The Student Room Group

OCR A2 Music Composition write up..

As im sure your all aware, deadline is like 10th so examiner can have work by 15th...thing is my teacher wont help me with my write up - he says "Im afraid i dont have time to teach you it and its not that hard so just work it out" I know he's a prat...havent finished coursework as he said we had till june for comp - i doubted a little but trusted so now have till mon to compose it and do write up...(did chorales in april).

Was wondeirng if anyone could be truly truly amazing and give me some notes on what to include and not include in it or even if anyone would be willing to send me theirs??

Thanks...

withers off to bite nails and do composition...
Reply 1
which comp?

And just be very specific, because that's always good :P
Reply 2
Sassoon...poem setting
Reply 3
Start off with who you wrote it for - which kind of ensemble and possibly why you chose it.

Then go on to talk about the composition itself - tonic key/modulations/time signature/style of it (is it contemporary/classical/baroque etc.)/form of the piece (ie. binary/ternary)

You definately need about 4/5 examples of composers and pieces of music you have listened to. It doesn't matter that you're doing the listening after you've written the composition but try to pick out a few things from those 4/5pieces you do listen to and say something about how it 'inspired' you for your own music - for example, I had quite a lot of word painting in my composition and I listened to vaughan williams and 2 of his pieces that also had a lot of word painting and then said my idea came from this/it helped me to understand how I could include word painting - the examiners love this sort of thing apparently. In the end, most of my commentary was made up of examples and how I had drawn ideas from them!

At the end, it might be an idea to finish by saying what you think has made your composition successful/why you like it and also mention if there is anything that you feel you could have done better and if so how you could have gone about this - what would you do next time? Don't go on about this aspect too much though - don't want to make it seem like you regret everything you did!

Good luck with it - most people aren't able to get help with this part but to be honest, once you get going with it, its pretty simple and the words will just flow! To sum up, you need to talk about your composition, why you did what you did and what gave you insiration; it only needs to be about 1 page/1 page and a half.

:biggrin:
Reply 4
thank you so so so much!!!
Um....hi there....

I've been reading with interest about these composition commentaries.

I was under the impression that they weren't actually marked at all....and that they were merely there to complement your composition.

Am I totally wrong?
Reply 6
Not marked, but apparantly are very important for marking, explaining what you were doing so it doesnt look like some random stringing together of melodies etc....

can make a difference in grade apparantly...
Reply 7
It is
If it is not mentioned in the write up they can't give you marks for it if its in your composition.
So make sure you include everything from instruments to dynamics.
XxX
Reply 8
the write ups them selves are not marked. they are used as tools for the examiner to pick out different techniques and devices you have used in your composition. its just showing you know what you are doing. like if you used a sequence or modulated in a circle of fifths then write it on your sheet for the examiner to read and you will get marked on your composition for using them.