Plan de Estudios
Bachelor's Degree in Music Composition

This course provides the foundation for individual music creation through the use of traditional and current tonal tools. It builds towards the final composition of a concert piece for trio, to be performed in the Projects course.

Strategies of collaborative work. Defence and feasibility of a project. Concept of the work. Form and structure. Basic formal and harmonic resources. Music composition techniques. Search for sonorities. Originality vs. novelty. Styles and broadening of aesthetic horizons. Analysis and reflection on the music discourse from the perspective of the composer.

Understanding of the fundamental references in music to develop a career as a composer. Development of creative thinking by encouraging an active interest in music from different environments and in different compositional styles. Melodic, harmonic and formal analysis of the languages of different periods, schools, artists, and cultures. Music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, Classicism, Romanticism, 20th and 21st centuries.

Progress in the understanding and piano interpretation of the various elements of tonal music, through different exercises and the study of a suitable instrumental repertory. Development of piano technique from a contemporary jazz perspective.

This course explores different techniques and ways to approach voice music and to use the body as a music tool in different contexts and styles.

Ear training techniques, exercises and othe knowledge to develop and use this skill in musical activity. Listening processes and connection of internal-external hearing through voice: natural major and minor scale notes. Rhythms and beats. Regular rhythmic figures, duplets and triplets.

Technical possibilities and characteristics (acoustic and timbre) of the instruments in a symphony orchestra: string, woodwind, brass, percussion, plucked string and keyboard instruments. Introduction to sound libraries and working with digital sound.

Advanced use of Sibelius music notation software. Tools, notation editing, automatic and personalised settings, xml, mid, pdf, aiff/wav and video files based on own projects. Writing for solo instruments, templates, plugins, shortcuts, lead sheet, score, arrangements for jazz/rock/pop combos, writing for chamber groups and creation of different learning materials.

Basics of sound and acoustics. Microphones. Template planning and production. The audio chain. Mixing tables. Sound design. MIDI integration. Sound mixing automation and image-sound synchronization.

Composition of musical forms in different historical styles. Command of musical notation and own techniques. Knowledge of the main resources of applied harmonics: formation of scales and chords, syntactic and morphological resources used in tonal and modal harmony.

Production of a music project: concept, team and budget, distribution and management. Composition: own proposal, composition techniques, structure and content. Personality and creativity: influences, intertextual techniques, group originality. Defense of the work: reflection and analysis of the musical discourse, diction and argumentation, advanced musical editing.

Understanding the impact of culture on artistic creation. Identification of the most representative currents from the Middle Ages to the present. Creative systems; structure; rhythm and non-western creation processes; harmonic evolution and connection with contemporary music.

Tonal harmony: basic modulation progressions, modulations, augmented chords. Modal harmony: first steps, freedom in harmonic functionality, chord freedom, tensions and resolutions. Repertoire and sight-reading: intermediate-level sight-reading techniques, voice accompaniment, improvisation.

Putting into practice of the most complex elements of musical language, and subsequent execution by means of the body and voice. Amalgamations, polyrhythms, secondary dominants, modulation and modal dictations, based on the materials assimilated in Ear Training I.

Identification and application of specific orchestration techniques (acoustic, timbral, idiomatic), the different musical textures, and instrumentation. Interpretation techniques and musical decisions, midi models and analysis of the different orchestral methods.

Judicial and legal framework for the creation and production of musical works in Spain. Rights related to intellectual property, industrial property, image, collective management, exploitation and more.

This course prepares students to pass the TFI (Test de Français International) official language exam. Students that are in possession of a valid B1-level or superior French language level certificate accepted by the Rey Juan Carlos University (URJC) may be able to apply to the URJC for credit validation for the course.

Deontology and rules-based ethics. Art social group and its main characteristics. Diachrony. Synchrony. Communication in art. My aptitudes and attitudes. Create, grow and believe. Teamwork. From group to team. The Maslow Pyramid.

Harmony: Modal harmony and non-tonal harmony; atonal systems; chord as non-functional sonority; mixed interval chords. Rhythm: written vs. perceived rhythm, advanced systems of rhythmic notation. Broadening of the concept of melody. New types of formal discourse. Compositional techniques and notation systems of 20th and 21st century music. Use of new technologies. Advanced free writing. Personality and technique.

Project: presentation, defense, viability and team; collaborative strategies, execution of personal project. Composition: use of new technologies; use of the chamber orchestra as a means of expression; defense and rehearsal of a work; trends in post-war and 21st century music; intertextuality and eclecticism; new instrumental techniques. Inclusion of multi-referential compositional mechanisms. Personality and creativity: search for originality. Defense: reflection and analysis on a musical discourse from the perspective of the composer.

