Year 11 - Music
Genre specific considerations
Composing to a brief: creative starting points
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This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
This unit introduces composing to a brief and explores how to generate effective musical starting points. Pupils consider ideas such as melodies, riffs, chord sequences and bass lines, alongside stylistic conventions, before applying these approaches to begin developing their own composition.
Lesson Summary
You will learn to analyse genre specific considerations and apply these ideas to your composition to a brief.
Key Notes
- Different musical genres have typical stylistic conventions such as instrumentation, structure, harmony and rhythm.
- Some features may be dictated by the brief (eg. 3/4 time for a waltz, or use of 12 bar blues for a blues song).
- Composers can follow stylistic conventions closely or adapt them creatively to make their music more original.
- Making clear stylistic decisions early on helps ensure the composition sounds coherent and convincing.
Vocabulary To Learn
- genre: a category of music with shared charcteristics
- stylistic convention: a common musical feature that is typical of a particular genre or period
- instrumentation: the combination of musical instruments used in a piece of music
- structure: the way the music is organised
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Pupils may sometimes feel that it is cheating to use genre specific conventions, imagining that every idea must be wholely original.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain the lesson in two key points.
Different musical genres have typical stylistic conventions such as instrumentation, structure, harmony and rhythm. Some features may be dictated by the brief (eg. 3/4 time for a waltz, or use of 12 bar blues for a blues song).
2. What does this key word mean in this lesson? 'genre'
a category of music with shared charcteristics.
3. Correct this common mistake.
Mistake: Pupils may sometimes feel that it is cheating to use genre specific conventions, imagining that every idea must be wholely original. Correction: All composers will consider elements of genre specific conventions when composing, even if it is to work against them. Using musical ideas that are familiar to a genre can help establish style and provide a good creative starting point.
More Lessons In This Unit
Browse all guides in the Year 11 Music guide library.