Composing for Instruments

Course Description

Summary

This class gives composers hands-on practice notating their music and hearing it played by performers playing a variety of instruments. It is meant for fledgling composers, for those who may have composed a lot of music already but have trouble writing their music down, or for those who have never even imagined composing music but would like to try. There are specific composition assignments approximately every other week. Musicians visit the class first to explain their instruments and return a second time to play and record what the students have composed for them. In tandem with this we explore and review notation and the rudiments of music. Over the course of the term we study and review the overtone series; the notation and hearing of rhythm and pitch (in treble and bass clef); intervals; the modes; major and minor scales; triads and chord formation;the circle of fifths; whole-tone and pentatonic scales, and the concepts behind twelve-tone music. We also study a bit of Music History. The course approaches music study through a progressive-education model, positing that students will be motivated to learn skills if they have a creative use for them.

The class is labeled a ‘4000’ level because it is intended for students who have taken instrumental lessons for a few years or more, and who can read music in at least one clef. Therefore unless they already have had many years of playing or singing experience, students taking this course should be taking instrumental or voice lessons concurrently.