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.
Music Composition: Starting a Piece
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Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
Intermediate level
Recommended experience
14 hours to complete
3 weeks at 4 hours a week
Flexible schedule
Learn at your own pace
What you'll learn
Develop strategies for starting a new piece
Compose short pieces
Reflect upon your current working methods and explore new ways to expand your practice
Details to know
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Recently updated!
March 2025
Assessments
16 assignments
Taught in English
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There are 4 modules in this course
This module will explore composing working methods, introduce the idea of musical gesture and composing with 5 notes.
What's included
9 videos10 readings4 assignments5 discussion prompts
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.
What's included
9 videos3 readings4 assignments5 discussion prompts
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.
What's included
9 videos4 readings4 assignments4 discussion prompts
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.
What's included
9 videos3 readings4 assignments1 discussion prompt
Instructor
Offered by
Recommended if you're interested in Music and Art
California Institute of the Arts
Berklee
Michigan State University
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Frequently asked questions
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