So you’re ready to start learning how to compose your own music? Great! You’ve come to the right place, so that’s a great start!
There are lots of features and tools available on this site to help you, and this guide will help you make the most of using the I Can Compose website.
Find a Course
We have lots of courses on this website, and we’ll be adding more all the time. You can browse our courses using the Courses menu at the top. Use the filter buttons on the courses page to narrow down the list to the courses you’re interested in.
We’ve grouped our courses by category, difficulty and level. The level is just a guide; if you’re an A-Level student and you need to brush up in some areas, then go-ahead and choose the GCSE course you’re interested in. Likewise, if you’re a GCSE student, but you’re really interested in an A-Level course, then go for it!
Select a course to see what the lessons will cover – there’s a course summary to help you decide if this course is for you. When you’re ready, click the button to enrol on the course.
Enrol on the course
If you are purchasing the course yourself, then click the Enrol button to enrol on the course. You’ll be asked to register, and for some courses a payment will be required. If you’re under 16, please ensure you have the bill payer’s permission before making payment. (If you’ve been invited to enrol on a course by your school, college or another institution, then you will not need to pay for courses individually, but you will still need to enrol on each course).
You’ll only need to register once. After that, you’ll need to login to the website to access your courses or enrol on new courses.
Get Started!
You’ve found your course, you’ve registered on the site, now it’s time to dive in! Simply click the Get Started button on the course, and you’ll be taken to the first lesson.
At the end of each lesson, you’ll see a MARK COMPLETE button. When you’ve completed the lesson remember to click this button. This will update your progress bar in the Course Overview section at the bottom of the screen.
If you decide to stop and come back to the course later, you may need to login to the site again. Once logged in, click the MY DASHBOARD button at the top, and you’ll see all the courses you’ve enrolled in and how much progress you’ve made. Simply select the course you want, and you’ll be able to pick up exactly where you left off.
Use your dashboard
The DASHBOARD is where you’ll also find all your achievement badges, certificates and your order history. If you need to change any of your account details then you’ll do that from your Dashboard too. It’s a pretty useful place, the Dashboard!
Completing a course
When you get to the end of a course, you’ll be awarded an Achievement Badge. You can see how many Achievement badges you’ve collected in your Dashboard (told you it was a useful place!). For the Premium (paid) courses you’ll also receive a certificate which will be stored in your dashboard too.
You can always go back over the lessons in a completed course again whenever you like (or for the duration of your access plan for paid courses).
Be Inspired
We want to help you on your composing journey, and taking part in the courses is a great start. To complement this, we’ve also created an INSPIRATION page, with lots of pieces of different styles, genres and composers. For each piece we also provided some context and questions to get you thinking. We’ll be adding more pieces regularly, so it’s worth keeping an eye on the page.
The inspiration pieces are categorised too, so you can narrow down the list using the filter buttons at the top to help you hone in on the types of music you’re interested in.
Getting more help
Our Blog page will be updated regularly too with news, articles and opinions on what’s happening in the world of composing.
In particular, keep a look out for the Advice articles to help you with common issues and questions we get asked about. Of course if you have questions of your own, you can always send them in via our contact page or on Facebook or Twitter.
Are you using internet explorer?
Our website has been built to work on most modern browsers – unfortunately that doesn’t include Internet Explorer! If you’re using Internet Explorer you may find some of the interactivity of the site doesn’t work as expected. We highly recommend you use a different browser such a Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, or Microsoft Edge.
Let’s Go!
Now you know how to use the site, let’s get started on your composition journey!
