The feedback I received from the class was really helpful. They all responded well to my composition, and it made me feel much more confident in my own abilities as a composition. One of the suggestions I received in this class was that I needed something a little extra, something to show a bit more of my compositional piece. If it was just a piece of music that I was composing, I could have left it as it was. But since it was for an assessment, I needed a little bit more to show my skills. So I decided that I would add in a contrasting section. I decided I would fill this section with more notes, since the other section is quite sparse, and more lyrical. I kept it based off the A minor scale and tried to showcase the range of the clarinet more. As you can see in the full score below, I added scalic runs, as well keeping the arpeggiated pattern in. Lots more accents lead to a much choppier sound, which is what I was trying to achieve. After I added this new section in, I then repeated part of the first section, therefore making it an A B A’ structured piece.
As a side note, I uploaded the final draft of my piece to Soundcloud, and out of the blue, two people liked it! I was so shocked, and am definitely more confident in what I can do with composing!
Here is the final recording! I was struggling to find a reed that sounded good, so if there are little squeaks along the way, try to ignore them! Take them as a part of the performance – as a reed player, these things happen regularly. Unfortunately, it’s just something that we can’t always control! Anyway, I hope you enjoy my final composition. It’s different to anything I have attempted before, and I am very happy with the outcome. This assessment has pushed me to think outside of the box, and to acknowledge that I can, in fact, be a composer!
Rachelle Pieri 