Blog Entry 22/9: So you're a student and your teacher asks you to compose a 2 minute composition, reflecting ternary form and use at least 4 instruments...and that's it! If you are like me you would be staring at the blank page for quite a while, perhaps tinkering on the piano with not really a clue where to start. However, if you're teacher gave you useful instructions to follow, it would be like keys to the city. Providing clear "scaffolding" or step-by-step instructions can help get students off to a firm start in their compositions, particularly for HSC. It can provide guidance for improvising initial ideas, how to add harmony parts, plan out a structure for the piece with consideration to dynamics and instrumentation before reaching for the Sibelius shortcuts. This is what I am creating.