Project 1 – solos

I wrote my studies for snare, gong and wood block today. For the sake of formatting I will have each study subtitled below:

Time for a change – wood block study

I found this composition came quite naturally. I had to take influence from the given example in my student book. I used the same instruction (lively) because I wanted to display the jokey and lively side of the wooden block. I built in aspects of my own personality in the to=he composition by playing around with the time signatures. This keeps the listener guessing. I also found that this helped me to contrast my very strict 2/4 march. The difference lies within the fluent movement of time signatures and the added syncopation on the wood block.

March in Time – study for snare

The march begins with the same rhythm as the “20th Century Fanfare” that fox media use in their signature theme.  This also happens to be one of the rhythms that a lot of marching bands use as an introduction to their marches. I then took out the dotted quavers and reverted to straight quavers as this is a more traditional march rhythm and feel. I then incorporate the use of tremolo lines. These help to make a score easier to read and look more professional. I added grace notes for extra technique practice and also as it helps maintain a listeners interest. It is a popular technique in all marches on the snare line.

The written rhythmic feature that i used at the beginning of this study contrasts to the crotchet quaver feel of the 12/8 study as there is much less emphasis on the written semi-quaver in the 2/4 than the quaver written in 12/8.

Suspended Gong study 

The gong study is aimed at having a suspended sound and a slower rhythm. It is also aimed at keeping crescendo and diminuendo consistent with each other. The Crescendo and diminuendo played by a gong have a huge effect in a piece of music. I did have to re-cap over the student booklet to revise how to write to  maintain a long note on this kind of instrument. This contrasts from my other studies because it is all long tied notes, I used semi-breves and minims as opposed to quavers and semi-quavers.