I was very excited to learn that our school invited Miss Wei Lai, a composer, to guide our composition project in the music class near Christmas.
For nearly two hours, Miss Wei gave comments and suggestions on the work of each student in the class. The whole class not only learned new ideas to improve one’s composition but also gained fresh insights on composing by listening to the teacher’s comments on other students’ works of different styles.
This lesson also provided me with a deeper understanding of composition. For example, I found that when I felt at the stage that I had no inspiration and did not know how to develop the melody further, I did not need to rush to create new melodies but could review my existing materials and further decorate and develop the melody created at this stage with various compositional devices. Plus, I could distribute the original melody to other instruments to produce different timbre effects to give the melody different textures.
Miss Wei told us that famous composers in history, such as Tchaikovsky, were masters in this field. They often created a beautiful piece by simply developing a motif. In other words, these composers are masters of repetition. They could create impressive works with complete structures by presenting a musical motif differently.
From now on, I would also apply the composing skills I have learned from this lesson and try to bring in my imagination and creativity to compose around one single melodic motif.
- Article | Sherry Zhong
