Category: Free Inquiry

I didn’t get much work done this week on my string quartet; however, I also didn’t intend to considering I’ve had about six projects/presentations due this week. So this week, I wanted to take some time to re-focus; do everything I need to do and get it out of the way. I intend to finish the string quartet over reading break, in addition to some other work. (I’ve been asked to arrange something for Vocal Jazz, so that’s exciting!!)

As a sign-off of sorts, the Wind Symphony is playing this Friday – and I wanted to share my favourite piece of the set! I think everyone is fairly familiar with Danzon No. 2 (if you aren’t, go check out Gustavo Dudamel conducting it), so I wanted to share probably the lesser known work and my personal favourite this concert cycle, With Each Sunset (Comes the Promise of a New Day) by Richard Saucedo. This is a gorgeous piece for wind band that’s actually pretty accessible for less-experienced players, and I can see myself using it for my own bands in the future.

I managed to finally write some stuff down this week based on the most recent ideas I had. It’s still in the early stages but I’m happy with it so far; I just need to figure out where to go with it. In ways it reminds me of Zelda (particularly Kakariko Village) though that was unintentional; although, with video game music being sort of my primary source of inspiration, it’s not entirely surprising either. I hope to complete it over winter break and maybe even have it played by one of my friend’s string quartets. Here’s an early version of Tranquil Raindrops!

Unfortunately this past week, I have not been doing a whole lot of work on my inquiry project. There’s been a lot going on, both in terms of my life and school. Over reading break, I’m just trying to grind out a bunch of the stuff that’s left for me to do this term so I don’t have to worry about it later. I definitely want to get to the string quartet eventually here, but I also have wind band, orchestra and other things I also want to look at – I trust that the ideas will come eventually.

On a brighter note, I’ve recently been published as a composer on Murphy Music Press!

https://murphymusicpress.com/products/w-1,195

I actually used that Microsoft Designer edited title page as the title page for my score too, haha. I’m very proud that I can call myself a published composer, and I hope to keep composing works and getting those published as well moving forward.

This past week I spent some more time noodling at the piano; my best ideas unfortunately came just as one of my classes was set to start so I had to record quickly and run to class before I was late, but I’m pretty happy with what I came up with. I was trying to incorporate more pedal initially, but ultimately I think this might end up being a more lighthearted waltz of some sort.

I think the bulk of this will be written over reading break at this point, but I also don’t necessarily want to rush anything. In listening back to my own recordings, I noticed similarities to some other pieces I have heard in the past as well:

Obviously with this string quartet with nature undertones, I think I’d want more Hisaishi than Giacchino, but the waltz element of it does lend itself more to that UP soundtrack. I might try and noodle a little bit more this week before settling on anything final.

This week I decided to noodle at a piano a little bit to try and get some ideas out. This is a usual part of my process when writing something – though I’ve been wanting to write something in 3/4, my mind seems to drift towards 4/4 and 6/8. It’s been hard to force myself into a 3/4 mindset, but I suppose that’s not really something I should be doing either; I am a firm believer that compositional ideas come naturally and you can’t really force it. Classical theory and guidelines help to structure an initial melody and harmonic structure, but only get you so far and I usually just end up scrapping anything I’m not particularly happy with. I’ve uploaded a recording of my noodling on the piano below:

I think I was pretty obviously inspired by a few things here. I was definitely inspired by the first movement of Cait Nishimura’s Lake Superior Suite:

I was playing around mostly in E major (I’m not a pianist so there were a ton of mistakes haha) and I recently had been listening to both of the following, which definitely also influenced what I was playing:

I’m not really sure where I want to go with this anymore – something nature-based but also inspired by romanticism? I think I’ll still have to noodle a bit more before coming to a final answer.

I haven’t made that much progress this week in terms of my composition. I think I’m still fishing for ideas a bit and this past week, assignments really ramped up so I haven’t had much time to think about this project. That said, in the bit of free time I did have, I came across a video on TikTok that talked about sustained chords and adding interest without actually changing the chord much. For example, an F chord with a Bb over it – and it’s such a pretty chord. There is so much beauty in simplicity. I think I’d like to incorporate similar ideas in my own work. I’m hoping to flesh it out more over reading break. In the meantime, here is the video I watched in question:

Until next week!

I’ve finally begun working on a string quartet this week – I’m looking to have it played by one of my friend’s quartets, and they have two cellists; thus I’m creating a score for violin, viola and two celli. I’ve dubbed it Tranquil Raindrops for the time being, and I think that’s ultimately the vibe I want to go for. I’ve been looking for inspiration in multiple places, like I’ve mentioned in past posts – Coldplay, Gareth Coker, among others. I’m not super happy with it just yet – I’d like to write something in 3/4 but I don’t think I have a super established core idea yet; I think I keep trying to write new ideas that end up being in 4/4 which obviously wouldn’t work, haha! Might end up writing something in mixed meter, who knows? I tried looking at some YouTube videos on writing string quartets but they seem very oriented towards traditional, classical-style string quartets, which isn’t necessarily what I’d like to write. I’ve included a sneak peek below of some of what I have so far:

Until next time!

This past week has honestly been a bit rough, mentally. When you’re in a tough place, it tends to be pretty hard to find motivation or inspiration in much of anything. But sometimes, it’s also good to let yourself feel what you need to feel.

I’m a huge Coldplay fan – I don’t hide it either. I went to their show a few weeks ago in Van, where they played almost all of my favourite tunes by them. They’re probably the one band where I can go to a concert and say “ohmigosh I know this one!!” to nearly every single song they play. That night, they just so happened to play Sparks. This is one of my top three favourite songs by them, if not in general, of all time. It’s a song that I come back to frequently when I’m down and just like listening to in order to settle a bit. I can listen to it in any situation, and though as a wind band composer, you might think that Coldplay’s music wouldn’t influence me, but I think it does. A lot. It may be more hidden than say Joe Hisaishi or Yoko Shimomura or Charlie Rosen, but every now and again, there’s a harmony, a bassline, a drum part, that’s ever so slightly inspired by Coldplay. Sparks is one song in particular that I believe I might draw on for a nature-inspired composition; its mellow bassline, a slow three-feel, the acoustics – everything about it is so calming, so soothing. It might be difficult, but it’s hard not to be inspired by those things, and admire how well they were able to create such a healing atmosphere.

I’m going to try and keep this blog post relatively short because I talked for fifteen minutes in my screencastify video below instead:

I realized while watching the video back that any sound playing was not recorded so I wanted to link some recordings to the music I played in the video below:

Thanks for stopping by! This was a fun one to do:)