Viva Voce
A summary of assessed scores, reflections, and project descriptions from Semester 2 of my studies at WAAPA.
Semester 2
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The Ocean Marauder - String Quartet
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Da Man Dis Asta - Percussion Quartet
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Pars Terrae. - For Classical Guitar Quartet and Voice
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Ode to the. Contemporary
Thrift Store - Dance Track
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They say that time flies when you're having fun. Let me tell you, it sure does! I feel this has been the fastest year of my life, and I can't believe it is already over. This semester, my music theory and appreciation for classical music have heightened, and I had fun writing the assessed pieces.
The amount of exposure to music, and talent has not changed, and I have further broadened my already diverse music taste. I have been to acousmatic, musical, contemporary and classical performances, and I plan on attending more and more as the opportunities arise.
Being surrounded by music introduces you to new concepts and ideas. One concept I found interesting, is borrowing chords from the parallel minor or mode. I found and printed a chart, that is hung up on my wall that has the chords and properties for each mode.
At the beginning of the semester, I created a few sample packs and released them on my website. I plan on making more, but have been so busy with everything that has been going on in and out of uni, that I have not had the time to focus on the extra things. Now that I have a big summer break, however, I plan to create and release more sample packs. My collaboration with the contemporary dancer was a success, and the film is being showcased later this year.
This year has been a success, and I look forward to my future studies at WAAPA.
Annotated Score
The Ocean Marauder
String Quartet
This is an upbeat, and adventurous piece written for a string quartet. I was scrolling on TikTok around the time we were given the prompt, and I came across this video, that stacked string instruments like I have done for my piece, in the style of a Pirates of the Caribbean theme. I thought it was cool, and used it as inspiration.
The intro has luscious, long, descending chords, creating an airy feel contrasting the remainder of the piece. The chuggyness and all the power chords are my favourite aspects of this piece. When doing a bit of research, I found that most music written in this style used power chords as they are powerful, so I tried my best, to avoid using the third, and focus on stacking octaves of the root and fifth.
My initial idea was to have the motif in bar 6, be with down bows, but since it was too fast, I had to compromise with only having down bows on the quavers at the end of the motif. Violin 1 has many glissandi in the melody because I wanted a real slidey feel and I'm not too focused on the performer hitting the right notes, which adds to the pirate feel.
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This is my favourite piece I have written this year. I am sad I didn't get it played, because I would like to know what it sounds like with acoustic instruments and get the input from real performers. I had fun writing this piece, and have no negative thoughts towards it.
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Below is a WAV of the MIDI.
Annotated Score
Da Man Dis Asta
Percussion Quartet
I will be completely honest and say that this piece is on the lower side of my list titled "Best Pieces I Have Written". It was really tough for me to write, and I think I have some ideas why.
One reason why I found this piece to be sooo difficult to write, is that I think I bit off more than I could chew, and before I knew it, I was too deep to turn back. I heard "four players" and got excited. "A 'Player' can play multiple instruments!?" So I got home that day and planned out the instrumentation. I came up with what I thought at the time to be "a great idea", and started. I worked on it for about a week or so, before I hit a writer's block. I took a break to give my mind some time to reset, and then when I got back, I was overwhelmed. I pushed through and did the best I could, but I was too deep at that stage to be able to restart.
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Another reason it was so difficult is that I have never written a piece with percussive instruments. So considering I had seven, it wasn't easy. I also have never written a classical piece this long before. I can usually get two musical ideas and could stretch a third out if I had to, but that will usually last two to three minutes. Not four and a half!
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On the positive side, when I had creative flows, I had a lot of fun working on them. I like the idea of not using traditional mallets and sticks to hit the drums with because, from my experience, you don't see it very often. My time through the contemporary backgrounds has taught me about the different sounds that sticks make. So I have used a woollen mallet on the crash where indicated to get a softer attack.
The pitched aspect of this piece is very triadic. I realised this after my week off when I was too far deep to back out, so I kept it consistent throughout.
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Overall it isn't my proudest piece, and was one of the hardest pieces to write. I had to stretch to get more musical ideas, to extend this piece by twice as much as I would comfortably write. F-in-a-box is inspired by the Oppenheimer theme because I thought it was really cool, so I used it as a sort of "let-down-build" I like to call it.
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Below is an MP3 of the MIDI.
Annotated Score
Pars Terrae
Classical Guitar and Voice Quintet
This piece is one of my favourite pieces I have ever written. I started this piece as a guitar quartet. I had written the main idea before finding out it needed five voices. I didn't want to add a fifth guitar, so I decided a vocal line would be cool. Then after writing some of it, I remembered a piece I had played back in Year 8, that had the exact same setup, so I had a look at it and used it for inspiration.
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This piece creatively, was constantly flowing. Which is the complete opposite of the piece written before. It is quite simple, but that's what I love about guitar quartets, that you can make such simple, monophonic melody lines into a full-sounding ensemble. The vocal line also adds a lot more depth and actually sounds really cool. I wasn't sure how to set up the score in terms of which instruments go where, but the piece I used as inspiration, has it set up this way, so I decided I was going to do the same.
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It is a challenge to write for classical guitar since you have so many options for each guitar individually. You need to decide at the start which registers each part is mainly going to sit in, that way it is easier to focus on each part individually. You also have to write differently, whether it is a solo piece, duet, trio, etc. For quartets, they are mostly simple, as you have so many layers, but for a duet, per se, you would write with more complexity.
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Overall, the piece was a lot of fun to write. I really like how well the two themes mash together with the vocal line, creating a full sound.
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Below is a WAV of the MIDI.
