: free course in 36 lessons

Form: building a piece

• Binary and ternary form (ABA)
• Rondo and theme and variations
• Song form: verse, chorus, bridge, AABA
• From sketch to piece: unity and contrast

Styles and models: study, then pastiche

• Writing a baroque minuet
• A classical sonatina theme
• Nocturne and song without words
• Impressionist colours
• Writing a blues
• Pop piano, film music and minimalism

Developing and finishing

• Development techniques
• Arranging and reharmonising a tune
• Introductions, endings and titles
• Writing it down: notation and ABC

The composer's practice

• Sketchbook, daily exercises and constraints
• Critiquing your work and beating the blank page

Guitar: songs and riffs

• Writing a song with open chords and a capo
• Composing a riff

Guitar: fingerstyle, open tunings and classical guitar

• Arranging a melody in fingerstyle
• Composing in open tunings: DADGAD, open G and open D
• Writing for the classical guitar

First ideas

• The motif: the seed of all music
• Repetition and variation
• Question and answer: the musical phrase
• Your first 8-bar melody

Melodic craft

• Contour, climax, steps and leaps
• Tension and resolution: the leading note and its friends
• Melodic sequences and rhythm as identity
• Writing in minor and with the pentatonic scale

Harmony for composers

• Choosing chords under a melody
• Cadences and harmonic rhythm
• Progressions, emotions and borrowed chords
• Pedal points and modulation

Accompaniment and piano texture

• Four ways to accompany: block, broken, Alberti, waltz
• Nocturne, stride and ostinato
• Writing for the piano: chorale, registers and pedal