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 :)