Learning Adventure #1

This assignment challenged my memory of my times spent in elementary and junior high band. I learned to play the trumpet in fifth grade and continued through the ninth grade, all under the tutelage of Gerry Marsh, a real tyrant at times but clearly passionate about music and developing students to play as a band. During my time playing trumpet I learned to read sheet music, which I think put me at some advantage for this assignment, as I understood the notes, rests, and other notation. However, it had been a long time since I had read any sheet music. I became quite proficient at the trumpet, joining jazz band in ninth grade and playing first trumpet seat. I still have my trumpet but never really take it out. Oddly, I can still remember all the fingerings and I can read sheet music. If my embouchure, or facial muscles, were in any shape I could probably still blow decently. However, I never learned to improvise, unfortunately.

Last spring I had learned, with the Tech Club that I lead, Apple's GarageBand in order to compose a soundtrack to the Lego stop-motion film that we made. I was familiar with the concept of building loops to create songs, and the fourth and fifth grade students working on the film quickly took to composing music for that project. I knew that the music teachers at my school also used the full version of Finale Note Pad but have been moving to using Sibelius more.

When I first learned that I had to compose a piece of music I envisioned creating something beepy and dissonant, "opaque melodies that would bug most people," as Captain Beefheart would say. I arranged with the music teacher to meet for ten minutes to take a look at the software together and see how it worked. I started by choosing a bunch of instruments thinking the software would be more like GarageBand. When I saw the sheet music I understood it to be different. Angela told me that I could hook up a USB keyboard and input music that way, but I never learned to play piano. She advised me to keep the instrumentation simple and it would be fun and not too overwhelming.

I started by having a snare, trumpet, synthesizer, and bass, but quickly canned that idea because I don't completely have the mind (yet) to write a piano line. The drum set in my second piece proved a bit too complicated as well. I decided on the third try to pick my instrument, trumpet, a trombone, which would be similar but play more of a bass line, and an acoustic bass. After that I really just jumped in. My previous two attempts had been in 4/4 time and seemed a little to close to a dirge, so I chose cut time for the third (I might be confusing musical terms). I decided that I wanted the trumpet to play mostly high lines with notes that blended using mostly 8th and 16th notes. The trombone and acoustic bass would follow using quarter and half notes, mirroring one another but the bass being slightly lower. I also tried to have the trombone echo what the trumpet was doing in stretches. While the trombone played 8th notes I would have the trumpet play longer whole or half notes. I tended to write two measures of the trumpet, play it back, then add the other instruments. I found that four measures for a "pattern" was long enough to communicate a feeling. There are three of these "patterns," then in the sheet music there is a repeat, which would take you back to the beginning of the song to play it over. The last four measures of the music would be played the second, final time through.

I was very happy with my effort. I think that it sounds like the national anthem for some high-tech micronation, and my wife agrees that it does sound high-tech. We'll call it an anthem for Freelardia, the area I inhabit overlooking Freemont and Ballard in Seattle. The composing experience was quite enlightening: I expected to have a very difficult time creating using sheet music. However, I found that the inclusion of sounds as one placed the notes on the sheet helped quite a bit. I definitely think that it helped that I knew how to read sheet music, how the different notes worked, and how to write a very, very basic song. I thought it would be very difficult to come up with a tune but it really just flowed once I started putting notes in the measures.

You can download and listen to "Josh's Song (Anthem for Freelardia)" in mp3 format here.