COMPOSER DEFINITION – Someone who writes original pieces music as a job, these often include film music or general music.
COMPOSITION DEFINITION- A composition is a finished product of assembled parts. However in music it is a vocal or instrumental piece of music that has been written into a finished piece of music.
ELEMENTS OF COMPOSITION
RHYTHM– This important in every piece of music, because without a rhythm you don’t have much of a song structure. And what rhythm you choose for a song determines the expression, for example a slow tempo is common with sad songs.
HARMONY- Harmony is important for creating pleasant sounding music and beautiful and inspiring compositions.
MELODY- Melody can make the song memorable and engaging to the listener in a composition. Melody Is not essential but can be used to create a beautiful piece.
FAMOUS COMPOSERS AND THIER COMPOSITIONS-
Beethoven (Moonlight Sonata), Mozart (Lacrimosa), Chopin (Death March), Scott Joplin (The entertainer), John Williams (Imperial March), John Sebastian Bach(Ave Maria), Leonard Bernstein(To make us proud), Edvard Grieg (In the hall of the mountain king), John Carpenter (Halloween theme), Danny Elfman ( Victor’s piano solo)
COMPOSERS LIKE OLAFUR ARNOLDS- Max Richter, Nils Frahm, Ludavico Eindaudi
MAX RICHTER ANALYSIS
ABOUT EMBERS- Embers is a neo-classical piece of music that was released in the 2002 album memory house. The album was created to reflected on Richter’s obsession with history.
Max Richter Memoryhouse (maxrichtermusic.com)
DID I ENJOY THE PIECE- I really enjoyed the piece, this was because I enjoyed the string writing for the violin. As it creates a sense of longing. The piano notes create a sad and melancholic atmosphere, this is because of the use of rubato in each bar of the piano. It creates a fading tone, that seems tired and sad.
HOW DID I FEEL- The song made me feel sad, because of the slow paced strings and rubato piano use. The strings which created a sense of longing also created a thinking environment, this is because the music isn’t intense enough to focus on it. And the instrumentation and the tempo they work at provokes you to think, making you focus on your thoughts. So the piece overall created a sad and longing atmosphere, along with a thinking environment.
THE PURPOSE OF THE PIECE- The purpose was to reflect on the past and create a thinking environment for the listener. This was created with the lengthened string notes and the pianos rubato.
D- louder in B section, strings get quieter in dynamics after 2mins 30secs
R- Piano is the only instrument used as rhythmic, repetitive, time signature 4/4, slow tempo
S- A section, B section
M- not memorable
I- Piano plays all the way through, Violin (high in pitch) comes in after 30 seconds, cello comes in after 40 seconds, violin (low in pitch) half way through, vocals ( at the beginning)
T- thin overall, gets a little thicker in the middle due to increased dynamics and all instruments
H- simple harmony, strings harmonize with piano, repetitive
ENSEMBLE COMPOSITION- An ensemble is a group of musicians who perform together this could range from being a band to an entire orchestra. Ensemble composition is when everyone puts in work to make a composition. Many well known ensemble compositions come from the great classical musicians such as Mozart and Beethoven. A few examples of these compositions are; String quartet number 14. in C# minor (Beethoven), Quintet for 2 Violins, 2 Violas and Cello in G minor (Mozart) and Piano Quintet in E flat major (Robert Schumann).
100 Greatest Classical Chamber Music Works (digitaldreamdoor.com)
OTHER MUSIC BY OLAFUR ARNOLDS
I gathered what songs and info about Arnolds through the bing search home page– olafur arnalds music – Bing
more about Olafur Arnolds- Olafur Arnolds is a multi-instrumentalist Icelandic composer that was born on the 3rd of November 1986. He was active as an artists from the 2000’s to present day, since then he has released a wide range of different music of a variety of genres. He famously mixes strings with piano loops and beats, he uses this technique in many other genres he explores such as “electronic and atmospheric pop”.
OTHER MUSIC- re;member, Endalaus, stare and ‘back to the sky’
RE;MEMBER (STRING-QUARTETTE ANALYSIS)
DID I ENJOY THE PIECE- I enjoyed this piece because it’s piano part sounded really nice and the harmony was also really gentle and pleasant sounding. The composition did not get boring because it knew when it was getting too repetitive, and when it was it threw a new instrument in or changed sections.
HOW DID I FEEL– The composition is had at the beginning because of it’s minor chords and slow tempo, which creates a drag in the music which people relate to being sad. The B section of the song starts to get more energy because of the drums and change in harmony, the tempo also gets faster and all of these give the song a happy or rewarding tone or feeling to the composition.
The composition is a string quartet just like Beth’s theme because of it’s instruments that are used such as; piano, violin, cello, viola and another violin. These instruments are key to a string quartet, the song also has percussion and drums because of Arnolds own style. The composition is written in 4/4 common time. The form of this composition is A section, B section which is very common for a string quartet, our temp score Beth’s theme also has this score which was written by the same artist. The A section of this song is played at a piano dynamic level, and the B section is played at a mezzo forte level, this technique creates tension and draws emotion through the articulation. The piano is played in rubato, which is also used in Beth’s theme
Arnolds has used the piano as the main rhythmic instrument by playing arpeggios and chords, this technique was also used in Beth’s theme. The rubato tempo of the rhythm creates a sad and alone sound that provokes emotion. The melody in this composition is not that memorable, or dominant. This composition is thin in texture due to it’s limited instruments, the A section is very thin because it just has the strings and piano which harmonise. The B section get’s thicker because we hear percussion and a drum kit, which is unusual for a string quartet but it was successful for this composition as it gave the song a change in mood from sad to happy or uplifting.
The harmony in this song is between all the string instruments and piano. The piano plays the arpeggios and chords while the strings harmonise with it and each other, they do this by playing the notes from within the chord to create a powerful and strong harmony because of the unison. This composition is similar to Beth’s theme in harmony because it works in a very similar way, with the piano as the source. The piano is also looped which is the same as Beth’s theme as it just revolves around a chord progression which repeats. The strings and piano instruments are also used in Beth’s theme along with the repeating rhythm which only changes in between the sections and the rubato effect. Re;member is different however because of it’s different time signature and drum and percussion instruments.