Advanced Composition and
Arrangement
Week 1
Creative principles for music composition of all kinds today
Learn from great music of all kinds
Transcribe / arrange
Creative principles
Learn the methods and describe
them
Apply them in new contexts
Transform and create new music
that reflects your voice
How will I be assessed?
Formative feedback: Your View; Week 6 non-contributory presentations; informal concert; Week 11 tutorials
Assignment 1 Report 30% - normally week 8
An essay on your compositional background,
sources, research, case study for your portfolio.
Compositional background-a personal account
Reflection on sources for your work
Introduce your case study
Analyse your case study (embed examples via
links, use musical illustrations, photographs)
Conclude – and say how your portfolio will build
on this research
+ Bibliography/references (say 5 including 3
scholarly references)
Assignment 2 Portfolio 70% - early January
A coherent portfolio of original compositions or
arrangements in any musical style employing at least
three distinct live components in every piece (voices
and/or instruments), demonstrating creative flair,
technical excellence
All the readings, work, viewings and exercises you do
in this module are all designed to help you succeed
This is on Canvas in more detail (Assignments)
Definitive deadlines on Sussex Direct.
If there is something you don’t understand please do ask me during or at the end of class, or email me for a chat.
e.d.hughes@sussex.ac.uk
Orlando Gibbons
(1583-1625)
English composer – one of the last masters of the madrigal
Transitional figure from Renaissance to Baroque periods
Sensitivity to words
Breakthrough: Musician of the Chapel Royal 1603
Served James I
1610 – his patron was Sir Christopher Hatton
The Silver
Swan
Sinfonia (2018) – Ed Hughes – Movement 4
Performed by The New Music Players
John Cooke
(c 1385 - ?1442)
BL Add MS 57950, fol.
40V
Stella celi extirpavit
Public domain
https://www.bl.uk/coll
ection-items/old-hallmanuscript
Star of Heaven, who nourished the Lord
and rooted up the plague of death
which our first parents planted; may
that star now deign to hold in check the
constellations whose strife grants the
people the ulcers of a terrible death. O
glorious star of the sea, save us from
the plague. Hear us: for your Son who
honours you denies you nothing. Jesus,
save us, for whom the Virgin Mother
prays to you.
Stella celi extirpavit
Que lactavit Dominum
mortis pestem, quam plantavit
primus parens hominum.
Ipsa stella nunc dignetur
sydera compescere;
quorum bella plebum cedunt
dire mortis ulcere
O gloriosa stella maris,
a peste succurre nobis.
Audi nos: nam Filius tuus
nihil negans te honorat.
Salva nos, Jesu, pro quibus
virgo mater te orat.
Transcription
Cooke, J: Stella Celi Extirpavit
Andrew Kirkman: Binchois Consort
‘Series’
(Pattern)
Sketch
Composition
Sinfonia (2018)
Movement 2
Stella celi extirpavit
Ed Hughes.
Thomas Tallis
(c1505-1585)
Conclusions
All music depends on forerunners/contexts
You can learn about music by studying it
You can immerse yourself in it by transcribing and arranging it
You can discover its methods
Transform in new contexts
This is the art of composition
Methods that give you the tools/craft to articulate important themes that
express human experience
• It can be exciting to connect with the voices of other times and
places/spaces
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Transform
Think about
Transform Gibbons’s The Silver Swan yourself
Think about a research project of your own
Next steps
Plan
Make
Plan this and introduce it to the class
Make a transformative composition that uses live
instruments and springs out of your research
References
• Harley, J. (2018). Orlando Gibbons and the Gibbons family of
musicians. Routledge.
• Harley, J. (2016). Thomas Tallis. Routledge.
• Hughes, A., & Bent, M. (1967). The Old Hall Manuscript. Musica
disciplina, 21, 97-147.
• Macklin, C. (2010). Plague, Performance and the Elusive History of the
Stella celi extirpavit. Early Music History, 1-31.
• https://reframe.sussex.ac.uk/composingthehistorical/2019/11/05/edhughes/
For week 2
• Make a transformation of the Silver Swan using your
software/abilities
• Try to include a live element in your work
• Topic 2 – listen to A Love Supreme
• Journal article jazz improvisation as composition
• Rowland Sutherland