Music Composition

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part of Audio Production · tier 2 · 0 pieces of work carry it · 4 crafts it is confused with

The craft, and who hires it

Hired for composition & scoring — an original score for a brand film or campaign, a bespoke musical theme, sonic-identity themes, and music written to hit the edit's beats; buyers ask for a composer when a library track cannot carry the emotion.

The craft of writing original music for a piece — score, theme, or bespoke musical work composed to the picture and the brand: melody, harmony, arrangement authored for this work rather than licensed from a catalog.

Tag it when…

Tag when the evidence shows the music was WRITTEN for the piece: a score that follows picture beats and scene turns, credits naming a composer or 'original music/score', or a bespoke recurring brand theme. Music that develops in lockstep with the edit is the audible signal.

Never tag it when…

Never tag for a licensed or catalog track — using existing music is not composition craft (selection/placement carries no craft leaf; the produced recording of an original track goes to Music Production). Non-musical designed audio goes to Sound Design instead. Never infer composition from mere presence of music without written-for-this-piece evidence.

Easily mistaken for 4 other crafts

Every other page suggests neighbours by similarity. This one navigates by difference: each line names the craft this is confused with, and the rule for telling them apart.

• audio production music production — Composition WRITES the music; Music Production BUILDS the recording (arranging, recording, producing the track). One person may do both, but each tag needs its own evidence.
• audio visual elements sound design — Musical score is Composition; non-musical designed sound (SFX, ambience, risers) is Sound Design. Hybrid soundtracks tag both only with evidence of each.
• audio production audio mixing mastering — Writing the score is Composition; balancing and finishing the final soundtrack is Mixing & Mastering.
• video production music video — A music video is a Video Production craft leaf (the film made FOR a song); writing the song's music is this leaf. The video piece and its original music are separate craft claims with separate evidence.

At what size it applies

§3 acid test: asset tag when a buyer would say the piece IS scored — an original composition underpins the whole work. Moment tag when the composed passage is a beat you'd clip and reference (a scored emotional beat inside an otherwise track-driven piece).

Where to look next

• The whole services tree — the services index.
• Every other vocabulary — the vocabulary index.
• How work gets credited to a craft — the entities chapter.