Evaluation...

Within this evaluation, I will critically evaluate my final performance from my Independent Composition Task. My idea was to adapt an already existing song (Defying Gravity – Wicked) to a 4 part harmony to potentially teach to my choir. 

One strength of my composition was that it aided my personal focal development point of working on my higher register, as I was singing the part I intend to be for sopranos in a choir. The original key for Defying Gravity makes it a perfect soprano line as it is quite high and sits within a soprano range. This meant I was putting my newly developed muscle memory to work and to the test. I was surprised when I listened back to the recording of my composition at how different the higher notes sounded compared to how they used to sound. 

Another strength of this composition was, compared to last semester, the quality of the recording was much better, due to using a different software. This time around, I recorded my composition on garage band. This piece of technology allows you to layer things on top of each other and cut and move them so they are in time with each other. This is a vast improvement on my composition from last semester which had terrible quality and you could hear background noise on it. Using garage band has made my final composition sound much more professional as it is the type of technology that would be used in professional recording studios.

One weakness with my work for this project is that as I struggled writing the ATB (Alto, Tenor, Bass) part of it, I didn't complete the whole composition. This, as a result meant that when having my work assessed I only had the Soprano and Alto part recorded, which didn't really demonstrate how the whole composition should sound when it's all put together.

To improve on this, I would try and find an easier place to start when turning a pre-existing song into a choral piece rather than going in with my eyes pretty much closed.

The process of finalising my composition is another weakness of this project as I didn't leave myself enough time to write my composition and get it down into a score before recording it. Overall, I think that my time management over the course of this project wasn't as good as I would have liked and I should have tried to set aside more time to work on it. “Time management is the key to success. Those who manage time efficiently will get rewards; those who fail to do so, will face disappointments.” (Panse, pg 119).

To improve this, as I said above, I would designate time for individual tasks within my project to ensure things get done to a good standard and on course for completion for the deadline. This would increase the chance of a completed composition and would mean less stress on me closer to the deadline when I'm rushing to get things done.

Bibliography

Panse, S. 2014. Time Management for Students. PartridgeIndia. 

Bibliography...

StereotypesAcapella. 2012. A Cappella - Defying Gravity (The Stereotypes). [Online] [Accessed 19th May 2015]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=II8He1mB_WY

Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir. 2010. Eric Whitacre's Virtual Choir - 'Lux Aurumque'. [Online] [Accessed 19th May 2015]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7o7BrlbaDs

PTXofficial. 2015. [Official Video] Daft Punk - Pentatonix. [Online] [Accessed 19th May 2015]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MteSlpxCpo 

Under The Sun Studios. 2013. Vocal Warmup #1 for Soprano. [Online] [Accessed 19th May 2015]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elv_ZKoMsfM

ericwhitacremusic's channel. 2011. Light and Gold: Lux Aurumque - Eric Whitacre. [Online] [Accessed 19th May 2015]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j2JRcC6wBs

Malone, G. 2013. Gareth Malone Voices Selections for SATB Chorus. London: Novello Publishing Limited.

Sierra Coleman. 2011. Sleep - Eric Whitacre (Lyrics). [Online] [Accessed 11th February 2015]. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxjWNJU8rNE

Schwartz, S. 2003. Defying Gravity. Idina Menzel. Wicked (Original Broadway Cast Recording). [iTunes download] Decca Broadway/Universal Music.

Schwartz, S. 2003. Defying Gravity. [Musical Score] Grey dog Music. Available from: http://www.operalady.com/Vocal%20Sheet%20Music/Wicked_DefyingGravity.pdf

TimeToBlowYourMind. 2014. 

Defying Gravity [full] - Olivier Awards 2014 - Willemijn Verkaik. [Online] [Accessed 23rd May 2015.] Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPfETQgvcbw 

Presentation...

Track...

