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Composition DEADLINE

8/4/2015

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24th February is your final composition deadline. To meet the criteria to complete IB course.

For HL composition


  • You have to submit 3 compositions. Each 3-6 minutes in length. 
  • or 1 arrangement 3-6 minutes in length.
  • or An improvisation between 3-6 minutes 
  • or 3 Music Tech compositions 3-6 minutes in length.

Include notation and a written reflection.

Make sure you meet the Mark Scheme
 
A. Control and Development of musical elements
B. Musical Coherence 
C. Idiomatic understanding of instruments
D. Notation
E. Overall Impression
F. Reflection

The reflection should include. 

•Intention - What were your ideas target?
•Process – What did you do? How did you compose? How did you develop and progress? How did the music change from your intentions? How did you adapt in the creative process? Think DR SMITH in how you created your piece of music.
•Outcome – What did you achieve? Was the piece different to your intention and how? What did you do well in the composition? What difficulties did you have and how did you overcome them?

Deadline 24th February.
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Setting up a sound-cloud account

8/4/2015

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To submit your compositions, I want you to post them on soundcloud. You can do this privately to my email christopherhoddinott@gmail.com or you can share to the community as they can give good feedback, which is always helpful. 

https://soundcloud.com/

You can also get an app on your phone.


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Composition Log Book

8/3/2015

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ib_composition_log_book.pdf
File Size: 1412 kb
File Type: pdf
Download File

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Composing for film

8/3/2015

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Composing for film is about enhancing the action that is happening on the screen. The music can heavily influence how you feel about what is happening in the action. It persuades the viewer into feeling a certain emotion to a character, or an action or a situation. 

This clip from musical contexts illustrates this point of how the viewer can be persuaded into feeling certain emotions or expressing certain emotions on the character. 
The first clip is in silence so you feel very neutral to the man walking. The second clip the music is very dissonant and high in the register and is associated with the horror movie genre, so you feel anxious and start to think the man has a sinister reason to him walking. The third is choral and sacred music, so you feel this man might be feeling a moment of spirituality. The final piece of music is uplifting and romantic, so persuades the viewer that this man is walking with a romantic purpose. 

Your task is to take a clip of a film of any sort and to compose a piece of music to fit with the action. I would recommend using Logic or Garageband for this composition assignment. You can make the music more in sync with the action or more descriptive to set the scene like below.

This video of the chase in the incredibles shows how the music can be synced to action to add suspense and drama. 
Your task is to choose one of these clips and compose a film score to match it.

Mark you timings of when you want changes to happen in your film to fit with the action. Think about the style and genre of music and how it can help trick the viewer to giving the desired emotions. The emotion will help embellish the enhance the drama 

Deadline 14th December 2014
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Composing a Jazz piece

8/2/2015

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Compose a Jazz song, 

Use the blues scale. The minor pentatonic with a diminished V

Come up with a hook or a motif. Play around the scale to come up with this. You will use this phrase as a recurring theme that brings the song together.

Start with a simple chord structure ii - V - I

Develop this progression further to make it more Jazzy. Add 7th or 9th notes to the chords and add extra chords to the progression. 

Add a walking bass line. This is where the bass playing up and down the scale in the phrase.

Build a groove structure. A cyclic structure that will go round and round repeating itself. The 12 bar blues is a popular Jazz structure, but you might want to be more adventurous.

Leave room for improvisation. This is the essence of Jazz. 

How do you do improv? ........ That is a different skill set completely. This video helps to shed some light of what goes on the brain when improvisation takes place.

Deadline 16th November
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Composing a vocal piece.

7/31/2015

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A conventional vocal piece has the option of four voices.

The four parts are bass, tenor, alto and soprano
Picture
Vocal works need words. You may decide to use a poem that you can interpret or you may want to do a religious style of song. Either way you have to choose the lyrics that will fit your piece of music.

Deciding the Vocal style, here are some suggestions
  • Choral
  • Acapella
  • Hip-Hop
  • Experimental 

Working with your lyrics.

You will want to work out where you will add stress (accents) to your words. Also where you add melisma to your work. This is call Scansion, it is where you establish the meter (rhythm) to the text.

After you understand the meter and the rhythm of the words you may want to work on your melody. You may want to work around a simple accompaniment first or add the accompaniment after. Either way the melody will be what makes the vocal piece. To help the melody you may want to

  • Add repetition
  • Add ostinato
  • Vary the register
  • add vocal techniques such as vibrato


When you have your melody, think about the texture and how you can make your melody more interesting.

  • Chords set to a repeated rhythm
  • The use of Syncopation
  • Contrasting rhythms in the bass, melody and harmony
  • Unison texture
  • Homophonic texture
  • Polyphonic texture
  • A solo part by a virtuoso (that basically shows off)
  • Melody changes between voices


Structure

Most vocal pieces are in Strophic (song) form which is a typical ABA with the B a contrast of A. However some interesting ideas have come from through composed vocal pieces. 

Word Painting,

Where the lyrics and the words reflect the meaning of the song. For example using the word bright to change from Minor to Major. Or flying being modulated in a mordent or turn. In short the words reflect the music. 

Make it work


A three minute melisma part is not going to be able to be sung by anyone. They will pass-out before they finish the piece. So make sure your piece is not too tiring for the vocalists. They are not singing too high or making impossible pitch leaps that can affect the performance. If unsure find a decent singer and ask them if they could try it out for you.

Finish it nicely

Tempo, Dynamics, Articulations make sure you have added these and anything else that will make your piece sound spot on.

Deadline 13th November


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Composing a lullaby

7/31/2015

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The project is to compose a lullaby.

  • A lullaby should be at a slow tempo.
  • It should be on a an instrument of a soft timbre. 
  • It should be Diatonic
  • It should modulate from Major to Minor.
  • It should be able to send my son to sleep. (only joking, he never sleeps) Calming and soft.
  • Simple melody. 
  • Simple chord structure.
  • You can use http://www.hooktheory.com/hookpad/new to build simple ideas

Deadline 28th September

2 hours of Mozart's lullabies to inspire you.
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Arrangement - Dr Who Theme - Project 1 

7/30/2015

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Project 1 - Arrangement 3 weeks

Recreate an arrangement of the Dr who theme,

The complete score is available at the bottom of the page,

Some ideas fro your own arrangement

  • Change key 
  • Changes in tonality
  • Change time signature
  • Changing the register of the main musical ideas 
  • Changing tempo 
  • Adding more musical ideas to create a polyphonic version


However you must keep some of the crucial musical ideas

  • Retain the distinctive melody
  • and Retain the distinctive bass line

This is a video of the different musical arrangements of the Doctor Who theme through the ages. There are subtle changes almost nuanced especially during the 60's. The big changes come during the 80's and the modern era with the development of technologies having an effect on music

DEADLINE 31st AUGUST
doctor_who_theme_complete_orchestral_score.mxl
File Size: 45 kb
File Type: mxl
Download File

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