GCSE music is one of the most popular art courses at school for students across the country. If you’re looking to take your artistic skills to the next level, this can be quite rewarding. It’s great because not only do you get to hone your ability to create pictures using sound and rhythm, but you also learn about tonal harmony, key changes and modes (harmonised sets of notes).

Many people who enjoy music have it in us as they are able to identify different songs due to their knowledge of musical theory. This is an excellent career path if you want to make money from singing or writing your own tunes!

While studying music at A-level is fantastic, there is another more suitable course for those who wish to move onto lower levels such as GCSE. That being the music composition course available here at The University of Hertfordshire. This article will talk you through what makes this course special and interesting to study.

Create a theme for your blog post

As we have mentioned before, writing about music is very diverse! You can write about how great your favorite song of the week was, or you can talk about theory lessons that you learned this week, or you can even make your own new songs!

All of these topics are well within our gcse music composition topic today. What makes them different is the element they share: A theme.

The theme in this case is ‘Making Songs’. Your paragraphs should relate to this theme and discuss ways to make songs, what tools are needed to do so, and/or examples of how to do it.

Music is a universal language, which means there is no wrong way to learn it! There are many ways to teach yourself musics notes, chords, structure, rhythm, and etc.

Develop your theme

A theme is an underlying message that you will be trying to convey throughout your music composition. Your theme can include things such as how well musicians are trained, what it means to be successful in life, or even how to achieve success in business.

Themes can also be personal — something like “I want to help people” would be using a person’s theme. For example, if someone’s theme was helping other people, then their song could be about how great it feels when you accomplish your goal of teaching others.

There are many ways to develop your theme. You can do this by thinking about things related to the topic, talking about the topic with people, reading about the topic, and putting all these pieces together into your own version of the topic.

Write based on the theme

The second way to learn how to do gcs music composition is by writing your own songs based on an established theme or genre. This can be done easily by taking pieces of music that sound close to what you want to say and rewriting them, adding in new parts or even replacing some part-tunes with yours!

Your lyrics can be about anything really, it does not have to be related to music at all. All that matters is that they relate to the song’s theme!

This can be very helpful as you get inspiration from various songs and you are not limited to just teaching yourself music theory while also learning how to compose.

Practice editing

A lot of people start writing music late in life, if at all! This is not a good thing as it can sometimes be hard to find motivation to write music due to lack of experience.

Writing music requires you to edit other peoples work so this comes next. If you are reading a piece of music that you like, then try to figure out what parts made you feel a certain way or why they worked well.

These components make up the rest of the music you have to deal with. Make sure to look up some of these bits and see how others use them in their songs.

Practice editing by looking at different pieces and thinking about what makes them interesting or powerful. Then, take those elements and apply them to your own song!”

This will help you get into the habit of composing music and also improve your talent as a musician.

Practice recording

Recording is an integral part of making music. You can do this in many ways! Some people use software like GarageBand or ProTools to record their songs, but you do not need these tools to start recording yourself.

Any device with a microphone and audio recorder program such as YouTube, Google Voice, or any other way to upload pictures and videos can be used to make your own recordings. By practicing recording yourself, you will learn how to mix and edit sounds, song structure, and more.

Practicing recording takes time, so don’t worry about what you will say into the mic, instead focus on having fun and experimenting with different genres and styles.

Connect with other musicians

A good way to learn music is by studying how others have done it before. There are many ways to connect with musician people, from using social media sites like Instagram or YouTube to meeting someone in person at a concert, festival, or event.

Whether you’re an amateur who wants to sing along to your favorite songs or you want to start playing guitar or piano, there are plenty of opportunities for beginner to intermediate level students to get some tips and tricks from professionals.

Become familiar with music software

There are many different types of music software that can be used for composing, recording, producing, and listening to music. They all have their own special features and purposes so it is important to know what each one does.

Some examples of music softwares include Pro Tools, GarageBand, Logic, Reason (Pro), Cubase, FL Studio, Noteflight, and whatever type of computer instrument you use to create your songs.

There are also a number of free music editing apps available such as YouTube, Google Play, or Apple’s AppStore. These can help you hone your ear-training and learn how to use some of the more advanced functions in professional grade music production software.

Learn to use the piano

A lot of people who want to learn music composition really struggle with the piano. This is definitely not ideal as the piano has been shown to be one of the most effective ways to develop your musical skills. Most universities do not require you to know how to play the guitar, bass or keyboard in order to study music theory so why should it be any different for learning how to compose?

Mostly students get discouraged when they try to practice writing their own melodies or chords but there are many resources available online and through educational institutions that can help you here. There are also several books that can easily aid you in developing your composing skill set.

There are even apps designed especially to help beginner composers such as Kodun! (a mobile app) and CanYouCompose2(web tool)! Both of these have free accounts that can be used by anyone which makes them very accessible.

Charlie K

Charlie K is a music writer and blogger for Sounds of Gold. He also composes background music for a range of web-based businesses.