• Total units 48 Units
  • Areas of interest Music
  • Major code COMP-MAJ

The Composition major is designed to give students the knowledge and skills to prepare a significant portfolio of written works that reflect the student's own interests and professional focus. This suite of courses will help students develop critical listening and research skills in a range of contexts while producing work in real-world scenarios. Students will learn how to generate musical ideas, flesh them out into fully realised pieces, rehearse and record ensembles, and present their work via recording and live performance. This major culminates in a capstone course in which each student will present a major artistic research project including a live event/concert and/or audio/video recording.

Learning Outcomes

  1. understand a wide range of compositional issues in aesthetic and technical terms;
  2. analyse a diverse range of music using a number of relevant theories and methods;
  3. create and present compositions of a highly proficient standard utilising appropriate notation, instrumentation, orchestration, and/or recording techniques; and
  4. communicate clearly the creative decisions made in the course of composing and how these relate to relevant historical traditions or precedents.

Relevant Degrees

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Requirements

This major requires the completion of 48 units, which must include:


18 units from completion of the following compulsory courses:

MUSI1111 Foundations of Composition

MUSI3314 Composition Industry Project

MUSI3315 Composition Capstone Course


6 units from completion of a course from the following list:

MUSI1112 Composing for Ensembles

MUSI1114 Composing for Film and Video Games


12 units from completion of courses from the following list:

MUSI2227 Music, Sound, and the Moving Image

MUSI2229 Composition: Methods and Craft (this course may be completed more than once, in a different Topic in each instance)

MUSI2230 Songwriting: Concepts and Craft


6 units from completion of a course from the following list:

MUSI2209 - Music Recording and Production Techniques

MUSI2232 - Topics in Music Technology

MUSI2233 - Materials of Music 

MUSI3318 - Sound Archiving


6 units from completion of a course from the following list:

MUSI3324 - Advanced Topics in Music Analysis

MUSI3327 - Ethnomusicology

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