AH Music Composition

What genre are you composing in? If your teacher is telling you to add changes in time signature just for their own sake rather than because they actually work as part of the piece, they obviously don't know what they're talking about.

Well they were saying that you don't need to write a good song necessarily, it's more the SQA look to see that you can write complicated music.

We're meant to have two different genres. I don't really know how to describe my music but i'll post a link to two pieces i did last year if that helps

http://www.bebo.com/aminordetail

I know bebo's a load of crap but meh

I think there's a difference to be borne in mind here between "sophisticated" and "complicated". I strongly advise you to steer clear of complexity for its own sake, because it'll make your piece a cluttered mess that doesn't hang together properly. I've had compositions turn out that way myself, and it's a demoralising experience.

I realise that you have to do a certain amount of jumping through hoops in order to demonstrate that you are competent and confident at composition, but I think a coherent piece that tends towards simplicity will score more highly than a technical tour de force that sounds jumbled and artificial. Obviously you're aware that a balance needs to be struck, but it seems to me that your compromise is weighted too far in favour of the "complicated impressive mess" end of the scale. And like I said, I think your teacher is making that worse.

This is more true for some genres than for others, of course; which two styles are you intending to write in?

(And as an afterthought: If your examining board wants two different styles, then there's your complexity and demonstration of flexible compositional skills. If both pieces are overly complicated, the contrast in genre between them will be less striking, and I think that might damage your mark.)

If you were to compose in the serial music genre, your music would basically just write itself and it would be effortlessly complicated We had to do that for higher last year.

Crap to listen to, but incredibly easy to create. Though some painkillers will be necessary....

Music is subjective - You should have realised that by now if you're doing advanced higher. One man's trash is another man's treasure. The music PT at my school highly enjoys serialism, whereas me (and you) clearly don't

I get where you're coming from, but I didn't really have any troubles creating my composition last year, and got a pass pretty easily, though maybe what the exam board counts as a 'pass' does not necessarily mean good music. Im no expert, I'm just speaking from experience of having written one, which is all i have really!