Music Composition Assignments for 1.26.2018

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Music Composition Assignments for 1.26.2018

Welcome back from our long winter break! This week we briefly discussed the editing process, noting that the goal of editing is to take whatever work we’ve done, keep the best, and decide what to do with the rest. That can mean cutting it, expanding it, or changing it. Your assignment for the next two weeks is to choose any piece that you have already written and to take it through the editing process. There are no restrictions on what piece you choose, so anything goes! We’ll have some time in class next week to work on it with colleagues, though not the whole class period. Feel free to bring anything you need, and feel free to ask colleagues for help.

Your assignment will be due January 31st to me by email. Please send electronic copies of both the original and the edited work. Once I get them, I’ll put them all in a Dropbox file for us all to be able to access for listening and critique.

We also discussed in class some modern songs that use classical/art music forms. Below are some of the links we discussed:

Louie, Louie uses a melodic ostinato in the keyboard/organ. Even though the rhythm changes, the melody remains the same throughout the whole song.

Every Breath You Take by The Police is a rondo form, which has essentially the same material repeated multiple times.

ABACAB by Genesis is also a rondo form, as indicated by the title.

I’m Telling You is an ABA aria form, very popular in the Baroque period, and starts with sung dialogue, essentially a recitative.

In Constant Sorrow is a traditional style bluegrass that has the element of fortespinnung, also a key element of Baroque style.

Any other examples you come across, please share them!

My musical happy moment, leftover from Christmas, is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer remade in the style of a 9th century plainsong.