#1: alternatio
Last year around August my singing teacher played two chords and I immediately asked “What did you just play?” She then proceeded to tell me it was Eb to E. I loved the dramatic feel of it and took note of it on my phone. Fast forward to around the middle of my first semester at WAAPA. At this point, I had become more consistent with my piano practice and learning theory and chords helped me become more confident at the idea of starting to write this song. I first started playing around with chord progressions in the key of Bb. I found something that I was happy with so I notated it. I had some interesting events happening a few days after I wrote down the chord progressions so when I went back to it, I was feeling conflicting feelings. You know that feeling when bad things happen but good comes from it at the same time? That’s what I was feeling. I decided I wanted to create a piano piece that explored this concept.
I first researched some potential names, I wasn’t happy with anything coming up in English so I decided to look up some other words in other languages. I liked the idea of alternating feelings and came across the word alternate in Latin, so I stuck with the title of ‘alternatio’. The next step was creating some chord progressions that created feelings of resolution and conflicting feelings. I created around 5 sections, all on the bass clef on the piano. I then went into MuseScore and notated as I played the piano on the treble and bass clefs. I generally followed the pattern I wrote but ended up changing it slightly as I progressed in the composition. I had 2 separate parts written: something conflicting and the ending of the song. When it came to those sections, I wrote lead in parts to connect it all. The way I created some dramatics in the piece where by adding accidentals, switching from major to minor chords in different sections and by how I notated the right hand of the piano. I added dynamics and tempo and then showed a friend.
The friend I showed said he liked it and that a string quartet would sound nice with it. I was very happy with the piano part and felt like it was completely done. I added in a string quartet: two violins, one viola and one cello. I watched a video on how to write for the instruments and their range and then went ahead and wrote them. This part has got to be my favourite so far. Hearing the harmonies combined with the piano sounded beautiful. I worked through the string quartet one section of the composition at a time. I would play the open chord from the piano and then play around with adding another chord in with the strings, then I would notate it and listen back to it.
I added in pizzicato and arco markings as well as marcato and accent markings. The next step was tidying up the score a bit, I changed the stem directions as some parts are in 3/4 and others are in 6/8. Then I made the staccato markings more accentuated. After these steps, I was happy with the piece and decided to release it on SoundCloud.
Since releasing it, I have received lots of different feedback and opinions which I like. I think it's interesting how every person has a different experience listening to it. I had one person say that they felt as though they were in an American Soap Opera and the wife found out the husband was cheating. I’d like to think that this piece is very open-ended in the listening experience.
#2: Pieces of the Heart
This piece started with an idea to an introduction to a song. I was practising my piano and then found this melody I liked. From there, I put all my focus on the piece and notated it over a weekend. In all honesty, I wasn’t too confident in what I was doing but I gave it my best effort. The first draft of the piece was what I like to call ‘Crazy Piano Piece’. It was definitely not very playable but I left it for a while and then started notating it again. I had the idea of making it into a Lo-Fi piece soon after writing the composition.
For our electronic media class, I knew we had a final composition assignment coming up so I wanted to get a head start on that. I went back to this piano piece and started looking at each bar and how to best flow from one idea to the next. I notated 2 minutes of the 4-minute piece, as the assessment track was only 2 minutes. The composition flowed from a main piano part to a striped back part (using chords) so it created room for a saxophone solo. I next notated a saxophone part. It accompanies the piano for most of the composition and then flows to a solo where it then leads to an accompaniment part again. The two genres I gained inspiration from for this piece were Lo-Fi and Jazz. I wanted the jazz influence to come through in the piano chords when the saxophone takes a solo.
The next part of this composition was to put it all in logic, add in parts and mix and bounce the project. I exported the piano and saxophone parts, added in a consistent synth line and some lo-fi drum sounds. In the final project, I changed the saxophone to a 70’s synth analog lead and added in vocals (stacked chords). The vocals were interesting to write for as I wanted them to blend in with everything else going on. So I landed on chords and simple ah’s. After adding in patches, bus tracks and mixing the final sound, the project was done.
I thoroughly enjoyed writing this piece because I was able to use the compositional techniques that I learned over the year, and also put skills learnt, from my electronic media classes, into practice.
#3: In the Atmosphere
Right at the end of the June/July break, I decided I wanted to write a waltz for piano. The first part of the composition was done sitting at my piano figuring out a chord progression. Once I had done that, and notated the initial idea into MuseScore4, I moved on to writing the melody in the treble clef. This was actually really easy for me, as I was having fun while writing it. I stayed within each chord for each bar and as I continued writing, I got a feel for what would come next. In one afternoon I had written the full draft which was about 3 minutes.
The next week, the university started again and I showed my piece to a friend. He really liked the draft and from there made minor note changes. From a melody and progression point of view, I was really happy with it, so I continued the composition by adding dynamics and expression markings. I cleaned the score up a bit and then came up with the title.
When I listen to this composition I imagine myself floating on the clouds dancing the waltz with a partner. That is where the inspiration for the name came from. I quite like this little waltz I wrote and although it was a quicker process than before, I was still able to learn and grow from this piece I wrote.
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In the Atmosphere is featured in a short film that can be found here
#4: Collective.
‘Collective.’ is a piece I have written for two xylophones. It was inspired by a new idea of composing. Before ‘Collective.’ came to be, I had lyrics written for a song. At some point, I decided I didn’t want to use the lyrics; instead, I converted them to numbers using a system I came up with. ‘Collective.’ uses two different time signatures, 4/4 and 5/4, so for one time signature I used the notes in A major as a reference and then used the notes in the relative key, F#m, for the other. I converted every lyric according to this process, so eventually, it all looked like this:
144 454 51 75124 164 6554 1335254
164 5656 16 14 144 61443 4776 14 35553 144 77248 14 16 485 564
672 4813 6554167 76 8785 4814 813 3755 2538167 2133
1 3677 4558 4776 143 144 77248 14
I wanted this piece to explore lots of rhythms, so the majority of my focus was on what the rhythms would look like. I started this in the June-July break when I used much of my time to get my head around the rhythm and understand it fully. I like the feel of triplets, so I use triplets quite a bit. I especially like the end of the song with the use of 16th notes going up and down the scale.
Each section is identified by its time signature.
Part A and C: 5/4 to 4/4 and then repeated back from the beginning
Part B and F: 4/4
Part D and E: 5/4
Going back to the notation part of the score, I used the code I created to write the notes and adjusted where needed. For example, when I stack 7th chords, the root note is the note from the code. Another example is if a note didn’t work, I would alter it. In one section I changed the note sequence for a better sound. So it's not exactly true to the code. This was a fun way to compose, as it was a whole process of coding the lyrics and then inputting them into the score.
I used different ways of harmonising. In some sections, I have used harmonising a 3rd or 4th above the root note. In other sections, I have used stacked 7th chords.
The title of the piece was inspired by the joint effort of this piece. The players are collectively working together. The listening experience is a journey from separate playing to collective playing. Player 1 takes the first lead and then Player 2 comes in the next section. Player 2 takes a solo and then from that point, the players work together.