Competences developed in the course

Cross-cutting competences

CT1: Organise and plan work efficiently and in a motivating way.

CT3: Solve problems and make decisions that respond to the objectives of the work carried out.

CT8: Develop ideas and arguments in a reasoned and critical manner.

CT11: Develop in professional practice an ethics based on aesthetic, environmental and diversity-related appreciation and sensitivity.

CT13: Seek excellence and quality in one’s professional activity.

General competences

CG1: Know the theoretical principles of music and have adequately developed skills for recognising, understanding and memorising musical material.

CG2: Demonstrate appropriate skills for reading, improvisation, creation and musical re-creation.

CG3: Produce and correctly interpret the graphic notation of musical texts.

CG4: Recognise musical materials thanks to the development of auditory capacity and know how to apply this capacity to professional practice.

CG8: Apply the most appropriate working methods to overcome challenges in personal study and collective musical practice.

CG9: Know the characteristics of one’s main instrument in relation to its construction, acoustics, historical evolution and mutual influences with other disciplines.

CG10: Argue and verbally express one’s points of view on various musical concepts.

CG11: Be familiar with a broad and updated repertoire, centred on one’s speciality but open to other traditions. Recognise the stylistic traits that characterise this repertoire and describe them clearly and comprehensively.

CG12: Demonstrate sufficient knowledge of musical phenomena and their relationship with the evolution of aesthetic, artistic and cultural values.

CG13: Know the foundations and structure of musical language and know how to apply them in interpretative, creative, research or pedagogical practice.

CG14: Know the historical development of music in its different traditions, from a critical perspective that situates musical art within a social and cultural context.

CG15: Have extensive knowledge of the most representative works of historical and analytical music literature.

CG16: Use available means and resources responsibly with respect to cultural and environmental heritage.

CG17: Be familiar with different musical styles and practices that allow understanding, within a broader cultural context, one’s own field of activity and enriching it.

CG18: Communicate in written and verbal form the content and objectives of one’s professional activity to specialised audiences, using appropriate technical and general vocabulary.

CG19: Know the pedagogical and educational implications of music at different levels.

CG20: Know the classification, acoustic, historical and anthropological characteristics of musical instruments.

CG21: Create and shape one’s own artistic concepts, having developed the capacity to express oneself through them using assimilated techniques and resources.

CG22: Possess broad and diverse musical resources to create or adapt musical pieces and improvise in different contexts based on knowledge of styles, formats, techniques, trends and languages.

CG23: Value musical creation as the act of giving sonic form to a rich and complex structural thought.

CG24: Develop capacities for self-training throughout one’s professional life.

CG25: Know and be able to use study and research methodologies that enable continuous development and innovation in musical activity throughout one’s career.

CG26: Be capable of linking musical activity to other disciplines of scientific and humanistic thought, to the arts in general and to other musical disciplines, enriching professional practice with a multidisciplinary dimension.

Specific competences

CO1: Know the main repertoires of the Western tradition and other musics, and acquire them with the ability to fully value the expressive, syntactic and sonic aspects of the corresponding works.

CO2: Acquire the necessary training to recognise and evaluate, both aurally and intellectually, different types of musical and sonic structures.

CO3: Analytically interpret the construction of musical works in all aspects and structural levels that shape them.

CO5: Master the techniques and resources of the main historical and recent compositional styles.

CO6: Know the foundations of musical acoustics, the acoustic characteristics of instruments, their technical, sonic and expressive possibilities, as well as their possible combinations.

CO7: Develop the interest, capacities and methodologies necessary for musical research and experimentation.

CO11: Acquire a singular and flexible artistic personality that allows adaptation to multiple creative environments and challenges.

DI2: Know the musical structure of works from different repertoires of the Western tradition and other musics, with the ability to evaluate their syntactic and sonic aspects.

DI3: Develop auditory skills that allow recognising, memorising and reproducing a wide variety of musical materials.

DI4: Analytically understand the creation, notation and interpretation of musical works from a global conception.

DI5: Master basic composition techniques.

DI6: Know technological applications in musical notation, recording, editing and performance.

DI7: Know the foundations of musical acoustics, the acoustic characteristics of instruments, their technical, sonic and expressive possibilities, as well as their possible combinations.

DI8: Know the most recent trends in musical creation, with the ability to evaluate them by deepening into their notations and interpretative implications.

DI9: Develop communication and understanding skills with other musicians from the special responsibility and leadership inherent to the profession of conductor.

DI10: Verbally convey well-structured, concrete and global musical thoughts of theoretical, analytical, aesthetic and critical nature.

