Workshop #13 Young Composers & Improvisors Workshop Recordings

I started with my main melody. My main melody came from a different assignment. The clarinet plays my main melody. I named the title of my piece Flowy mountain time with Mr. Schnall because the notes look like a flowy mountain and it is by me. My last name is Schnall. A challenge for me was that some of the notes didn't sound right together. Also I had a hard time not going from a low note to a high note right away. It has been easy and hard at times. I have learned that It takes a long time to compose music.

I started with a main melody. I really like high notes. I really like smooth shapes so I made a main melody with both of those things in it. Most every instrument plays the main melody in different parts. The title of my piece relates to it because it is in a high range and it goes up and down. A challenge for me was fixing clashes in between two or more notes. I learned that when you are composing music, it is hard to come up with a background part. Also, that every instrument has to have a dynamic marking.

I made a melody then I made another one, then another one to see what I liked. Finally I made a good one and then I chose it and added different things like just steady beats. Though it was hard to get a melody and make notes connect it was super duper fun. I learned how to check other peoples songs and what its like to make music.

I started with a main melody and then added the other pieces like flute, violin, bassoon, then added my solo piece and finally added details . How I usually come up with ideas is I make a sound in my head or rhythm in my head that I like and then try to put it on noteflight. I once got inspired from Matt when he showed us something we could do on noteflight and then our group saw little videos of his pieces. I would then think, oh I like that, and see if I could do something not the same but similar to what he showed us. My piece is called Bumpy Ocean in Motion because my piece never really stays the same volume, never really stays fast or slow, it mostly goes up and down like an ocean in motion. The bumpy part of the title means basically the same think (up and down). Motion means move/action and that is what my piece is doing, it is moving everywhere. My piece's main melody is in the cello, but my solo piece is the violin because it can play fast and I have a really fast part in the solo. In my sequence you can not really tell where the main melody is but that’s my best part. I had a challenge when I had to make the background part because I wanted to hear the main melody and at the same time I wanted it to sound good so that was hard for me to do. It was also kind of challenging to try to make all the notes sound good together, (not as many clashes). I think that it is really fun to compose music, also I have never done it so I have learned a lot. It was fun to experiment with a lot of notes to see what sounded good and what didn't, I thought that was really fun. Making up your own piece and everything is up to you to decide. I learned a lot. I learned how to add dynamics, how to add articulations, what a sequence is. I also learned about clashes and about crescendos and decrescendo. I learned even more then that, I have learned a lot. I hope you enjoy it.

I wanted to start with C position and then go scale back up. The instruments that play the main melody are the flute and french horn. I named my piece the way I did because my mom told me she liked the parts where all the instruments play and I thought it sounded like a frog so my story was supposed to be about a frog singing and being happy until it gets agitated and then croaks and then is happy again so that is my story. I had some trouble picking what instruments I wanted to play my piece. At first some instruments didn't sound right together, and that lead into another problem that wasn't as big but we had to fix the dissonances. I think I learned a lot more about articulations and dynamics because before I wasn't so good at that but now I know more symbols in music.

Composing a piece takes a lot of different steps. We first chose 1 instrument and made a 4 measure piece. That is what everyone started out with. Then we started to learn more about which notes sounded good together and which didn't. Every step leaded to another from making new sections and orders in our piece to adding new instruments. I know my piece has evolved so much and everyone else s. My piece is called the Wind in The Woods because background parts represent the woods and the high, main parts like the flute or the violin represents the wind and how it gradually moves through the woods. An important thing about my piece is that each time the chorus changes a little bit with loudness and softness and the articulations. I struggled making this piece when I was adding Dynamics, Articulations and the other instruments we had to add. Finding out what sounds good can be a little hard. This year I have learned so much about making music like Dynamics, Articulations, Skips, Steps, Leaps, things I would have never learned without making this piece. Composing feels like a whole lot of responsibility, but in a good way. You can make those beats in your head or the songs you hum a reality. That feels amazing.

I just put in all steps in the C scale then pushed some notes around to make them sound the way I want to. The Violin has the main melody that means that it is playing all the time. Some challenges were when you have to go into your composition and color all the clashes red. Clashes are when two notes are dissonant with each other.(that makes you piece sound bad). I learned that you can make your piece sound any way you want. I also learned that you need to look for clashes because if you don't your piece would sound terrible.

Well I used my first melody. My first melody was a simple up and down melody that we had to do for an assignment. My main melody is the Violin, he will be playing mostly the same thing. My title is the long black river that means that it will have some smooth parts and some rough parts. I had trouble adding dynamics and articulations to my piece. It was a lot of fun making music this year especially with Matt. I learned that music can be a lot of fun if you put effort in it.

