounds epic. They are about to start composing. Decide.
• The piano part they have written works well, and they cannot play it at the speed it needs. Their plan is to simplify it until they can. Decide.
• The finished piece is built from loops and effects in software. They assume they must write the whole thing out in staff notation, which they find slow to read. Decide.
• They sit down to write the reflective log for this piece. Their draft lists the program they used and how many weeks it took. Decide.

Write a brief worth reflecting on

Write your own brief for a short composition in any style, then explain how you would use it when you reflect on the finished piece.

• Say who or what the piece is for
• Give three points a listener could confirm
• Say how you would realise it, live or through software
• Choose a way to notate it and say why it suits the piece
• Explain how each point would guide your reflective log