Because Dylan draws from songs from the past, he has been accused of plagiarism. But this view has been colored by a distorted understanding of the creative process.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on Composition
Displaying 1 - 20 of 23 articles
When Beethoven died, all he left behind were some sketches for his 10th Symphony. Now, thanks to the help of artificial intelligence, the composer’s vision is coming to life.
Premiering in 1937 in Frankfurt during the Third Reich, there is a ritualistic force to Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. This makes it a guilty pleasure for some and perfect fodder for ad jingles.
It’s repetitive — playing the same drum rhythm like a heartbeat — with two simple melodies entwined. But this masterful composition shifts just when it needs to.
Four Indigenous composers were asked to create works for a square piano from a painful period in our nation’s history. They did so in creative, honest and powerful ways.
Gen Z have been collaboratively writing Ratatouille the Musical on TikTok – but what do the terms of service say about who owns the art?
Toy pianos typically have a range of 12-36 keys, roughly one quarter the range of a full piano. But they are used by composers and music makers to write everything from concertos to pop songs.
Clyde Stubblefield’s drumming has been sampled or imitated more than 1,000 times since it was recorded in 1970.
CBC and NBC’s theme music that fills our ears before and after commercials and quietly accompanies intimate athlete profiles can actually have an impact on the way we view sports.
Composer John Burge speaks of his drive to create a musical piece to mark Canada’s 150th year of confederation and to capture our collective experiences.
The conditions for originality in a piece of writing.
The rate of female composers working in Australia hasn’t risen in seven years. At one leading ensemble, 41 of 47 composers commissioned have been men. What’s going wrong, and how can it be fixed?
Where next for one of the best-known soundtracks in history?
Technological advances in music production have all but obliterated the need for popular music to be transcribed into musical notation. So why is musical literacy still important?
Not all children move through the same range of processes when they compose music – but those processes, in themselves, nurture important human qualities.
Computers have shaken up how we create and listen to music, and there is more radical transformation to come. The potential for digital music to be interactive is leading to new ways to experience and…
What, one might wonder, is the value of an international festival of exploratory music? And why is it in Bendigo, in north-west Victoria? In Australia, we have so many festivals featuring music, film…
Australia’s most distinguished composer Peter Sculthorpe (1929-2014) has left a magnificent legacy – his music. Sculthorpe pioneered a uniquely Australian sound. The distinctiveness of his music emerges…
Peter Sculthorpe passed away at the age of 85 on Friday. As Australia’s best known composer of classical contemporary music, this gives us pause to reflect on the legacy of his music and also upon the…
Classical music means more than one thing and explanation is in order. Sometimes I make the distinction between big “C” and little “c”, but even that doesn’t fully solve it. The starting point is this…
Top contributors
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Associate Professor of Musicology and Director of Academic Program, Music, Western Sydney University
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Principal Fellow and Professor of Music, The University of Melbourne
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Associate Professor and Head of Composition, The University of Melbourne
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Deputy Head of School, Senior Lecturer in Piano and Musicology, School of Music, Australian National University
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Professor, Head of School, Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Faculty of Arts, Monash University
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Senior Lecturer in Music, Newcastle University
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Lecturer in Improvisation & Contemporary Music, Victorian College of the Arts, The University of Melbourne
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Visiting Associate Professor, National Taiwan Normal University
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Professor, Director of the Art & AI Lab, Rutgers University
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Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney
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PhD candidate, University of Newcastle
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Reader in Popular Music, University of Glasgow
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Lecturer in Music, The Open University
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Incoming Assistant Provost and Director, Transformation CoLab, Bond University
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Professor of Law, University of Technology Sydney
