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Music Technology Component 2 Composition Guidance and Tick List

The first thing you have to do is choose which brief to have a go at. You can choose from,

  1. The Film brief. This will involve having to spot sounds and music to picture. This can be hard and requires an understanding of musical structure as well as the technical side of music production. THIS CHOICE IS HARD SO DON’T DO IT!
  2. The Poem or Word based Brief. You are given some words that can be turned into a song or composition. If you are into writing songs with verse/chorus type arrangement then this is the one to choose. I WOULD ALWAYS CHOOSE THIS ONE!
  3. The Sound FX Brief. This one focuses more on sound design and creating atmospheres. This one is good if you like creating interesting textures and ambient compositions. There is less musicality needed for this one. DO THIS ONE IF YOU LIKE MAKING WEIRD SOUNDS & AMBIENT SOUNDSCAPES!

Once you have chosen the brief (NUMBER 2) you should then look for a suitable stimulus track to base your composition on. There’s a number of reasons why this is a good idea.

 

  1. It gives you a recognised genre or style for your composition to work towards.
  2. It helps to give you a structure for your composition, i.e how long is the intro, is it verse/chorus structure, where is the breakdown etc
  3. It gives you examples of instrumentation to emulate. What kind of bass sound, what kind of synth pads to use, what vocal treatment they use etc
  4. It can be a source for new ideas when you are having a creative block. What happens at bar 36 in the stimulus? Can I emulate that idea?
  5. This piece of coursework developed out of the old specification which asked the student to undertake the recreation of a commercial song. Some of that DNA is still in this task and there is an element of critical listening that is still important and the ability to work inside a genre

 

One you’ve chosen your stimulus track. Set the tempo of your composition to the same as the stimulus and line it up. Use the Beat Detector plugin for this. Usually you will have to chop a tiny amount of the beginning to line up the first beat to the 1 of the 1st bar. Sometimes you may have to use Flex time to make sure that the track stays in time.

The Composition is marked through different criteria. Each criteria carries a certain amount of marks and some criteria are worth more than others. The main criteria are Synthesis, Sampling & Creative Effects.
In your composition, you need to make sure that you use all of these processes a number of times and in different ways.

 

Let’s go through them one by one.

 

Synthesis (8 Marks)

  1. Use a Subtractive Synth
  2. Edit the OSCILLATOR type (Square wave, Saw etc)
  3. Use the Filter section and Automate the CUTOFF POINT & RESONANCE
  4. MODULATE the sound using a LFO. The simplest way is to modulate PITCH (Vibrato)
  5. Adjust The ADSR envelope of a sound (Increase RELEASE TIME, CUT SUSTAIN LEVEL)
  6. Use a different type of synthesis such as FM (Retro synth) or Additive (B3 Organ with its DRAWBARS)
  7. Try making interested textures by layering sounds (copying the MIDI to another instrument, change the OCTAVE)
  8. Use Pitch Bend (change from 2 semitones to 12 semitones)

Sampling (8 Marks)

  1. TRUNCATE a sample and SPAN on a keyboard
  2. REVERSE a sample
  3. TIMESTRETCH a sample
  4. STUTTER a sample (LOOPING)
  5. PITCH a sample up and pitch a sample down
  6. Use in a rhythmic pattern (Drum groove, Vocal groove)
  7. Use a long sample and use FILTERING with AUTOMATION
  8. Adjust ADSR and other synthlike controls (LFO, Filter)

Creative FX (8 Marks)

  1. Setup a Large reverb on a Bus that you can AUTOMATE for A REVERB BLOOM
  2. Use DELAY to create rhythmic patterns
  3. Add MODULATION EFFECTS like CHORUS, FLANGER, PHASER, RINGSHIFTER
  4. Use DISTORTION (Look at the GUITAR PEDALS for this)
  5. Make use of the MULTI TX, like STEP FX and PHAT FX
  6. Try a GLOBAL FX (FILTER in the whole track using the REMIX FX)
  7. Use a VOCODER on any vocal parts
  8. Try using a GATED REVERB for your snare or percussion

These are the main criteria for the Composition. The importance of the LOGBOOK cannot be understated. That is where the examiner will see your level of understanding and how you’ve implemented the processes described above. This isn’t an exhaustive list, but should give you a sense of what is expected of you with this composition.

Edit of Mix (6 Marks)

This is how good the MIX sounds. Really this comes down to following

  1. Effective use of EQ
  2. Good overall Balance (can you hear everything?)
  3. Good control of DYNAMICS (use of COMPRESSION and LIMITING)
  4. Does the song start properly and end well?
  5. Is the mix too busy? Can you thin it out?
  6. Effective Mastering (nice and loud, good signal to noise ratio)

Response to Brief (6 Marks)

How well have you followed the essence of the brief. Have you done what has been asked?

Style & Coherence (6 Marks)

This is really where the stimulus track is super helpful. You can reference the track in your logbook and you should have a strong style to your composition.

Musicality (18 Marks)

Next you are marked on your musicality. Only the top 4 criteria are added to your mark.

The musical criteria are

  1. MELODY
  2. HARMONY
  3. RHYTHM
  4. TEXTURE
  5. FORM & STRUCTURE

So to summarise,

(6 Marks) (6 Marks) (6 Marks) (6 Marks) (6 Marks)

  1. Use lots of Synthesis, Sampling and Creative FX
  2. Compose in a solid genre
  3. Make sure that you follow the brief
  4. Add melody and harmony if you can, otherwise focus on texture and form
  5. Reference the mix to your stimulus track and make sure it’s in the ball park
  6. Make sure the logbook has all the buzzwords mentioned above

That’s about it. Good Luck!