Eduqas A-Level Music: Composing (Component 2) overview quiz quiz

By a closed-book written listening exam, sat under just a single fixed option for all candidates

By a live performance to a visiting examiner who marks it on the day in front of the class

As a folio of compositions marked by Eduqas, under one of two options (the same as Performing)

It is not formally assessed at all and carries no marks towards the final A-Level grade

Two compositions, 25 percent, totalling about 4 to 5 minutes of music in all

One single composition, 40 percent, lasting roughly 12 minutes on its own

Five short compositions, 50 percent, totalling about 15 minutes between them

Three compositions, around 35 percent, totalling about 8 to 10 minutes

A verse-and-chorus pop song built squarely on a strong backbeat, power chords and a four-on-the-floor dance groove throughout

A composition in the late-eighteenth or nineteenth-century symphonic or Classical style, showing stylistic understanding

An electronic dance track built entirely from synthesisers, samples and programmed drum-machine beats in a DAW

A free jazz improvisation only, recorded live with no notation, no fixed structure and no functional harmony at all

Study them for their techniques and apply those to your own original material

Copy their actual themes and whole passages directly into your folio note for note

Ignore them entirely, since they have nothing to teach a modern composer

Only ever listen to them passively and never analyse how they are built

Start writing notes straight away on the page before reading the brief at all

Choose the longest possible duration to gain the maximum marks

Read and interpret the brief carefully, identifying every requirement

Copy an existing published piece and submit it as your own work

It is not important at all, because the marking criteria only ever reward simply stating the fresh ideas, never developing them

It is worth doing only because it makes the finished piece much shorter and therefore quicker to record and notate

It is useful purely because developing ideas removes any need to submit a recording of the composition to the board

The criteria reward creating and developing ideas; development gives shape and shows control, while mere statement is static

Motivic development (repeating, varying, sequencing, fragmenting, inverting or augmenting a motif)

Sounding the very same single chord all the way through the entire piece without any change at all

Leaving long stretches of complete silence and nothing else between the few stated ideas

Avoiding all repetition entirely, so no idea is ever heard or returned to more than once

A composition written to a fixed brief set by Eduqas

A composition to the candidate's own brief

A solo performance piece played to the examiner

A written analytical essay about a set work

A fully written-out orchestral score notating every single inner part in complete detail

No notation whatsoever, just the audio recording handed in entirely on its own

A lead sheet (melody plus chord symbols), since inner parts are improvised or stylistic

Only a recording, with a short written paragraph describing the mood of the piece

Be kept as short as it possibly can be, leaving out as much detail as you dare

Deliberately hide the underlying structure so the marker cannot follow the form

Use one single fixed form of notation for every style, whatever the music is

Clearly represent what is heard, because it is assessed alongside the recording

A recording (live or computer-generated) so the music can be heard

No recording at all, since the written notation alone is enough to mark

A filmed video of the players only, with no separate audio recording made

A live performance given in a professional concert hall and nowhere else

Nothing extra at all beyond the scores and the recordings of the compositions themselves

The required documentation and authentication confirming the work is the candidate's own

Only the composer's name written at the top of the very first page of the folio

A printed ticket stub from a concert the candidate happened to attend that year