This is the beginning of my composition, it's not finished yet due to writing four-part harmony being a mammoth and foreign task to me. I do however, plan to finish the composition and hopefully eventually teach it to my choir. 

Creating The Music...

In all honesty, I struggled with this assignment quite a lot. I didn't know how I was going to create what I could hear in my head for all three parts. 

I decided that the best way to do it was to work through the parts one at a time. I decided to start with the Alto part. 

I enlisted the help of Sara to sing the alto part while I sang the soprano part, just so I could hear them both together. 

I Dare You To Defy Gravity...

I remembered watching this performance on the Olivier Awards last year and remembered how amazing it was. I'm posting this purely to keep my spirits high and because I think this is one of the best versions of the song. 

D flat Major...

Having found a musical score for Defying Gravity from http://www.operalady.com/Vocal%20Sheet%20Music/Wicked_DefyingGravity.pdf I discovered that the key it is written in is D flat Major. 

From this, I decided that in order to create another three harmonies for my piece, I needed to first completely understand what the D flat Major scale is.

Now, since I understand what chords go into D flat Major, I decided to assign notes to each of the four parts (SATB). 

While I'm still not 100% sure on these notes, it is what I have decided on for now and may be subject to change as the project continues. 

Hit that note...

As well as writing my piece for my individual assessment, I have also been working on my singing, specifically reaching a higher register.  

Being a Soprano in choir means that I am expected to reach high notes and recently, I've been struggling to do so. Due to this, I decided to take matters in to my own hands and do daily warm ups to improve my muscle memory. To strengthen my muscle memory I decided working on scales would be a good start.




Firstly, I found this video which gives you different warm up techniques to do over a range of scales suited to a Soprano voice. 


After I found the first video, I decided to keep looking for more vocal warmups. I stumbled upon this video which again gives you techniques to do over scales. After taking a closer look, I discovered that there is a whole series of warmups by this account that work on scales. 

I then found a book called "Vocal Warm-ups: 200 Exercises for Choral and Solo Singers". Having looked through it, it looked like it offered the same things as the Youtube videos I had found. 

Having worked with the two videos for a week, I could definitely see the beginning of an improvement in my higher register. 

Vowel Sounds and Acapella...

As I said in my previous post, I plan to have the ATB (Alto, Tenor, Bass) selections singing vowel sounds in the chorus and then have then join the chorus with the Sopranos in tutti. 

To get a better understanding of using vowel sounds and how to make them have an effect on the audience when they aid the main vocal line, I looked at some Youtube videos. 

  


I have included this video, purely so you can see the changes in facial expressions when the vowel sounds change. Within this video, you can hear the different notes but similar vowel sounds just at different rhythms. This is what I am looking to do within my piece. 

Another idea I have had, is to write the piece without piano accompaniment and have it be an acapella piece. This would work due to my choice to use vowel sounds. 

To get an idea of how an acapella arrangement is successfully created, I decided to look at some Youtube videos of acapella. 



Pentatonix are an acapella group who have over 8million subscribers on Youtube. This video really impressed me, although I don't think the beatboxing will be achievable within my piece, the harmonising of the vowel sounds is definitely what I am looking to achieve within my piece.  



Having looked at Pentatonix, I decided to see if anyone had done an acapella version of Defying Gravity, I wasn't disappointed when I found this video. Although, I'll admit I cringed when I watched this video because of their unnecessary dance moves, the use of vowel sounds and harmony within this arrangement again have given me inspiration as to what I should do when I'm writing my piece.

Inspired Research...

Having decided that my Individual Music Assessment is going to be turning a song from my favourite musical Wicked into a four part harmony choral piece to eventually teach to my choir. 

First of all though, I decided to conduct some research into four part harmony pieces, specifically written for SATB arrangements. 

I looked at some of the sheet music we are using in choir such as One Day More, Seasons of Love and Sleep by Eric Whitacre. I also looked at a book that Hayley let me borrow by Gareth Malone called Voices. 

