Planning for Composition at GCSE

In the second of a series of blogs on KS4 Music, Dan Francis takes us through the requirements for Composition at GCSE, including how to prepare students from different musical backgrounds for success in this part of the assessment.

Requirements

All four exam boards require students to complete two compositions. One of these briefs is set by the exam board and the other is set by the student. All four set a minimum of three minutes for both compositions combined, while Edexcel also states that each one must be a minimum of one minute. There are no maximum limits and all exam boards are clear that compositions that are too short or too long may be self-penalising as they won’t allow students to demonstrate the requisite skills of composition as appropriate to GCSE. They all have slightly different approaches to setting briefs but they are all clear that they wish students to, (and I’m deliberately paraphrasing here), develop a range of techniques for composing which show they can understand melody, rhythm, harmony and how to apply it to create specific effects.

Bloom’s Taxonomy

In Bloom’s Taxonomy, being able to Create something new sits at the top of the pyramid with (from bottom to top) Remember, Understand, Apply, Analyse and Evaluate sitting underneath. Composition, therefore, is a sophisticated realm of musicianship which draws on so many different levels of skill and understanding that it can’t be taught in isolation, even if the output can be successfully assessed as a separate component.

In composing, students can be taught to understand certain musical formulae and conventions and be given guidance on how to apply them to create relatively satisfying pieces of music. If they then analyse how these conventions are used in other pieces of music, they can then apply it to their own work as appropriate to the style in which they are writing. If they start to evaluate how applying these conventions in different ways impacts on what they hear, they can start to create something which is new.

For example, a student can remember how the opening of Ode to Joy sounds and that it is made up of a series of pitches and rhythms which create a particular sound. They can understand how these pitches and rhythms fall within a set number of bars and over a set of related chords. They can then apply this knowledge to try to perform it themselves; put the same set of pitches, rhythms and chords in a different order; put their own set of new chords or pitches across the same set of bars; or start to experiment with using different instruments to play them. If they analyse how 4-bar melodic phrases are used over chords I and V by other composers, they can create a more ‘authentic’ response. If they evaluate the impact of substituting a chord, suspending a note or changing the instrument, they can then start to make independent creative decisions.

Realms of Knowledge

Wrapped up inside that process are the different realms of knowledge. Substantive knowledge can be regarded as the ‘stuff’ students need to know to make music. This can range from note values right through to things like fugal harmony and the theory of sidechain compression. Disciplinary Knowledge can be regarded as the ability of students to use the ‘stuff’ they’ve learnt. Tacit Knowledge can be regarded as the understanding they pick up from being exposed to musical ‘stuff’ in their own lived environment.

How well a student can engage in a particular activity will be dictated by how deep their knowledge is across all three realms. Fortunately, the GCSE specifications recognise this which is why students are given a broad selection of briefs as starting points; they can produce live or sequenced compositions; they can produce a fully notated score, annotated track sheet or a written commentary. Helpfully, they also only ask for the output to be assessed as the process each student goes through can be very different.

I’ve worked with students whose tacit and disciplinary knowledge means they can write the melody for a pop song or a clarinet solo quite fast. Sometimes, they’ve been able to play some of the chords they want underneath, sometimes they’ve just known what instruments they wanted to go in the background. Working with them to identify what notes they’ve used and how long each phrase is has meant we’ve been able to work together to identify what chords will work underneath and why. Essentially, the process has been about bringing their substantive knowledge up to the same level as the other two realms.

There are also those students whose tacit and disciplinary knowledge means they can play some complex chords in complex keys, often borrowed from pieces they’ve learnt how to play aurally. Reverse engineering what they’ve played to the point where they can recognise it as, for example, a chromatically-altered ii7 V I, and drawing parallels to how this sequence is used elsewhere is usually quite effective in helping them to develop the substantive, theoretical knowledge which will help them develop independently.

There are also the kind of students students who may put a lot of different ideas together in a way that feels and sounds coherent but which may not be. There may be quite a large soundscape which might create an effective film underscore. However, it may be filled with some curious dissonances and polyrhythms which are not particularly ‘idiomatic’. Reverse engineering the notes used in each ‘track’ and how these relate to the other ‘tracks’ around them helps them to understand more deeply what they have created and how they can either adapt it to be more effective or, to be able to explain why it sounds the way it does.

When students are using a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation), there are some really powerful tools to help develop substantive knowledge. When you play a load of notes together on the keyboard, most software will convert it into a chord symbol live which means you can work with students to decode how a Dm11 chord is built, for example. Equally, where they have recorded a series of notes in, the piano roll editor can be used to help them recognise what these notes were and how they relate to each other harmonically. One interesting exercise is to provide students with a standard chord structure, get them to record it in live, repeat it a number of times and then ‘voice’ it for different combinations of instruments each time it repeats.

Formulae, Templates and Pastiche

External Moderator Reports often note that several students from the same school end up producing compositions built on the templates and this reduces individuality and creativity. While this is true, it can feel like there’s a lack of understanding of how difficult it can be to get students to compose! Like lots of other subjects, one of the keys to unlocking how music works, is to recognise that there are conventions and formulae which cut across a range of musical genres.

If students doing a Blues project in Year 8 can understand why chords I IV and V work together, it isn’t a big step to understand how the I V vi IV progression works in Pop Songs as a follow-up and then pivot chords as a tool towards modulation a little later down the line. If students doing a Samba project in Year 7 can understand the difference between Call and Response, Solo, Ostinato and Polyrhythms, it’s not a big leap to transfer that knowledge across to understand the Concerto Grosso. If they can demonstrate the rhythmic diminution involved in playing semibreves, minims, crotchets, quavers etc, then they’re in a good place to understand the ‘drop’ in House Music.

The aim of GCSE is to support students in understanding a relatively broad set of musical conventions and their marks are positively affected by how well they are used to create pieces of music. A relatively formulaic pastiche will get students so far, but the highest grades are reserved for those students who can synthesize a lot of understanding, including these musical formulae, to create something genuinely new and interesting.

Making best use of your time

It’s quite helpful that both compositions are to be completed and assessed in the final year of examination (Year 11). This means you can use Year Ten to develop their understanding of musical formulae and starting points through playing in different groups and experimenting on the computer. By the end of the Spring Term in Year Ten aim for students to have an understanding that there’s melody, accompaniment and bass with rhythm, harmony and instrumentation impacting on structure, texture, dynamics, and genre. This then leaves roughly a term and a half for the Composition to a Brief set by them and another term and a half for their Composition to a Brief set by the Board.

As the teacher and examiner, you have to make a judgement about how well the end result represents how they have developed as a musician. As with other components, being able to keep track of what knowledge they’ve learnt and what skills they’ve developed is fairly critical to being able to make this judgement accurately. While not all boards require a Composition Log, getting students to keep a regular record of what they’ve worked on each lesson is a really helpful tool for both you and them to track how they are developing. Set time aside each lesson for them to complete an online logbook, or set it as homework. Make sure they write down what they listened to for inspiration; how they experimented or incorporated particular musical techniques; reflections on any changes or experiments they made to chords, instrumentation etc. This can be used as a good tool for formative assessment and all the helpful conversations you can have around this.

Keep an ongoing record of how they’re progressing; what type of score they’re producing; how they are progressing against the criteria; and have a central place for all their work to be stored. This should help give the time and space you need to monitor and mark their work as well as minimise the chase for those final missing bits.

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