To help me get going on what lyrics to use I asked my facebook friends to send me their favorite Psalm. I ended up getting MANY different ones. This gave me an idea---I took a verse from each one and made a "Collage of Psalms." I organized them into 3 sections (trinity--professor Hill's idea). each section will have a different mood: 1-Hynmlike, 2-Gregorian/fugal, 3-Gospel.
It's coming along---I did a ton of research for the first few weeks on writing for voice. Last week I had a bit of writers block. Today I hope to work on it some more.
In Orchestration I have to write a 2 minute piece. I have had this idea since I was very young. The first main idea of my piece comes from my Grandma Nancy. She loved to sing and enjoyed music. She died a few years ago due to Alzheimer's but even up to the end she could remember all of the words to songs such as "You Are My Sunshine." One fond memory of her is swinging on their back porch swing. She would sing a song that goes "swing, swing, swing, swing, Grandma and Hannah are swinging." This tune is the first theme that I'd like to use within the piece. I Google searched the tune and couldn't find anything about it so I called my mom. She told me that Grandma Nancy just made up the song and it was something that she would sing to us grandchildren and now my mom sings to her grandchildren. My idea is to have the first two measures played in the strings with a glissando to try to mimic a “swing” sound. The last two measures of the tune would be primarily played by the woodwinds (the clarinet was my Grandma Nancy's instrument.)
Like my grandmother, I was the type of little girl that would make
up songs and sing wherever I was. (Like the little girl in "Despicable Me--"Uni-uni-unicorn"...)The only song that I can remember is one that
I would sing while I was swinging on a big swing at the playground. The words
were "high up in the sky never touching the ground."
My
orchestral piece is to use these two “swing” themes from my childhood to
create a piece. I don’t plan on having lyrics, just the tunes. I would someday
like to make this into an entire orchestral piece, but for orchestration class I would like
to compose a condensed version of it or rather the main themes of it. Grandma
Nancy is one of the main reasons that I am even at DU for music, so I would
like to dedicate the piece to her.
