Initial And Section A Plan
Before we started writing our composition, we had to make a plan. This made sure we knew everything about our piece so that we would have no major issues for example; wrong notes in a chord, random key changes, accidental change of chord sequences. To improve on our theory skills, we were asked to draw another circle of 5ths to determine what key we wanted to create in. For me, I chose A♭ major. I decided this would give me a challenge but not make it overly difficult for me as the key signature is 4 flats; not too few, but not too many! I could have used many different ways of creating a chord structure like chance composition however I decided to go with an interesting variation of the I IV V vi structure, that being I V ii IV. I felt like the plagal cadence would round the four bars off well. Here is my plan below:
As you can see, I wrote out all the notes of the chords in the scale. I knew that by doing this, it would make my notation writing much faster as I would then know exactly what notes need to be played to get a specific chord. I am also not the most confident music reader, so having these chords written out in front of me would help me greatly. Not actually shown on the plan, I began work on inverting the chords in my sequence so that when put into the software, the transitions would be less static-sounding and more fluent.
I also have a brief plan for the structure of section A. I wanted it to start with piano for four bars, and slowly build up every four bars until all of the instruments are playing together, hopefully on the 17th bar. Then, once all the instruments are in, I want to invert the chords again so they are lower and make the bass piano part lower as well. This is to make sure section A does not get too boring as things are changing more often. After working on the structure, I want to create a melody line and an interesting rhythm using my knowledge of music theory. This melody line could perhaps on the violin and it could change every so often or maybe move to other instruments like the viola. I could also add another melody on the second violin that harmonises with the original one. I want to make the bassline in the piano more rhythmic by putting it on the offbeat so it doesn’t sound static and blocky; I want it to be as fluent as possible.
Section B Plan
For section B, I want something slightly more simple chordal wise, however wanting more melody and rhythm than section A, as this is the climax of the song. I don’t want it to be overly busy; maybe 3 melodies played by the strings and the piano doing something rhythmically interesting. Therefore, I am leaning towards a V ii V ii chord sequence. After playing this sequence, I found that keeping the bass note the same through both chords actual works and sounds really nice, so I plan to do this when I work on it in college. Here is a brief idea for section B that I made on MuseScore 3 at home:
As you can hear, the piano is much more rhythmically interesting compared to section A as the chords are playing crotchets instead of semi-breves and the bassline is on the offbeat. Following this idea, I plan to add the string instruments playing many melodies over the top and change around the structure so different instruments drop out, leaving just the piano so it can move swiftly into either an outro or a second section A if I have enough time! To keep the listener’s interest during the composition’s climax, I am going to change something every four bars; perhaps a melody, what instrument is leading, or dropping instruments out. This is a brief idea of the structure of the section, with just piano: