Music Composition Project: 'Coming Back' - Sound Source and Learning

This project details a student's music composition, titled 'Coming Back,' created using Cubase. The composition incorporates various instruments and sound sources, including piano, guitar, and drums. The project analyzes the composition journey, focusing on chord progressions learned from ukulele lessons and the influence of weekly videos. The student explores the role of chords in conveying emotion, using major C as the tune's foundation. The composition incorporates ten harmonious instruments, emphasizing structure, texture, tone color, and dynamics. The project also highlights the use of pentatonic scales and theme variations to enhance the composition's structure. The student references key music concepts and the application of these concepts learned in class to create the final composition.

Running Head: MUSIC STUDY 1
Music Study
Name
Institutional Affiliation

MUSIC STUDY 2
Music Study
The final composition that I have done covers all the concepts that were covered in the
classes as it offers a key opportunity to put into practice what has been learned. The name of my
composition is ‘coming back’, with Cubase program used for recording its audio. I recorded half
of the instruments that appeared in this audio while the rest were recorded from the MIDI
software, putting the idea and activities done in classes to enhance the composition effectiveness.
To better explain the learning experiences and the composition, I have narrowed them done in 3
parts in terms of the composition journey, choosing the sound source and composition learning.
To start with the composition journey, the idea was inspired in class when we were
learning the chords on the ukulele. The way the chords change and the melody from the chords
has developed the basic structure of my composition. The weekly videos have also helped a lot
in this composition in various ways such as, memorizing the key point of each class and gaining
better understanding of what we have learned and achieved. The basic idea that I started with my
composition was the week 6 about chords. Chord is the soul of the music, it tells the emotion.
For example, a sad song won’t start with major C. Almost every song starts with major C are all
rendered a harmony and happiness (Kaschub & Smith, 2017). However, the song that starts with
major F mostly rendered a cheerful rhythm such as the songs practiced in class. On the other
hand, Minor E will have a better effect on a sad song. In this regard, I choose major C to be the
tune of my composition since it is my favourite chord and it shows a positive mood and sounds
calm.
For the sound sources, ten instruments have been included in my composition, they are
Piano, guitar, pizzicato, drums, harp, villi on, bass, bells and vocal. All the sound sources are
harmonious and sound positive. Even though there are ten sound sources in my composition the

MUSIC STUDY 3
instruments are very harmonious presenting an appealing sound. For the composition learning
and achievement, the weekly notes and video played an important role. “Creating structure” that
we have learned from class, I learned the difference between structure and texture. The structure
in which the composition is done represents the concept of the music while the texture represents
the concept of the adapter. Having come up with the composition while at two different locations
made it easier for me to develop a tangible and clear structure (Oxford, 2004).
Also for the music concept that we have learned in class, the tone colour and dynamics
gave me a better understanding of choosing the instruments. As I mentioned before, even though
there are so many instruments in my composition it still sounds harmonious.
Moreover, the pentatonic scale is one of the key aspects that I like most because of the blues
style music which are based on pentatonic scale. Based on the class learning, I randomly
selected one of the major scale scales 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 to find the pentatonic scale of this major
tune. In other words, the fourth tone and the seventh tone were removed, resulting in the
elimination of the original half-tone in the major scale. The resulting tone consisted of a whole-
sound and minor thirds. This helped me with some of my accompaniment instruments to achieve
a better performance.
Moreover, theme and variation gave my composition a very good canon type of structure
with solo piano and other instruments following one after the other. This is important to ensure
that the sound creation enhances the individual listening to my composition. Finally, the melody
is the soul of the music just like a chord and is based on the chord as taught during class lessons.
It was directed that, we have to create the melody based on the chord, which helps me know how
to follow the chords and use the right tone.

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References
Oxford, E. C. (2004). Song sheets to software: A guide to print music, software, and web sites
for musicians. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press.
Kaschub, M., & Smith, J. (2017). Experiencing music composition in grades 3-5.