The photos aren't as clear as I'd like but from looking at these pieces of music, I have discovered that most arrangements for an SATB selection tend to have a solo, normally a Soprano, for the verses and then have the choruses in tutti which means "(Especially as a direction) with all voices or instruments together." (Oxford Dictionary). 

From looking at these different pieces of sheet music, I decided I was going to write my piece so the Sopranos take the lead, and the other three parts have vowel sounds to accompany and add effect to the lyrics, then at the chorus have everyone sing in tutti.

Inspired or Insipid?

https://soundcloud.com/sophie-carlson-uni/wallsend-community-choir-one-day-more

For my Individual Music Assessment, I have chosen to change a song from a musical soundtrack into a choral piece. 

As I am part of a choir, I look to them for a lot of inspiration - hence my individual assessment choice. As part of our rehearsal for our upcoming summer concerts and shows, we have been rehearsing One Day More from Les Miserables and Seasons of Love from Rent. Les Miserables is the most rehearsed of the two musical numbers we are rehearsing so I asked the choirs permission to record the rehearsal of the song to use on my blog and to use as inspiration when creating my own piece.

Obviously... They said yes... 

Girls Really Do Just Wanna Have Fun...

For our 70s piece we have chosen to take a well-known song by a female artist and turn it into a Glam Rock piece. The song almost fits with our theme of Women's Rights and Equality. The trouble I think we will face with taking a pre-existing song is changing the melody to suit a different genre. As the already existing melody is so well remembered and catchy, it will be difficult to change it and for the audience to recognise. 



To help overcome the dilemma of the melody, I showed the group another version of the song which uses a similar melody as the original but it has a twist to it. This helped a little bit as it stopped us going back to the original melody as much. 

Glam Rock...

For our 70s piece we are aiming to look at women's rights/equality and perhaps flipping the ideas that David Bowie and Kiss had with make-up. Since Kiss and David Bowie used a fairly feminine make-up idea, we thought maybe we could do the reverse of this and have a more masculine make-up idea for our performance. Some research to be done around this area is: the changes in women's rights, writing styles of Glam Rock artists - such as Blondie, looking into Art Rock and looking at Glam Rock artists such as Kiss, David Bowie, T-Rex, etc.

Motown Madness...

For our 60s inspired piece we have chosen to create a Motown song. Our research points around this idea are the portrayal of women, women in music - modern day artists like Emeli Sande, Paloma Faith and Amy Winehouse and Motown artists such as; The Supremes, Donna Summer, Gladys Knight and Tammi Terrell. We also need to look at the vocal techniques and style of these artists and other Motown artists. 

70s Music Genres...

I decided to take a look at the popular genres of the 70s to get a better understanding of the Music choices made within that time. 

70s Music Analysis...

Song/Artist/Date: Brain Damage/Pink Floyd/1973

List of Instruments: Guitar, Drums, Bass, Synth, Organ, Bells, Laughter (Voice)

Time Signature/Tempo: 4/4 Slow

Tonality/Key: Major Key

Genre/Style: Psychedelic/Prog Rock

Lyrical Meaning: It is believed that this song was partially inspired by Syd Barrett - a former Pink Floyd band member - who endured a mental breakdown. 




Analysing this song allowed me to look at what went into psychedelic rock songs and allowed me to be able to tell the similarities and differences between the other genres.

The Kinks...

We were given a research task to look at a rock band from the 60s. Donna and I researched The Kinks. We looked at some basic information about the band and their success and the influence of their music nowadays. 



This gave us an insight into The Kinks and the kind of popularity the musicians had in the 60s. 

60/70s Social/Cultural Changes...

As a beginning task for this module, we were asked to look at a specific topic of the 60s and 70s and do some research. I chose to look at the Social/Cultural changes of the 60s and 70s. 




This gave me an insight into some of the things that occurred during the 60s and 70s and means that I have a little bit of context towards the types of music that were popular in this time.