Done

I'm kind of sad it's over. It was a great experience, writing a way too long song and boring everyone out of their seats. I liked my piece though, and I suppose that's all that really matters. The best part of the project though was hearing what everyone else had done. It was really cool and everything that was done was amazing. I loved it. When someone wasn't doing their best, we'd cheer really loud for them and had a fantastic time and enjoy all the learning and music everyone created. It was one of the best experiences in band I've had.

Finally!!!

I finally finished writing the piece!! I'm so happy that I'm done with all of that work. I have to give a special thanks to my sister who wrote the left hand up on noteflight. The cool thing about that website is that it can play what you've written and my piece was a lot better than I thought it would be. I thought it sounded fantastic and I'm really excited to start playing it and then record. Another thanks to my sister. She's going to be the one playing the piano with me. I can't wait to see how good it sounds!!!

Piano

Adding the piano part is a pain. I had earlier tried making up random chords that sounded good but apparently didn't work. I had no idea of what scale or chord that should use and that fit with the note it was playing with. Thankfully, my flute teacher plays the piano and figured out that that was what my problem was. So, after an hour and a half of working on that in band, I officialy wrote two lines and a measure. I'm hoping it sounds good so I don't have to workshop the right hand as well. I think it will be fine but I should and will prepare myself for having to work on both.

Yeah!!

Finally, finally, finally!!! I finished the top part of my solo. It's only two pages but I think it's great. I'm in love with it and now all I have left to do is work on the piano which I have a vague idea of what I'm going to do for that. If you want to right music, I suggest using Noteflight because it rocks. It gets your music down neat and orderly and, you can print it out. Anway, it was great to work on. I'm so excited about my piece and I can't wait to play it with the piano!!!

Home front

I honestly don't know if it's the atmosphere at home, but whenever I'm here, I can't do anything on my piece. It's either everyone is making too much noise, I hit a block in the music, or I don't know how to do what I want to do. This time, it's the first and the third. My family just got home from my sister's soccer game while I was working in piece and they started bumping around and talking. It doesn't help. As well as that, I don't know how to write quick angry music. Especially on the flute. To me...well...I gues I've never played an angry piece on the flute. Nothing harsh sounding anyway. I've played, haunting, sad, happy, excited, lovely, but never ever angry. Therefore, I don't know how to write a song that sounds angry. It's really giving me a lot of trouble. Perhaps I'm over-analyzing the whole song writing thing and how the melody is supposed to be intermixed and all that hooha, which it really is, but my melody is slow and sad, and I don't know if I can make it sound angry. It's really hard. I have slow and sad in the bucket though; piece of cake.

Finally (I love my flute teacher)

I had a flute lesson at 7-o-clock and it was the most progress I've gotten done. My teacher explained chords so well. She said a lament typically has a moving base so I added that. Also, she wrote out what I'd done so far on a clean sheet of paper, neatly, and in pencil. So, I discovered that if you look back at the ideas you've written down and neatly put them in order on a clean sheet of paper, all of a sudden, the song seems so much clearer. I also advise that if your writing a song, use pencil because when you use pen, you have to scribble things out left and write and the paper you're using doesn't look like it has notes on it any more but a bunch of random dots and lines. Use a pencil. Anyway, it was nice to wrap my head around my music and were I'm headed seems so much clearer.

Band Yesterday

Oh. My. God. It is soooooo hard to write a song. Yesterday, I spent more than half of the period rewriting what I'd already written so it sounded better and because I didn't like it. I have no idea what to expect out of this but the song is a page and a half on really thick lines so in reality, it's probably 3/4 of an acual page. It's impossible though. I put so much effort into it and all I got out was about 6 new measures. I'm really testing myself by adding a piano part and I honestly don't know that much about chords seeing as I play a one-note-at-a-time instrument. It's really fun to write though, even if it is mentally taxing. I love working on it, it's just really hard. I figured out the general melody of the song. I figure that's a good start. I have some of the piano done, though I'm not sure how it sounds. The solo line is going fine. There are scribles on my entire page and I'm totally bemused by the entire project but I think it's coming along fine.

