Composer Profile
Age/Grade: 18 years old, Senior
Primary Instrument: Violin
Number of Years: 4 years
Private Lessons: 4 years of private lessons Skill Level Based on YS Audition: 7 out of 10
Tones 8 Intonation 5 Techniques 8
Secondary Instruments: Piano
Private Lessons: A few years of lessons
Abigail is a senior in high school set in the homeschool environment. She is 18 years old and plays violin in the YS program. As a violin player, she has some intonation issues, but creates good sound with much emotion in her playing. Although she has only been playing the violin for 4 years, Abigail has developed a sufficient skill level to earn the opportunity to play in the top ensemble. She has a strong work ethic that shows consistently through her level of preparation, in rehearsals as well as lessons, and in her effort to accomplish tasks at her best level and in a timely manner. She practices regularly and always tries her best. Abigail is constantly polite and respectful to others, and always has a smile on her face. She is very mature for her age—an “old soul,” so to speak, and likes to ask questions and remains very open to new ideas. Her favorite music is classical music, specifically Beethoven, Handel, and Bach.
Abigail’s Composition: “A Bittersweet Reminisce”
Abigail composed a piece she titled “A Bittersweet Reminisce,” which she set for string orchestra. According to Abigail, the composition has no story to tell, but the title just came to her as she was listening to the playback. She started with a small idea and built on it until it developed into a composition. The piece starts with the main theme introduced clearly by the cello. The theme itself lasts for six measures, but is entirely developed from a smaller motif pattern consisting of a dotted quarter note followed by an eighth note.
Musical Example AM1. Measures 1-8
The theme is very compact yet very effective. It resembles something of a composer such as Beethoven. The main theme is then handed off from the cello to the first violin with a full orchestral accompaniment (measure 7), which again resembles the patterns of many classical symphonic works.
Abigail then transforms the theme by using the augmentation technique at
measure 20 in violin 1, and the inversion technique in measure 23. Similar techniques are used throughout the rest of the composition as she continues to transform the theme.
Musical Example AM2. Measures 20-28
At letter D, Abigail brings in new rhythmic materials to create a source of drive as she finishes off the composition. Original themes return in multiple parts as the violin 1 concludes the melody in its inverted form, with a Picardy Third in the last chord to create a positive and optimistic sense at the end of the composition.
Musical Example AM3. Letter D to End
One could argue that this composition is the most mature and well-crafted of the compositions created by the students in this workshop. The composition is unified by the theme, even at the micro level as a motif. Abigail successfully composed this piece by skillfully using and building on the smallest elements, as many great classical composers have shown in their works. Abigail has a clear sense of melody and harmony. Her
melody is never lost, but rather becomes the driving factor of the composition. She uses very traditional yet effective harmonies to support the melody throughout the piece. The
overall tonality of this piece is the key of G minor, which is presented through the use of clear phrasing and cadences.
The most impressive element of this composition is its use of a formal structure. It starts off with the simplest of forms to introduce the main theme, becoming more and more complex as the piece progresses forward. For example, in this section, the inverted theme is handed around to the different instruments, creating a sense of complexity.
Musical Example AM4. Measures 39-46
Complexity is also shown with how Abigail chooses to end the piece with a G major chord, bringing a sense of optimism and hopeful balance to this composition.
This piece is very well crafted, especially for a beginner composer. Abigail has included many textbook examples of motivic developments as well as the use of formal structure. The composition resembles some of classical composers such as Mozart and Beethoven. The harmonic development, however, is lacking in the composition, and future developments could be more effective. However, it is still very impressive for someone who had no prior training in composition.
Abigail’s Process
Because of her piano background, Abigail always starts her process of composing at the piano, as she explained:
To begin with, I sat down at my piano and played around with different
melodies and rhythms until I came across one that I liked. I wrote it down. Then I would play around with different ways to play that melody, as well as come up with a harmony. It is easiest for me to come up with musical thoughts while sitting at a piano.
Prior to the workshop experience, Abigail defined a composition as “An original melody and phrases written down as a piece of music.” After her experience in the workshop, her definition became “A musical composition is where you take different musical phrases and ideas and conform them into one coherent idea; controlling various sounds in an ordered (or not so ordered as the case may be) manner.”
It appears that Abigail found her unique way to compose music through “one coherent idea,” as many classical composers have done before. When asked about the most difficult aspects of her experience with composing, she responded:
I would probably say that it would be not getting stuck in a rut. For example, I tend to stay in the same key, use the same rhythms and shy away from discordant harmony. That is something that I really had to work at.
One of the main suggestions I gave her related to the motivic transformation. During Workshop 4, Abigail brought me the orchestrated draft of the first 26 measures. The composition included the repetition of the main theme, seen in the cello part at the beginning throughout the draft within different voices. She said, “Mr. Hakoda, I don’t know how to extend this piece from here.” She was stuck in a rut, as she described. As I saw a strong unity in the composition, I showed her three techniques: inversion,
augmentation, and diminution of the main theme. Her composition flourished after this meeting. In the past, Abigail had written some pieces with a simple melody and harmony on her own for fun. However, through this process of writing a work for orchestra, she discovered the elements and importance of motivic development and transformation. She
will now compose and hear music differently. Abigail said in the end, “Now, whenever I listen to music, I no longer hear it all as one, but instead I hear all the different parts and how they work together to create a song.”
Abigail has learned that each individual line plays a specific role in nurturing the piece as a whole. She has shown that attention to the smallest of details makes a big impact on the overall effect, resulting in a more unified yet complex piece that sounds as if it was created by someone trained in the area of classical music composition.