I came up with my melody by playing notes together and hearing how they sound together and I heard notes that sounded good together and I picked those notes. The cello,violin and the flute play my main melody. The Bass Clarinet plays my melody once in the beginning. I picked the name because my song sounds bumpy because the note go high and low. I think the story is one main melody that goes and meets others. One challenge I had was to put articulations in because at first it was hard to learn how to put them on your piece and what they mean. I think that music was challenging but fun because I learned a lot and I now know new stuff like what dynamics and articulations are.

First I made main melody, it was pretty random at first. Then my second part was a lot different, I was totally stumped on what I wanted to add, but then I thought of putting my main melody into the next instrument. I changed a lot on my piece by adding and subtracting. I have loved composing music. I had so much fun and I look forward to my next one.

My main melody is a mash of two melodies of happy and sleep. I made it with the intention of having a slow melody, then a happier melody, and then a slower melody. I had to change it, and make it happier because it was sounding sad before. I have learned that music and composing is about not just the notes but the symbols and markings that make the music interesting.

I didn't start with my main melody, and near the end, composing my piece became more and more fun. I don't really remember how I came up with the melody. I was just messing around with the notes and it sounded good to me. When I listened to the Metropolis Ensemble, I think that the cello was the first part, but before they came, I thought that the clarinet was. I named my piece Secret because you never know what’s going to happen next. One challenge I had while composing my piece is that since the computer apparently doesn't play it right when you add a lot of instruments, I was wondering if it would sound right in real life. Later I did find out that it sounds great. Composing music is one of my highlights this year because it's something new, and I always try something new in case it's great and fun, just like composing music is. The things that I've learned about composing music this year are that I've started to love music even more than I thought was possible, with the help of band.

First I made my main melody then I made my section where the lyrics will go. Then I made my lyrics for that section of my piece. I came with my melody for a dub step song slowed down for some parts of my song. My piece stays the same tempo for most of the time but some times it drops down low. My lyrics came from when I was about 8 at my country house in he Berkshire's. I was acting like a survival man and that's when I saw the bird. It was a lot of fun and a great experience for me because we learned about the add-ons like dynamics and articulations.

We did start with a main melody and I came up with mine by trying to put some notes together, to make something cool. My clarinet has the main part. I chose my title because I think it kind of sounded like that. At one point I didn't like it because the bassoon was playing it, and it sounded HORRIBLE! I learned about some of the different things you can do to end your music or make it sound more interesting. I tried to incorporate these in my piece.

I started with a melody that I played on piano then I changed it a little bit. In the main part I have the violin and the flute. I think the title of the piece should be thunder storm because the melody changes like a thunder storm. I think the hard part was fitting the notes together in the right way. It has been good composing music. I have learned that music can sound good or bad, and that music is tough to write (for some people.)

The process of composing my piece started very slow, we started with our main melody. I came came up with my main melody just by finding note patterns that, when played struck some emotion in me. After we created our main melody, we went on to create other parts to our piece. We also learned about articulations, dynamics and more to add to our piece. Once we learned everything about what our pieces could become, composing my piece started to become a lot more rushed. My piece really amazed me in how, after around 3 months it went from a short melody, into a long composition. How it started from one instrument to end up being played with six instruments. My main instrument in my composition is the violin and all my other instruments just follow along the lines of it. The affect my piece gives people is unknown to me. But I feel that it does give off some sort of feeling, maybe sad maybe happy or both. Think about that when you here my piece. As fun and interesting as composing my piece was, it was also very challenging. I had a lot of trouble with coming up with the B section and the C section. And changing my clashes to harmonies wasn't fun also. Coming up with my main melody to begin with was impossible. But hearing the result of my challenge always made it worth it. Composing music has been hard, interesting and really fun for me this year! I've learned a lot about sequences, repetition, harmony, dynamics and articulations also! These have really help me transform my piece into something you would never imagine me to be able to create.

I did start with a main melody. I didn't have a way to come up with my main melody. The violin has the main part for my piece. I had some trouble doing the dynamics. It has been really cool to compose my own music. I have learned that every instrument needs a dynamic marking.

Composing my piece was fun. Matt told us that we should start with our main melody, so I did. He said that we could take a part from one of our other pieces, I did. I then worked on it to make it better. I named my piece November Wind because, I thought that it really described the piece well. How at some points it is fast and at some points it is slow. Just like wind, it has its own moments that make it special. I learned that writing a song can be a lot harder than it seems.