12 Weeks
Level 3
3-Credit Tuition
$1,545Non-Credit Tuition
$1,290Developing Your Creativity as a Composer focuses on the student developing their own creative instincts in music composition through experimental practices, musical puzzles, enabling constraints, and other non-conventional approaches to writing music. These approaches can spark new ideas while developing the student’s own sense of style and technique, and can be applied to a wide variety of musical styles and writing scenarios, including composition, arranging, and orchestration. Whereas most composition courses build from historically established composition strategies about melody, harmony, and form, this course encourages the student to find their own solutions to unconventional scenarios, not limited to any musical style. The goal of this course is for the student to develop their own musical language and preferences.
This course can be taken by musicians with rudimentary experience with notation, as well as intermediate and advanced students who are looking to push their creativity, instincts, and personal musical language further.
By the end of the course, you will be able to:
- Describe contemporary musical styles and approaches
- Apply acoustic instruments, musical form, and musical coherence to their compositions
- Apply novel techniques, skills, and strategies to the craft of composition
- Develop their own compositional techniques and apply them toward writing and arranging music in different styles
- Write compositions that address a wide variety of approaches to music making
- Direct a reading of their music by professional musician(s)
Enrollment for this course will open soon.
Syllabus
Lesson 1: Compose Yourself
- Creativity
- Flow
- Storytelling
- Beginning, Middle, and End of a Composition
- Making New Sounds
- Assignment 1: Instant Composition
Lesson 2: Rhythm, Meter, and the One-Note Composition
- Rhythmic Review
- Rhythm as Part of a Musical Phrase
- Rhythms in Vocal Music and Speech
- Meter, Mixed Meter
- Assignment 2: One-Note Composing
Lesson 3: Timbre, Texture, the Farben (One-Chord) Composition
- Non-traditional Chords and Pitch Sets
- Orchestration
- Chamber Music Techniques
- Assignment 3: One-Chord Composing
Lesson 4: Ready-Made Instruments
- Explore Ready-made instruments
- Map the Possibilities of the Sounds of the Ready-made Instrument
- Analyze Varèse’s Ionisation (1929-31)
- Analyze Variations pour une porte et un soupir by Pierre Henry
- Recording Techniques
- Assignment 4: Composing using Ready-made Instruments
Lesson 5: Text Scores and Instruction Pieces
- What is a Text Piece
- Analyze Text Piece by Oliveros
- Analyze Text Piece by Stockhausen
- Analyze Text Piece by Cardew
- Assignment 5: Instruction/Text Composition and Performance
Lesson 6: Graphic Scores
- Notation, Interpretation, and Improvisation
- A Brief History of Notated Music
- History of Graphic Notation
- Beginning your Graphic Scores
- Experimental Music
- Graphic Score Sketches
- Assignment 6: Graphic Score Composition and Performance
Lesson 7: Graphic Scores
- A Brief History of Notated Music
- Origins of Graphic Scores
- Experimental Music
- Interpretation
- Graphic Score Sketches
- Assignment 7: Graphic Score Composition and Performance
Lesson 8: Composing for Voice
- Basics of the Human Voice
- Vocal Rhythm
- Text Setting and Prosody
- Melody Writing for the Voice
- Assignment 8: Voice Composition
Lesson 9: Solo Monophonic Instrument Composition
- Choose a Theme and an Instrument
- Extended Techniques in Composition
- Non-linear Composing
- Solicit Feedback from Other Students
- Assignment 9: Solo Instrument Fragments
Lesson 10: Solo Instrument Composition
- Review Feedback from Other Students about Your Sketches
- Write Out the Full Composition
- Assignment 10: Solo Instrument Complete Composition
Lesson 11: Final Project: Chamber Composition 1/2
- Choose a Theme and Instrumental Combination Based on Available Instrumentation
- Composite Rhythm
- Assignment 11: Final Project - Four Instrument Composition Fragments
Lesson 12: Final Project: Chamber Composition 2/2
- Review Your Materials Based on Student and Instructor Feedback
- Write Out the Full Composition
- Assignment 12: Final Project - Complete Four-Instrument Composition
Requirements
Requirements coming soon.General Course Requirements
Below are the minimum requirements to access the course environment and participate in Live Classes. Please make sure to also check the Prerequisites and Course-Specific Requirements section above, and ensure your computer meets or exceeds the minimum system requirements for all software needed for your course.
Mac Users
PC Users
All Users
- Latest version of Google Chrome
- Zoom meeting software
- Webcam
- Speakers or headphones
- External or internal microphone
- Broadband Internet connection
Instructors
Author & Instructor
Composer, conductor and pianist Richard Carrick is a Guggenheim Fellow who writes music of spatial depth and robust stasis, characterized by the evocation of profound human experiences. Described as "organic and restless" by The New York Times, Carrick's music has been presented internationally at festivals including NYPHIL Biennial, ISCM World Music Days, Enescu Festival, released on numerous critically acclaimed CDs, and published by PSNY. His music spans solo, chamber and orchestral compositions as well as works incorporating dance, graphic scores, electronics, video projection, and conducted group improvisation.
Carrick has presented concerts, master classes and lectures throughout the US, Europe, Israel, Rwanda, Japan, and South Korea, where he was a Korean Gugak Fellow in 2015. He currently serves as Chair of Composition at Berklee College and co-founder of Either/Or, with former faculty appointments at Columbia and New York Universities and as New York Philharmonic Teaching Artist.
Born in Paris of French-Algerian and British descent, Carrick received his BA from Columbia University, PhD from the University of California-San Diego, and pursued further studies at IRCAM and the Koninklijk Conservatorium. Read Less
What's Next?
When taken for credit, Developing Your Creativity as a Composer can be applied towards the completion of these related programs:
Related Certificate Programs
Related Music Career Roles
Employers look for skills learned in this course, when hiring for the following music career roles:
Questions?
Contact our Academic Advisors by phone at 1-866-BERKLEE (U.S.), 1-617-747-2146 (INT'L), or by email at advisors@online.berklee.edu.
