CME Assignment One: Composition Reflection
I've just finished composing a short work for a stage 5 elective music class, and thought I would offer some reflections on my compositional process. As with most music that I write, it was a combination of moments of inspiration as well as thinking through my ideas more systematically.
To view or download a Sibelius version of my composition and PDFs of the parts, click here.
Compositional Process
Over the last year or so I've spent a fair bit of time thinking in 5 (i.e. mentally rehearsing rhythmic structures in 5/4, 5/8, 5/16 etc.), and as a result I end up tapping on desks and with my foot in 5 a lot. My original compositional idea came about in my CME class, when my lecturer explained that we could write our own composition for the assignment. Fairly spontaneously, the basic melody that would form the basis of my composition popped into my head (in 5/8), and I quickly tried to write it down. This was the result:
The line at the top was an imagined boudun (which I will explain more about below), and the bottom line was the melody I heard in my head, using a form of notation I developed in high school to help get compositional ideas down quickly when I don't have manuscript. I write out the rhythms using Western notation, but then determine the pitch by relative scale degrees that usually come from the major scale (unless I write something like 'G mixolydian' at the top). The arrow below some of the numbers indicates that those scale degrees are to played in the octave below the rest of the melody, such that the '5' in the second bar is below the '1' in relative pitch. You'll also notice that some of the bars in the original idea don't add up to 5 quavers. I'm not sure if this was intentional, but I dispensed with it.
Straight after class I went to a piano to flesh out my melody a little more, and remembered that the class had looked at Orff methodology, including the boudun (a basic two-note chord used in many Orff compositions that involves playing the I and V of a scale). At the time I wasn't aware of the fact that my lecturer actually didn't want us to write for Orff instruments, and so I also tried to keep the boudun part on 'white' notes so that it could be played on a large xylophone. I ended up with a 16 bar melody for two hands of the piano (and treble and bass clef respectively), which looked like this:
After completing my main theme, I wrote a contrasting section, and then orchestrated the work so that there would be three main parts: the melody (exemplified by the right hand of the piano above), Part 2 (which plays a counter-melody) and Part 3 (which uses the boudun and plays a melody in the contrasting section). I chose to orchestrate the piece for only 3 parts in order to facilitate maximum classroom enjoyment. Given that this piece was to be played as a classroom mixed-bag arrangement, I didn't want any essential parts to be written for instruments that may not be present in a typical elective music class.
Teaching the Composition
It's one thing to write a composition, but how should it be taught? Based on my understanding of Orff pedagogy and the Creative Music Movement, I have a few ideas about how I would teach this composition to a class. Fundamentally, even though I scored the work for Western notation, there is no reason that students must be given the notation first, or even at all, if there are other ways to learn the music that can enhance students' creativity and musicality.
The concept of experiential music-making is central to both the Orff pedagogy and the Creative Music Movement, and so I aim to bring experience-based music to my approach to learning this piece (Gill, 2004; Burke, 2014). The essential rhythmic structure that forms the clavé (which I use to mean rhythmic key) of this piece is this:
This specific rhythm is only played some of the time by melodic instruments, but it is the rhythm that I want everyone to feel as they are playing this piece. In order to allow students to take on this clavé not just as head knowledge but embodied knowledge (i.e. knowledge that is felt within the body), I would have students clap the rhythm while tapping their foot on the first beat, and saying a three syllable word that fits the rhythm:
They could come up with their own 3 syllable word, but the main aim is that students are hearing, saying, clapping, and stomping the 5/8 pattern, WITHOUT any discussion of the fact that it is in 5/8, that 5/8 is a 'complex' or 'compound' time, or any other theoretical discussion. Another fallacy that I've found is that students will naturally tend to move towards 6/8, but as soon as you tell them that they are doing it, they start trying to count to 5 in their heads as they play, and this inhibits them being able to embody the knowledge.
Once students are comfortable with 'pikachu', I would teach some students the melody by getting the class to play the clavé while I played the melody over the top. After repeating the first 4 bars a few times, I would get students to learn the melody by ear, copying one phrase at a time. This would mean that the learning process continues to be experiential, and also that students would hear the melody in the context of the clavé, thus reinforcing the idea that the rhythm undergirds everything they play. After some students were comfortable with the melody, I would get a few more to play the boudun on their instruments, while the remaining students keep saying, clapping and stomping 'pikachu' or 'hospital' or 'afternoon' or whatever they had come up with.
After this, it would depend on the class and the purpose of the lesson as to whether I would give students notation, or continue to learn by ear. But hopefully it is clear that there are many ways to 'learn' a piece of music that do not involve notation.
References
Burke, H. (2014). Marching backwards into the future: The introduction of the english creative music movement in state secondary schools in Victoria, Australia. British Journal of Music Education, 31(1), 41-54. doi:http://dx.doi.org.ezproxy1.library.usyd.edu.au/10.1017/S0265051713000235
Gill, R. (2004). Orff Schulwerk levels courses: The pedagogy. Musicworks: Journal of the Australian Council of Orff Schulwerk, 9(1), 4-7.