Composing for Spaces & Places

On the 12th January, my instrumentalist had their last rehearsal before the performance coming on the 15th January and it was my first time hearing all the performers together as one. After going through my composition, I have found out that it was not organised very well and had to change a few things while we rehearse the piece. I have had to change the meaning for one of the signal cards, added areas to use the whistle as a signal to start and stop and change up some of the choreography. To my surprise we managed our time efficiently and now the piece is coming together. 

On the 7th January 2019, I showed a 10 minute presentation to my lecturer and peers about my composition from the beginning of October to the end of December. I have covered the Historical background about the specific site I composed for and the challenges I faced through creating the composition. I had missed a few important points to mention, however at the very end of the presentation I was given another 5 minutes to answer everyone's questions and luckily they asked about the missing points such as why I chose the specific instruments and why I composed the piece the way I have written it. If I could retake the presentation, I would organise the presentation in a clearer order and give myself enough time to breath as I believe that I rushed my speech. The good points about my presentation is that I gave an example of what instrument technique is used for the guitar, an example of an existing piece that I used for inspiration and drew a diagram of the choreography of my perform...

During the Winter Holidays, I gave some time to have look at my composition to see if there was anything I could improve on. If you look at the images below of my composition, I have changed the layout. The instrument I have included is a cymbal which I will play using a bow (this is to create a metal rail like sound). A train whistle and a normal whistle will be used within the composition and there will be some theatrical features in it. Actions involve the singers to do something such as walking beside the train, changing dynamics and tempo, and playing their percussion instruments. I have set new instructions for the guitarist which involve changing the ambient sounds produced by the pedal. Before the Christmas holiday, I struggled on finding percussion instruments for the singers because the loan centre did not have the instruments I needed for this composition. Luckily I managed to find the instruments in the Wilberforce building which are used for primary and secondary education...

According to the Streetlife Museum in Hull, the idea of transportation started off with horses pulling the carriages on the rails to get to destination. But as technology developed, the first few trains appeared on the rails but was not as fast as the trains we have today. About 75,000 people worked on the rails both male and females in the late 1800 and early 1900, and a total of 3,000 people were from Hull. After finishing the railways it affected the time because people who lived around Cornwall and Wales had their clocks set an hour ahead of people who lived in the East side of England, which therefore to fix this problem was to have one set time for every part of England so that train times were not confusing and you wouldn't need to change your watch as often. The reason for building the railways was so that distribution of goods were arriving on time and faster, in time people also wanted to travel and wanted to expand their businesses where people could not reach by foot. ...

The main ideas I want the flautist to do is to create 'the voice of the wind'. Ideas such as 'white sound', the iconic bend and vibrato in old eastern asian movies, and tongue slapping to create harsh notes. As for the guitarist, I want them to use an electric guitar to be able to make bell sounds, the sound of an engine and the sound of a train in the composition. This means the guitarist is required to play with a pedal as they will need to have control of the volume. I have no knowledge on how to write tab music, but I have tried my best to write for it. Here are the images for all parts including the singers:

In this update I will talk about the score for singers. In this composition, the requirement for the singers is to be able to perform while hitting a percussion instrument as they walk beside a train to get to the front of the train. like I said before the idea of using percussion instruments is to create the image of men working on the rails coming into Hull. All this is the first section, or the Action 1 written in the score. In Action 2, the singers will sing in rounds with the lyrics; "We're going on a journey, to somewhere we don't know. It may take us forever, we have some things to show. To trade and share with everyone", as they follow the flautist. These lyrics represent the passengers talking on the train as people used this transport to get goods and trade it with other people in the UK, even if they didn't know what the area they are going to is like. For this section, I was inspired by train signals to use my own signals by using coloured cards. Ea...