A course examining the art of moving while standing still, and traveling far without moving. This will be approached through a study of form and variation techniques used in music. Students will be asked to make more from less while maintaining musical interest in their compositions.
Compositional techniques and styles studied include minimalism, ambient, alternative, musique concréte, popular, independent, experimental and sample based music. Assessment will consist of short composition assignments (1-2 min) rooted in class discussion and readings. These will be turned in as audio files. A single composition of 5-10 minutes will act as the final project.
By the end of this course students will be able to:
· Compose an engaging piece of music using a minimum amount of musical material.
· Critically engage with a piece of music through aural analysis.
· Analyze or break down music compositions to determine structural form and construction.
· Adapt compositional principles to their own music.
· Discover new approaches to music composition.
Session 1: Critical Listening And Analysis Strategies Without Traditional Music TheorySession 2: Creating Music In A DAW And Composing A Simple Shape With SoundSession 3: How Loops Can Be Used To Create Harmonic Or Structural Changes And Discovering Different Pathways To Accomplish The GoalSession 4: Defining, Creating, And Losing A Sense Of Time In Loop Based MusicSession 5: Examining Ambient Tracks And Analyzing The Compositional Elements At WorkSession 6: Sources And Inspiration: Strategies For Sample Based Collage WorksSession 7: Understanding EQ And Its Role In Composition And MixingSession 8: Examining The Extramusical Content Of Your WorkSession 9: Form As Musical ExpressionSession 10: Synthesis Of Ideas: The Many From The One And Back Again
Pedro Briceño completed this course, spending 1 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be easy.
Great course, the instructor is a well kown artist. Mix a lot of interesting compositional concepts and gives a lot of good music examples from a variety of genres like classical music till pop, folk, electronic, etc............Really good!
Tladb completed this course, spending 3 hours a week on it and found the course difficulty to be medium.
This course is a major influence on my work. The lessons in the course have have developed my ability to structure my tracks more consistently and musically.