Date for Entry: (Unknown./Forgotten)
[March 2018]
Actual Date of Online
Entry: (Monday 24th
January 2022)
Dear
Diary,
I once belonged to a Facebook
Group for music composers and came across a challenge to create a piece of
music. Since it was music and composition, I just had to click the link and go
into the literature. I became familiar with the name of the person responsible for
it. His name was Matt Ellul and he was deeply into music. I created a two-page
document with all of the instructions so that I could begin working on it once
the inspiration came.
Over some time, I began to see
the image of a lady out in a forest in the middle of the night with a girl
sitting on a bench. The painting I did to recreate it was not even close to what
I saw in my mind. I realised that the woman I drew was an older and grown
version of Carla from the “Magical Creatures” novel I was doing.
In the composition of the piece,
I did not have a strategy or any plan or idea. I allowed the music to sing
itself into my mind and then tried hard to notate it out onto the Musescore
grand staff. It had to be piano as the required instrumentation and a minimum
of one minute.
There was a four-bar phrase given
to use that was to be used to end the song. Somehow, my mind was using it as a
motif and I questioned if I was using it to do some sort of Rondo Form. I had
to convert the grand staff from harpsichord to piano off and on. The sound of
the piano did not do much justice to the notation. Because of this choice, I
suppose this was the reason why Matt ended up commenting that “is introduced immediately
but is an introduction to a new theme. and as
you hear, that theme slowly evolves into familiar territory.”
Several persons were submitting
their compositions to Matt. We had a deadline to meet by the 3rd of April
2018. Once that was done, we began to see persons sharing recordings of their
pieces in the comments section of Matt’s post in the two or three groups that I
was in.
This was the first time I decided
to use YouTube for music sharing. I had no experience at all. Honestly, I did
not research how to do YouTube video upload either. I also did not know at the
time how to create an Mp3 from Musescore. I sat with my phone and had the house
closed in tight to record it from the software playing at a medium volume but
thankfully the audio was good.
During one of my waiting times
for class to be in Studio 4 at DCFA, I thought that it would be VERY
unacceptable to send a video with the music recording and a blank screen. That was
where I got the idea to do the painting for the piece of music. I hope that
this goes well. It is not to win anything but we did it for the love of music
creations.
[UPDATE]
As this was being my very first
piece of music on YouTube, all other compositions of mine in future taken on
the same approach. There would be a video with the recording and a painting to
represent what is happening in the music.
In a few weeks to come, after the
submission, there was a YouTube video with the same name as the composition challenge.
As soon as I woke up, I saw the video ‘floating around in the group’s section.
The video was short and timed. Not much feedback but I was still happy to try
out the piece (see 15:00). In some years after, this piece was taken for my novel as one of
the music compositions.
Link(s):
- Destination Known Feedback & Critiques.
Daryl Zion M. Ali
