This week, I managed to form some solid ideas as to what my composition would sound like and then begin to apply it to sibelius in the same lesson. These ideas were very brief, however, I turned them into something playable which I am proud of, even if it might be simple rhythmically and melodically. Despite this, the chords I used showed my knowledge of basic harmony and chord triads. This shows I know about the most important elements of music which are harmony, rhythm and melody.
After writing the simple triads and bassline down, I found that it sounded too static and block-like. To counter this, I had a go at inverting the chords and adding another note on the treble and another root note an octave higher on the bass clef to bulk the sound up. I inverted the second chord once as there was an E flat on both the chords but in different octaves, so I made the E flat on the second chord an octave higher. I did another inversion on the third chord, changing the lowest B flat to a higher octave one so it matched with chord tw0. Finally, I made two inversions to the last chord, making it the smoothest transition out of all the chords as only one note moves in it.
After figuring out how to write the inverted chords on music notation, the rest was fairly simple in terms of structuring. It was mostly a copy and paste job in which I was copying the same 4 bars over again until I was happy with the length and then I copied over the string parts, staggering the time they start playing by 4 bars a time. I think this gradual build-up into the middle of section A works very well as if it all started at once, it would not be engaging and the composition would become boring very quickly. This idea of a gradual build-up was inspired by the temp score on the Temporal Distortion video.
To make the section A sound more unique and interesting, I need to create different melodies and rhythms that the strings can play. I want some of them to be simple; just using minims and crotchets. However, I want to give the two violins the same or very similar melodies using crotchets and quavers. The top violin should harmonise with the second one. I can do this by making the melody on violin one a third up from the melody on violin two. This will fill up the string quartet part nicely and shows my knowledge of harmony and how it works.
To make the composition compelling, another section needs to be added. After finishing section A, I need to start working on section B and gathering ideas as to how it will pan out. I need to then combine the two sections together so that it creates one whole piece of music and I need to figure out a way to connect them both in a way that they flow together well.
I am quite happy with the progress I am already making on this composition. Even though it does not have melody or rhythm parts yet, The chord structure works well and I even thought about chord inversions and doubling up on the bass part. In the overall structure of the song, I incorporated all the instruments, bringing them in and dropping them out at different times to create a brief structure for section A. There are things to improve like adding rhythm and melody but I plan to do this at a later date. Therefore, if I carry on working on time and keeping my work to a high standard, I believe this composition will turn out really well!
Targets For Next Week
-Add some rhythm and melody to all of the instruments instead of using minims.
-Gather ideas for a section B like a chord progression and a brief structure.
-Introduce some harmony in the stringed instrument’s melodies, perhaps in the violin parts to bulk up the composition.