Korngold and audiovisual post-romanticism. Silent films. Percussion and extended techniques for effect. Texture and image: Ligeti and Kubrick, texture and void as tension, creating space through music. Theater and experimental film: Beckett. Neo-symphonic music: Wagner, John Williams.

Tonal Harmony: modulating progressions, chromatic harmony, diminished chords, enharmonic modulations. Modal harmony: Debussy and Satie, jazz fusion, dominants by extension, flamenco and bimodalism. Chord and chord extension: fourth and fifth chords, parallel chord, polychords, sound blocks, fingering. Advanced sight-reading techniques, voice accompaniment and improvisation.

Reading: syllable solfège with and w/o intonation; regular and irregular beats; tuplets; polyrhythm and ostinato; metric modulation and transposition. Scales: tonal, modal, synthetic and exotic scales. Rhythmic and melodic materials from the non-European tradition (Asia, Africa, Middle East and America). Micro intervals. Advanced chords. “Secondary” parameters of music: articulation, ornamentation, dynamics, pitch, texture and tempo, and their relationship to the formal structure. Structure: auditory analysis; macro-structure and micro-structure; generators of micro-strucutre (cell, motif, half-phrase, phrase, theme, period etc.) New forms of listening: music procedures predating and post-dating.

Tradition and modernity: Neo-Romanticism, Post-Minimalism, Fusion, Mystic minimalism, Revitalization of orchestral music, Post-Spectral harmonic concepts. Noise as function. Decontextualized instruments. Gesture as motif. Silence and music. Popular music and vanguards: inclusion and dialogue, Fausto Romitelli, rock and experimental avant-gardes, electronic music and the orchestral, Osvaldo Golijov, Gabriela Ortiz and Arturo Márquez. New discipline: the body as instrument, theater and music.

Origins of urban music. Jazz and its development: blues, bebop, cool jazz, John Coltrane. Rock and its development: origins, rock & roll, hard rock, punk, heavy metal. Flamenco. Electronic music.

Techniques: tutti; unison octave tutti; distribution in the orchestra of primary, secondary and tertiary elements. Textures: orchestration of a melody or primary gesture; types of instrumental mix; orchestral balance and blend in the instrumental mix; use of orchestral techniques such as split, dovetailing, and coupling. Importance of the structure of a piece in relation to orchestral chances. Reduction and transcription:
general score; various conventional instrumental combinations; transcription from piano to symphonic orchestra. New media: high density chord orchestration techniques.; contemporary orchestral techniques; sound libraries; studio and mockup mastering techniques.

History of recording. Analog vs. Digital. Most common recording techniques: ambient stereo, premixing stereo, multitrack recording. Multitrack record production phases: planning, recording, mixing, mastering, authoring. Pro studio vs Home studio. Specific equipment: in-line tables, split tables. Pre-hardware: sound cards for direct monitoring. Recording studio: multitrack, mixing, bounce and mastering.

Style and composition: textural music, the orchestra as instrument, 20th and 21st-century compositional techniques and notation systems, new simplicity and new complexity, spectralism. New technologies: use and expansion of sound and mixed music. Free form and original development.

Composition: development of personal aesthetic; new avenues of melodic expression; textures, melody as axis; new instrumental techniques; the body as instrument; handling the orchestra. Project: concept and development, search for financing, direction and follow-up. Rehearsal technics and defense. Search for originality, towards personal expression.

Zarzuela and audiovisual opera. Music for post-dramatic theater. Leitmotiv and musical characterization. Orchestral symphonic and electronic music.

Relationship between styles leading to fusion. Intertext and hypertext in popular urban music. Construction and structures. Jazz and its development: free jazz, fusion jazz, hard bop, acid jazz. Rock and its development: progressive rock, symphonic rock, power metal, trash and evolution, power chords. Flamenco: fusion, Paco de Lucía and Camarón, Enrique Morente, Mauricio Sotelo. Hip hop: rap culture, trap, reggaeton and latin mainstream.

The workings of the music industry. Uses of music content. The musician as entrepreneur. Marketing in music. Current state of the music industry. Business initiative. Strategic planning and definition of business opportunities. How to put together a business plan.

The purpose of business internships is to obtain practical experience that helps towards insertion in the labor market and raises the future employability of students, contributing to their full education and training, and providing them with knowledge of the work methodologies in the field of music and improving the development of technical, methodological, personal and participatory methodologies.

Attendance to artistic, cultural, student and cooperation events of the school, and artistic entrepreneurship.

In the undergraduate thesis project, students produce an individual, original, and autonomous work under the guidance of a professor, in which they apply and development the knowledge and skills they have acquired in their Degree.