When I thought of what I wanted to create my composition for, I had several ideas: sunrise, sunset and stars. After thinking, I decided to create a soundscape for stars, which is something I really love. When I searched for stars in my memories, I immediately thought of the night when I travelled to Banff in grade 5. I looked up to the sky and saw the sky full of stars, which is something that I’ve never seen before because it is hard to see stars in a city. Through my soundscape, I wanted to replicate the feeling that I had when I saw the sky full of stars. Below is a photo online that is similar to the sky that I saw.

In order to express my feeling, I will be using a major key, and I will also use instruments that have bright sound, such as flute. The general style of my piece will be light and relaxing. In terms of the structure of the piece, I think I will start quiet, which is the feeling of sunset, when the stars are not visible yet; build up as the sky gets darker; then reach a climax, which is the time of the night with the most stars; and go back down, as the sun rises, and stars disappear.

To start quietly, I will be playing the 4 chords in long notes using piano in the middle range. To build up, I will be slowly adding strings and a little bit of flute. I will also be playing the notes shorter and expanding the range. For the climax, I will be using the flute as the main part, likely in the higher range and having strings and piano in the background in the medium and lower range. Going back down, the notes will be longer, the flute will slowly disappear, the range will narrow down and piano and string will become the main sound like the start.

In what ways does your soundscape composition successfully express the ideas outlined in your proposal? Explain using specific examples as evidence.

I was able to follow the general structure that I wrote in my proposal by starting quiet and continuing to build up, reach a climax, go back down, and end quietly. In addition, I was able to start with the piano playing the chords in whole notes and changing the length of the notes as it builds up. I also used the flute as the main part during the climax and had piano and strings in the background.

In what ways could your soundscape composition be improved to better express the ideas outlined in your proposal? Explain using specific examples as evidence.

While I was able to follow the general structure, I think I could do better on developing my ideas further and giving every instrument its own voice. For example, in the middle part of the composition, lines except for the flute had similar rhythms and the individual lines can be further developed to make the ideas more interesting. For the flute part, I could also develop the ideas further to make them more connected.

What are your thoughts on having a specific set of chord progressions for your entire music? Did you find it easy or difficult to work with only those four chords? What are some pros and cons of working with a set of chord progressions?

I think having only one chord progression in the entire music is more challenging compared to being able to use any chord to compose. Only having four chords means that the notes that I can use in my composition are also limited, which makes it very hard to think of a good musical idea while making sure that there isn’t a clear melody in the composition. An advantage of working with only one set of chord progressions is that it helps me to put more focus on building up instead of focusing on creating a melody. On the other hand, it is also very challenging to create a good composition with just four chords.