Assignment 2: Composition for a Solo Woodwind Instrument

ASSIGNMENT 2 – Solo Woodwind Composition

Despite my lack of experience with composing and notating woodwind, I found this project to be extremely interesting.  Having explored a number of scales and instruments throughout this section, I was very enthused and inspired to compose a piece which could tell a story. 

After exploring the Eastern European scales in my previous project, and having spent some time travelling in Eastern Europe, I was keen to explore this avenue.  The rhythm, complexities and emotion of Hungarian and Romanian folk music gave me the inspiration to compose Dance of the Matryoshka.  I have chosen to use the flute to this piece, mainly for it’s ability to give both a bright, cheery feel and a solemn, mournful tone. 

The story begins with a Toy-maker painting the five interlocking dolls, finishing his work late at night.  The second section takes places after the Toy-maker has left his workshop and the dolls come to life, performing a short dance sequence to celebrate their short-lived freedom.  Following their dance, the dolls pack themselves away before the Toy-maker returns in the morning to review his work. 

Structure of Dance of the Matryoshka

Principal Section (A)	Subsidiary Section (B)	Principal Reprise (A + C)
6/8  q= 95 30 bars	2/4 q= 120 - 40 60 bars	2/4 q= 120 15 bars

Principal Section

I plan for this section to have bright but wearied feeling to give the impression of the scene being late at night, as the tired Toy-maker is finishing his work.  I will try to compose a melodic line, which indicates the brush strokes as he paints each doll.  I plan to incorporate a change in tempo at the end of this section to show the Toy-maker leaving the workshop before the dolls come to life. 

Subsidiary Section

I hope that this section will contrast Part A in both rhythm and pitch.  I plan to spend some time exploring notation of popular Eastern European folk dances to give me some inspiration.  The composition in this section will aim to explore the excitement and magic of the dolls coming to life and performing a dance.  I plan to use a fast tempo and a range of dynamics to achieve this goal.

Principal Reprise

The principal reprise section will re-use elements and motifs from Part A to portray the Toy-maker returning to the workshop in the morning to check his work.  I plan for this section to have a brighter feel to reflect the morning time, as opposed to the evening time portrayed in Part A. I will end this section by showing the Toy-maker opening up the dolls to admire his work.    

Assignment 2 - Dance of the Matryoshka

I really enjoyed composing this piece and experimenting with the different possibilities due the characteristics of the flute.  The East European theme lead me down lots of interesting avenues, trying to compose a piece that reflects the folk style of the area.  I believe my final piece does reflect the original story and intention. 

Principal Section – (bars 1- 31)

To achieve a European folk sound, I decided to use the Hungarian Gypsy scale on C for this section.  I have used a 6/8 time signature and moderate tempo at the beginning to portray the tired and fatigued feeling of the Toy-maker working late at night.   Throughout this section I have tried to use a flowing and conjunct motion, accented and contrasted by short slurred motifs to reflect the strokes of the paintbrush.  In the last few bars of this section I have used well-placed staccato notes to portray the dolls being popped together.  I have used a ritardando to slow the tempo to adagio, and then to grave, in order to give the listener the idea of the Toy-maker closing up his shop for the night.  I have also left a dotted crotchet’s rest at the end to mark the Toy-maker leaving and the silence in the room before the dolls awaken.  Dynamics were incredibly important during this section and I have used a mostly soft dynamic to maintain the feeling of this section being set late at night.  Despite the unusual time signature in this section, after speaking to a number of woodwind players who have stated their preference in this area, I decided to compose this section in an atonal key and use accidentals throughout. 

Subsidiary Section – (bars 32 – 95)

I had great fun composing this section and trying to incorporate the magic dance of the Matryoshka.  I have used the Hungarian Minor Scale on C in this section, in order to keep the European folk feel, whilst varying and contrasting the previous section.  As seen in many traditional folk pieces, I have switched to a 2/4 time signature to aid simplicity for a dance format.   Once again, having used an unusual key signature, I have notated this section using an atonal key and accidentals.    This section is actually split into three sub-sections, outlined below.

Part 1 – The Dolls Awaken

The first ten bars of this section show the dolls magically awakening and ‘un-popping’ themselves.  I have used trilled notes to portray the excitement of each dolls as they unpack themselves, follow by a short phrase of staccato notes to give the listener the idea of the dolls shaking themselves off and waking up.  We hear this pattern repeat five times as each doll comes alive and the pitch of these phrases rises each time to reflect the descending size of each doll.  This part contains an allegro tempo and a number of dramatic changes in dynamics, moving between pp and ff, to show the excited and frantic nature of the dolls as they wake and prepare to dance.

Part 2 – The Dolls Dance

The first three bars of this section use the chromatic scale as a means to ‘clear the board’ before starting the dance piece.  I very much wanted to make a clear distinction between the dolls waking and then dancing, and I believe using the chromatic scale to descend between the pitches of the two sections works well to achieve this.  At this point the tempo speeds up to vivace as the dance begins at bar 45.

Throughout this section I have tried to mimic some of the familiar rhythms founds in traditional folk pieces through quick phrases using quavers and semiquavers.  These are blended with larger, slurred sections, which represent each doll performing a short solo within the larger sequence. 

