Comp in Music Ed – Original composition process diary – Part 3 : Feedback from Caitlin and peers in class

View updated score and audio here while reading blog post

In week 12 of Comp in music ed we had out first feedback and draft section with Caitlin, a recent graduate of music ed herself, along with sharing thoughts between those of us suffering*er*hm*enjoying our time in comp in music ed class, on our original compositions which simulates the HSC music 2 student experience.

The music 1 con student strikes again, Caitlin and the class seemed to think I had some valuable music which is a good start, and I am certainly enjoying the music I’m making here more than I imagined I would.

First, my piano writing was identified for it’s difficulty in section A, asking the player to use their left hand to jump an octave and play a triad. FIXED THAT MESS!!

After trying some musical modifications, I went back to mostly the original section A piano, with the some of the second of each melodic phrase bumped up to the right hand to make more musical sense. LH and RH also used to separate the close bass clef parts, to make it playable with two hands.

Caitlin noticed that I had left section B fairly clean of any articulations, and suggested ideas of playing with legato versus staccato considering the rapid semiquaver phrases in violin and clarinet I have written. I have not ventured into deep dark realm of techniques which ask the performers to destroy their instruments out of respect for my… amazing… musical work, rather just serving the music and notes on the page with some nice alternations between staccato and slurring. To this end, there is some clear pattern work, either one or two bar patterns of mainly the 4 note phrases in violin and clarinet (and some piano bits) alternating between staccato and slur. These patterns were created based on the development of section B as discussed in the prior post.

Another BABY STEP which I have referred to in revisiting this section is the rapid dynamic changes activity I created which can be viewed here.

Damien Ricketson uses some accents on his score for Hectic Jacaranda, however he also uses rapid alternations between forte and piano in many of the cells of music in the work (demonstrated/evidenced in the baby step resources). Either way, this gives him the ability to create some elements of syncopation and emphasis on notes within the bar (well duh, that’s what accents are for, guess I am slow at times, eh?).

Where as the staccato and slurring has been used on the 4 note semiquaver groups in violin and clarinet parts of section B, the accents are used on the two note groups of the phrases. The static melodic parts for each instruments do not feature these, instead the accents are used when the melody is applied to the rhythms in the two lead melodic instruments, to further emphasise “catchy march rhythms, now with 100% more melody!!!”