To the left is my first attempt of composing my, 'Spruce Tree'. We were provided a chord progression sheet in helping us to compose a nice soothing melody on top to suit the chords. My first priority in composing this piece was to set out a four bar piano intro like in most lieder pieces. After setting out a piano introduction i played around with the melody, eventually finding the best one I like. Later in my other drafts I tend to modify obviously as the composition changes. In my melody I added in a lot of arpeggios and tried to keep the notes the same as the chord progression provided. However I did not get that much work completed in our first few lessons of our composition classes but this is my first attempt at the 'Spruce Tree', only writing down the chord progressions and figuring out a nice melody for the tenor voice. In my second attempt of composing my, 'Spruce tree' I have edited more of the melody and added in more text, slowly completing my composition. While composing this composition the concept of listening to Franz Schubert's piece 'Serenade' inspired me to incorporate a few concepts her has used in composing his Serenade. The concept that came to me was at the beginning of his piece where he had the left hand playing chords, mainly semibreves. On this particular attempt, I tried figuring out how to write the right hand of the piano because I really didn't want to copy his idea. So as you can see in the picture beside this writing, I was trying to figure out how to right hand should work. Unfortunately this concept I wanted was quite the one I intended on doing. With most of the piano bass still the same and not changing much of the composition except for adding in another few words of the text, this concludes my second attempt of composing my 'Spruce Tree'. My third attempt in writing my composition was more of a success. After getting advice from Mr Simmons in adding in the triplets in the right hand of the piano, I was very happy with the concept as it sounded good conveying the mood and how it was easy to incorporate throughout the entire piece. Here in this attempt I surprisingly composed most of my composition a lot more easier. With the same chord progression I just broke up the chords into triplets and repeated the same pattern with the different chords we've been given. While I did this throughout the whole piece it made it a lot easier in completing the melody on top of it with the same concept of the strong octave semi breves in the bass. After all, I knew this composition could be a lot better and I saved my other concepts until I fixed up a few rhythms as wells as trying to incorporate the text as I have trouble in wording out the syllables. So while I finished my third attempt in writing out my composition, I have been analyzing more techniques on what to do to further accomplish my own composition and in my fourth attempt below, you will see the ideas I have come up with. My fourth attempt of writing out my composition was a relief as I knew I was getting closer in finishing this composition. Starting off with fixing the triplets due to the pattern and composing a melody over it trying to suit the text I suddenly grasped on other concepts that I could use in the bass line to set and convey the mood intended in the text. As the right hand was nearly completed and me being happy with it, I tried to add in some new concepts in the left hand seeing what I could come up with. In the first system last bar, I was playing around in adding in two quavers progressing onto the next bar for a cool bass. After hearing that it sounded pretty cool I added it in the second system last bar as I like the concept. It also gave a strong beat, introducing to the next bar. Also having the idea that semibreves through the piece was getting boring , this is what made me change the concept and caused me to decide in adding in some new stuff I usually wouldn't do. Analyzing this composition I wanted to add in a descending bass that would sound pretty good and In in doing this I found a spot where it would perfectly fit. I looked at system three bar two in the piano and saw that in the tenor part I had put a dotted minim. The concept of playing around with the bass firstly lead my to trying a three note descend with the G,F and E in the left hand part. To further exaggerate the bass I tried adding in the octaves which definitely gave it a great sound while the tenor had a long note. The descending octaves in that particular section conveyed a mood and subtlety introduced the next section where I changed the rhythm of the triplets and decided to add in a different rhythm. I thought to myself the purpose of the triplets was to give the running mood of the piece and as in the romantic period, Schubert uses unique rhythm like this example being, his famous trout song. In system two of the second page, I was playing around with the rhythm having triplets in the left hand of the piano and quavers on the top. Not even knowing the idea of this it created a really cool syncopated beat that I think suits the text that he was dreaming out of his mind. Knowing that was a really cool concept to add in I attempted to add it in again on the last bar of the second system and the first bar of the third. Working on this composition the lesson concluded and that I had to work on it, building new concepts and adding it in the next lesson. However, adding in more text and repeating the concept of the triplets I finally concluded my melody and all I had to do was some editing which I knew would take some time. My fifth and final attempt in completing my composition was a great relief. Here in this final attempt i did a lot of editing and completed it at home. I attempted to take the risk and change a lot of things that also relate to the six concepts of music. Rhythm was a main concept that I changed within the triplets. Analyzing my other scores, the first note of the triplet would usually be unison with the other voices so I decided to take out the first note. While doing this I came along with the pattern of the triplets and wasn't quite happy with the way I set it out. So with the pattern of the triplets, I guess I got bored of the same pattern conveying the broken chords. In this case I changed up the broken chords into different order coming up with a new sound, mainly sounding curious as it's going everywhere. I did and had to add in dynamics to help convey the mood of the piece. The dynamics mainly ranges from pianissimo to forte at its loudest, adding them in at specific spots to help the phrasing of the piece. The tempo of the piece is Moderate meaning at a moderate speed with rubato meaning to express yourself or the speed in a way you want it to be. For the singer I decided to add in 'dolce' to give the passionate melody of the tenor. So throughout the whole piece changing the broken chords within the triplets, at some points I made the triplets ascend and descend, example being in system two bar one and two to contrast the piece a bit. I added in some new chords on the second page last system and on the third page, at some point adding in the 6-5-1 progression which I took from Rachmaninoff's Prelude. Fixing my final attempt of the composition took a bit of time at home, but the journey in composing and editing this from where I started was a big achievement for me. At the end I decided to name this piece, 'Einsame Hohe' meaing 'Lonely Height'. |