As the dance sequence crescendos, I have used a repeat motif, rising then falling in pitch with the use of a long trilled note in the middle.   During this section I have begun to slow the tempo to adagio to give the impression of the dolls beginning to tire. 

Part 3 – The Dolls Sleep

In the final part of this section, I have once again changed the tempo, this time to lento with a ritardando to grave as the dolls pack themselves away.   As in the first section, I have used staccato crotchets, followed by a short motif, to reflect the dolls popping themselves together again.    At the end of this section I decided to leave a full bar rest to give a clear definition between the two sections. 

Throughout this entire section, dynamics and articulations played a major role in achieving the overall effect.  Throughout the dance sequence I have used a lot of varying dynamics to give the listener the overall feel of the movement of the dance. 

Principal Reprise & Ending

In the final section of this composition, I have reused the melody line from the beginning of the first section, transposed into a key of G major.  By doing this, I wanted to achieve a brighter and happier feel, whilst still keeping familiarity for the listener.  I have returned to my original signature of 6/8 but used a slighter faster tempo of allegro. 

The final few bars in the piece, once again, show the sound of the dolls being popped open by the Toy-maker as he checks his work from the previous evening.  The last few notes in the piece serve both to close the piece by bringing it back to its original starting note of G, and also to give the listener the impression of the Toy-maker’s satisfaction and he admires his work. 

Overall review of Dance of the Matryoshka

I found this exercise to be challenging, having very little knowledge of woodwind, but extremely enjoyable.  I am very happy with my end result and, despite toying with the idea of adding a further section (D), I have opted to keep the piece in its original format laid out above.  I spent some time trying to devise an end section to display the Toy-maker’s angry side as he discovers that his paintwork was smudged from the dolls dancing, at one stage, adding nearly 30 bars onto the end of the piece to incorporate this.  However, upon further reflection I decided to remove this section and return to the simplicity of my original idea. 

I think my use of the Hungarian scales has really helped to give this piece the feeling I was striving for.  Having had the opportunity to hear this piece played by a live flautist, I am even more pleased with how the character of the instrument is explored throughout.

REFLECTIVE ACCOUNT of PART 2: Exploring Melody & Scales

I found this section of the course to be extremely interesting and challenging.  Having always had a natural aptitude for singing, it had rarely occurred to me how these melodies are formed and the relationship between the notes chosen and the overall feel and emotion of the composition.  Music is all too often related back to mathematics via the circle of fifths etc., but I found it interesting to explore music’s artwork in this section.  Having spent a lot of time looking at different examples of pieces using different styles of melodic motion, I began by drawing a physical line over the top of the stave to represent the movement in the melody.  After a while, it became clear that the style of the line drawn (i.e gently flowing vs. sharp zigzag) gives a very good indication of the type of piece before even hearing it.   Upon reading books such as Nettl’s Music in Primitive Culture (1956) it became even clearer to see the pattern of the melodic composition including the use of arcs and cascading effects etc.   Further research into the history of music notation lead me to read about the use of Neumes in early music composition.  Neumes seem to be the barest and simplest representation of a melody, notated in a way much like I have described above; that of drawing single lines and dots to represent the rise and fall in pitches.

Currently working within the education sector with an emphasis on music, I found my studies on pentatonic melodies to be very enlightening.  As described by both the Orff and Kodaly methodologies, the simplistic nature of this mode, teamed with the consonance of all tones in the scale, makes it a perfect range for children’s voices.  I plan to test this theory with the school Choir by composing some short pieces using the pentatonic scale to see whether the children find it much easier to learn songs using a 7-note system. 

Beyond learning the recorder at school, my limited knowledge of the woodwind family certainly created a challenge for me.  I must admit, my initial reaction to the topic was not an enthusiastic one, but the more I listened to and read about woodwind, the more intriguing this family of instruments became.  By listening to numerous solo and group compositions for woodwind, I discovered this very versatile group in the orchestra, capable of great ranges and portraying a wide range of human emotions.  Debussy’s Syrinx (1913) was probably my favourite solo composition for woodwind that I have come across and having the opportunity to analyse both this, and another woodwind piece, gave me yet more insight into the possibility and abilities of the woodwind family. 

Exploring the different scales within this section was probably the part of this project I enjoyed the most.  Having only ever used the standard diatonic scales, I was amazed to see the variety of scales available and the different characteristics of each mode.  From the frenzy of the Chromatic scale to the blues feel of the 9-note scales, writing melodies for each of the nine scales not only gave me the opportunity to explore different ways of constructing scales, but actually inspired me to look deeper into other scales such as the Hungarian Gypsy scale which makes an appearance in my final assignment of this section. 

Overall, I feel I have explored and further developed my knowledge of the content in this section and incorporated many of these ideas into my woodwind solo composition Dance of the Matryoshka.  I think the culmination of this knowledge has resulted in a balanced and interesting piece, set around a clear theme.  One of the aspects I found most fun and interesting was the incorporation of four different scales within this piece.  The Hungarian Gypsy, Hungarian Minor, Chromatic and Diatonic scales can all be seen and I am very happy with the way they have blended together to create the end result.

As I have mentioned earlier in my learning log, I was tempted to further ‘tinkle’ with this piece to extend the end section.  However, after many frustrating hours of trying different approaches, I decided that my original composition was actually a good representation of the effect I was trying to achieve – and why tamper with something that has worked out as you planned?!