Story

Some of you, if anyone is bothering to look at this page, might wonder why I didn't mention anything from band yesterday. Well, I wasn't there. It's quite a story. I was in gym, first period, playing football. While I was reaching for the football being passed I was wiped out with an elbow. That elbow whacked me in the mouth and I started, as in my gums, started bleeding like crazy. I went to the bathroom to rinse out the blood and found that my teeth were wiggly. I could move my front teeth back and forth and they shouldn't be able to do that. So, my dad picked me up from school to take me to the dentist to see if I'd fractured my teeth or done anything else that was damaging. They said no fracture, but I'd loosened my teeth and they had been pushed back in mouth a centimeter. It grossed me out and still does. Anyway, from there I went to the orthodontist to get my braces fixed up. In the process of being whacked, my wire had been knocked haywire and when they took it out of my bleeding mouth, it was all bent and twisted. It was then they decided that if I hadn't had braces, I would have lost both of my front teeth. I didn't ever think I would say this but sometimes braces can be better than having them off. So, basically, my gums are red and blue, I can't play soccer because if I get hit in the face again I WILL lose my teeth which I would rather not do, I have an annoying lisp, and I have to take advil twice a day or else my gums throb and my lip (top) swells up and I can't eat. I haven't discovered if I can play my flute or not but I really hope I can because I'll be marching in the Homecoming Parade whether I can play or not.

Writer's Block

I'm having a really hard time concentrating. I have to put the practice pedal on the piano, it's a muffler, and when you use it, the note come out all distorted and it's impossible to hear what your playing. My sister is playing music in the other room and I can't concentrate. As well as that, I can't think of what notes to put on the page or how I want the music to go. It's kind of like art. You got to create at least three times to get it looking (or sounding) okay. I don't want to start over but maybe it will give me a fresh start. Maybe not. I'll try keeping what I have and see if I can come up with something to put that will add a tie in the music. My problem is that the notes don't seem to be flowing together but I can't tell because SOMEONE'S music is more important then mine which isn't true at all. I've written a few notes today and revised a couple as well. I've written about half a page. Possibly a little more but I can't think right now. It's a really fun project. I never thought I would ever motivate myself enough to get notes put down on paper. It takes a lot more concentration and energy then I ever would have thought.

Started!

I gotta say that writing music is a LOT harder than I thought it would be. I sat in front of the piano at band for an hour and a half and wrote three lines of music. That was it. I was unsure of what do with the piano chords and other lines that the piano would play then, bam! Along comes Mr. Matthys with his amazing talents and looked over my first few lines with me. He played chords to my solo line and it was beautiful. It seriously made my piece sound way better than it did with just one note playing at a time. Also, he gave a few suggestions for what notes should be changed and what they should be changed to as well as the key I was writing in. After he came over, everything made more sense.
I think I should give a little more background about the piece I'm writing. So, I just read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and I realized that in the movie, they totally left out Fawkes singing his heart out after Dumbledore died which gave me the idea for writing the song. The first part of the song will be when Dumbledore died; the second will be Harry running after Snape and fighting (this part will be faster and louder, more battleish); and the last part will be Harry looking at Dumbledore's fallen body, everybody realizing he's dead, and Fawkes, circling the night sky mourning for his lost master.

As shocking as this might seem to some, I have come upon a sudden inspiration to change what I'll be doing for the google project. My inspiration came from Howl's Moving Castle and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. The first is a movie I fell in love with that had this amazing theme song, the other is from the book. One chapter. When Dumbledore died and his pheonix cried into the night and from then on, was never heard from again. Howl's Moving Castle inspired me to write a song and Harry Potter gave me a topic to compose about. Hopefully it will be up to the standards I'm expecting for myself. Fawkes was a wonderful bird and I imagine his cries to be long, drawn-out, and beautiful. I'll make sure the song I write isn't just a bunch of whole notes tied together but that might be part of it. IDK. It will be good though and I'm really looking forward to composing a piece of music.

The Start of the Project

In band, for the google project, I will be finding 12-16 glass bottles, filling them with water, and blowing across the top to make a sound. Hypothetically, the amount of water and the hight of the bottle will make a difference in pitch. With this idea in hand, I plan to tune those bottles to the c scale and play a song that I will be writing. To make it more interesting, I might mix around the liquid I use to see if it makes a difference in the sound; if it rings more, is more full, or maybe even breathier. Anyway, this should capture my attention and will hopefull broaden my experiences with tuning (like having a better ear which I seriously need) and my music writing skills.

So far, I've written about 2 lines of the song and still don't know where I'm going to come across so many glass bottles. Working it out though!!!