In Conclusion...

Hey Nichols Composers,

I just wanted to thank you all once again for being committed to this endeavor. Thank you so much for your comments and feedback - I will definitely consider them as I go on teaching in the future!

I'm very impressed by your guys' progress, and I am very proud of all your hard work. I had a very fun time teaching something that I love, and I hope things won't end here for all of you - there's so much more to music composition, and in these seven weeks, it's as if we only had the appetizer to a multi-course meal :) Keep it up!

Again, if any of you have any questions about anything, or about music, feel free to shoot me an e-mail.


Cheers,

-David

Beginning and ending a piece of music

Just a quick review of what we covered in class yesterday:

Questions: How do you begin a piece? How do you end it?

We went through different musical examples and heard the beginnings and the ends of the pieces and discussed about what we heard (this was after jotting down notes individually while listening).

Here are the pieces we listened to:

Richard Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra (Theme from 2001: a Space Odyssey)

Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings

Pyotr Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker (Russian Dance)

Percy Granger: Country Gardens (we heard a piano version in class, but this one's for full orchestra)

If you weren't able to come to class, can you please write in your blog your own observations? How do these pieces begin and how do they end?

Aside from that, we are in the process of writing our final compositions. Please bring a draft to class next week!

See you then!

Quick Note

Hi!

Just wanted to remind everyone: please post your questions sheet online (Katie, Joe has yours)!

This is the instrumentation that we have available:

James: Trumpet, Piano
Joe: Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Kazoo
Jonah: Clarinet, Alto Sax, Piano
Katie: Piano, Trumpet
Simon: Saxophone (any), Recorder, Slide Whistle
David: Euphonium, Accordion, Flute, Clarinet, Stylophone, Irish Tin Whistle

You can use any combination of what we have above.

Also, please have a draft (just the first 4 bars, or more of your piece) on staff paper to bring in and present by our next meeting, and we'll go from there!

Have a nice week :)

Notation and Such

Hey Nichols Composers!

Just a review of what we did today:
-Presented works
-Talked about notation:

• Why is notation important? Because it helps composers communicate their intentions to the performers.
• What is there in a score? A representation of what is heard: pitches, rhythms, everyone's parts.
• We already know how to notate pitches and rhythms (since we all play music already). How do we notate other sounds and things that aren't typical? That's when we make up notation.

And this point wasn't brought up, but it could be helpful too: Sure, we talked about the very commonly used (x) notehead - but what do we do when we want to notate bigger musical gestures? For instance, if Joe wanted to notate a upward rising squeak, instead of a plain squeak - how can we notate that? That's when we can combine the X with other things (maybe a squiggly line that's falling downward ~~~~  <- kinda like this, but angled downward). Or in the case with Katie and her "guero" figure, we can have the swoopy line, but how do we notate the speed of the figure? That's when we add other things; maybe she can just use the stems of the notes, and make them 32nd notestems.

That's pretty much it!

Assignment: If you haven't already done so, please look for a piece on youtube. Then, write about the composer's intention (do some research - use Wikipedia or other online sources) - what inspired the composer? What did he or she want to communicate to the audience/listeners?

The piece DOESN'T have to be related to your emotion (in fact, I would be better if it wasn't).

After introducing the piece, please write about it - what do you hear? What musical gestures are there, or what compositional choices does the composer make, to help communicate his intentions (from the first part of the assignment)?

Sadness

I'll be describing "sadness" as an example - here are my thoughts:

1) When I'm sad, I feel all over the place; I'm moody - I sometimes feel like I don't want to talk to others, and I don't feel like doing anything. Other times, I want to scream and cry, and I feel a great sense of loss, a sense of wanting that empty void to be filled. Sometimes both of these feelings mesh.

2) I think this emotion goes all over the place - again, moodiness affords all sort of tempos!

3) Dynamics: a constant ebb and flow
Articulations: this are slurred together
Pitches: lots of big, emotional leaps during the intense sadness, but smaller during the less intense moment. Generally, lower in the less intense moments, but high when it gets emotional.
Rhythms/Duration of notes: long, drawn out (nothing quick or complex).

Extra notes: on the performer's side of things, there may be extra use of vibrato, and lots of rubato (so the tempo shouldn't be too strict) - it should be "feelingful," so to say.

Emotions and Inspiration (What we talked about today - 4/19)

Review of what we talked about:

After doing the survey, we presented our pieces, which were all very enjoyable - a very nice start! :)

This then led to the main discussion - Composers find their inspiration from:

• Events and Experiences from Life
• Other Works of Art (ex. writing a piece based on a folk story, or writing music to dance, etc.)

All these things elicit (causes us to feel) certain emotions, and the composer's job is to convey that using sounds!

"Assignment: Part 1" (Project 2): I know I said not write a piece, but I take that back - please compose a short piece (30 second to 1 minute) that is based on the six emotions that we discussed in class (by the way, the American Psychologist who did research in this area is named Paul Eckman). This was how we distributed the emotions:

Anger - James

Happy - Katie

Disgust - Joe

Fear - Jonah

Simon, I made a mistake - excited wasn't one of the basic emotions; it's actually "Surprised" - I hope you're ok with experimenting with that! (I'm sure you'll come up with something...er...surprising!)

Sad - Me

But before you write the piece, please answer the following questions in your blog:

1. How do I feel when I am [insert emotion here - angry, afraid, etc.]? Describe using full sentences.
2. Does this emotion feel fast or slow, or somewhere in between?
3. What about the other parameters (Dynamics, Articulations, and everything else)?

After that, go and write your piece - again, we're not focusing so much on writing a melody; it's more about a general feel (high vs. low, loud vs. soft, connected vs. disconnected, anything in between, etc.).

"Assignment: Part 2": This is mainly a blog entry - find a piece/song on youtube and post it in your blog and talk about what the composer/artist was trying to convey. Pay attention to things like the title of the piece and if there are any program notes or historical notes (feel free to surf Wikipedia!). Then, write about what you hear. How is the composer conveying these things?

EDIT: I realized how much work this is - Assignment: Part 2 is now optional. Do your best and focus your attention on the first part :)

Revolutionary Etude - Op. 10, No. 12 (Frederic Chopin)

Hey composers!

This was the piece we talked about in class:

If you want to find out more about the history behind the piece, here's the link to the Wikipedia article.

As we talked about today, if we look at this through the lens of emotions and inspiration, we can tell that Poland's failed revolution against Russia caused Chopin much anguish and sorrow - pain, so to say. When you guys listened, you immediately understood that this was what Chopin was trying to convey!

So, what is it exactly in the music that makes you feel this? Something to think about - feel free to leave a comment!