DI11: Acquire a singular and flexible artistic personality that allows adaptation to multiple musical environments and challenges.

Learning outcomes (general objectives)

1. Contextualise the factors that motivate and enable compositional activity within its historical and social context.
2. Assess the different trends, methods and approaches used by composers, relating them to the ideological, cultural and social aspects that determine each composer’s environment and perspective.
3. Acquire a broad range of techniques for sound production and organisation, as well as the different approaches, applications, constraints and functionalities that underpin musical creation at an aesthetic and social level.
4. Develop personal criteria that allow structuring and developing compositional work.
5. Produce musical works emphasising prior approaches and choices and their constructive, aesthetic and formal implications.
6. Compose for musical groups formed by available instruments and performers so that the written works can be performed and the corresponding evaluation of the results obtained can be carried out.
7. Explore new creative, theoretical and analytical methods and perspectives for diverse problems in the approach to musical creation, and identify themes and lines of work that may guide the final project and, eventually, research undertaken in postgraduate studies.
8. Know musical instruments and their technical and timbral characteristics, and combine and balance timbrally the sounds of different instruments and their various superpositions.
9. Technically and timbrally control instruments in various ensembles (duos, trios, quartets, quintets, chamber groups, orchestra).
10. Understand timbre and instrumentation as parameters of structural and formal organisation.
11. Critically assess the different forms of contrapuntal imitation as techniques for organising musical material and form, and apply them in real musical contexts in direct dependence on all musical parameters that converge and shape the formal organisation of music.
12. Extend knowledge of techniques for musical construction and organisation, including scalar and harmonic structures applied to diverse tonal and atonal contexts.
13. Apply the main techniques and methods of musical construction and organisation developed throughout the twentieth century up to the present day.

Contents

Production of works encompassing various areas of creative musical activity, for solo instruments, duos, trios, quartets, quintets, chamber groups, orchestra, with or without soloist, with or without text, programmatic, incidental, with electroacoustic or audiovisual media, among others.

Acoustic, technical and idiomatic characteristics of orchestral instruments. Traditional instrumental combinations. Perceptual aspects. Instrumentation techniques according to different historical periods and their relationship with the lines of thought of composers from each stylistic period. Recent instrumentation techniques and their relationship with the thought and languages of contemporary composers. Timbre and instrumentation as compositional parameters.

Experimentation with instrumental possibilities in contact with performers of various instruments. Analysis of instrumental writing in works and authors from different periods and musical styles. Transcriptions and arrangements of musical passages adapted to the characteristics and possibilities of different instruments. Listening and analysis of instrumentation in works produced throughout the history of music that are considered paradigmatic in the evolution of instrumentation techniques up to the present.

Use of contrapuntal imitation techniques as expressive and formal constructive methods. Relationship between imitation techniques and the other elements involved in the organisation of a musical work. Adaptation of imitation and fugue concepts and techniques to tonal materials and diverse musical contexts. Integration of imitation and fugue concepts and techniques into analysis and composition. Musical analysis and composition from a creative perspective that takes into account all elements of musical evaluation.

Variation as a compendium of diverse compositional techniques and as a generator of the twelve-tone method. New systems of musical organisation and their formal implications. Chromaticism. Expanded harmonies. Polytonality. Polyrhythms. Atonality. Twelve-tone technique.

Use of the techniques addressed as expressive and formal constructive methods. Relationship between the techniques addressed and the other elements involved in the organisation of a musical work. Adaptation of the concepts and techniques developed to tonal materials and diverse musical contexts. Integration of the concepts and techniques addressed into musical analysis and composition from a creative perspective that considers all elements of musical evaluation.

Use of the techniques addressed as constructive, expressive and formal methods, in close relation to the other elements involved in the organisation of a musical work. Adaptation of the concepts and techniques developed to diverse musical contexts, integrating them into musical analysis and composition from a creative perspective. Research, experimentation and conceptualisation of new technical and aesthetic proposals in relation to new situations and the evolving needs of music.

Teaching methodology

The teaching–learning methodology in individual lessons involves reviewing the student’s compositional work and providing guidance. The methodology of collective lessons includes lectures (topic presentations), debate and discussion sessions, group work sessions and student-led presentations. Autonomous work includes compositions, study of works and written assignments, individually or in groups.

Assessment systems

The assessment system is continuous assessment, based on diagnostic assessment and specified through summative assessment that leads to the final grade. Continuous assessment is carried out through different assessment records derived from specific assessment activities such as class participation and work, presentation of assignments in class, completion of assignments, compositions, analyses and/or readings outside class, submission of written work and listening to composed works, or the completion of written or oral tests.