My compositions

Abyssal Depths - Myrto Tripkou

'Abyssal Depths' is a song I wrote over a long span of time. I wrote the first verse in the summer of 2019 with the help of my ukulele. At the time I used a completely different melody and I did not quite know the direction I wanted to take with the song and what the lyrics I had come up with really meant to me, so I put it aside until the time I would be ready again. Then in March 2021, almost two years later, I found the lyrics while skimming through my songbook and the first verse stood out to me; suddenly, I found meaning in the metaphor I had created. Therefore, I took that verse away from the rest of the song and tried to continue the metaphor of the sea.

Interpreting the song and finding a meaning behind the metaphor completely depends on the listener, as they decide what that song is for them. However, for me the song describes the feeling of being suffocated by insecurities and how on the one hand it feels easier to 'sink' in them than battle them, but on the other hand the more one gets caught up in insecurities, the more painful they become. In that sense, the song also portrays the attempts to reverse these insecurities and get rid of them and even though we may fall back into their trap, we realise in a state of emergency that something needs to be done against them. As a clarification, the water that flows into the river, the sea and eventually the ocean serves as a metaphor and climax for insecurities and their increasing nature. The abyssal depths describe the most unpleasant part of one's insecurities and their foundation, like the darkest section of an ocean, which is largely undiscovered and feared.

Writing this song allowed me to look at myself introspectively, without even acknowledging this aspect at first. Only with time did I realise what I had written about myself and it made me comprehend my sentiments more. This is an emotion I want to translate into the way I will produce this song and how its instrumentation will be set up, but for now, I only have an acoustic version of it.

Eternity - Myrto Tripkou

"Eternity" is one of my favourite compositions so far, because of its melancholic sound. It has a clash of consistency and variation through the ground bass, the changing melody and the use of different harmonies. The piece builds up a little more after every fourth measure until it reaches its peak with the 9th harmony. After that, the harmonies fade out just as they faded in until the piece reaches the same point it started at; it ends just as it starts. I wanted to compose a perfectly symmetric piece that expresses melancholic emotions and this is exactly the way it turned out: An orderly piece with a messy mix of emotions.

From the assignments page: "When we were assigned to do the Ground Bass composition task (submitted in May 2020) I knew that I wanted to do something that was close to an A Capella song, but with the piano, and that is what I did. The composition has one recurring arpeggiated chord progression as its bass or foundation, on which everything else builds up and eventually "builds down". It is actually perfectly symmetric and looks almost like a pyramid in the scores and as a track on GarageBand. Composing this piece was both fun and challenging, because I had many ideas, but the process of notating them was very long and frustrating. I decided to name my composition "Eternity", because it sounds like it continues eternally due to its foundation, despite having many changes throughout the whole piece in its dynamics, intensity and "tension". It almost mirrors the way in which life sometimes feels like an eternity, because things might be changing all the time, but life itself remains the same in its essence. The sudden ending is something that was intended, as a way to take the listener by surprise, but also to end it exactly like it began, in order to maintain the symmetry. Personally, I am very happy with the way it turned out, but I know that the audio recording has some issues with the synchronicity of some notes and the sound of the loop. This is something I want to improve as much as possible in the future when I will re-record it."

Footprints, Tango - Myrto Tripkou

This is a composition I made in March 2019 as an assignment, but its value in goes beyond that in my eyes. Despite being a very simple piece I find it (by which I mostly mean the piano part) very special, because it reminds me of old Greek cinema with its nostalgic tone. It also encouraged me to start composing more.

From the assignments page: "For this assignment, that was handed in in March 2019, we had to compose a piece in the key of C, which would accompany the lyrics of the poem "A Psalm of Life" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Out of instinct and interest, I chose to compose my piece as a nostalgic, but hopeful Tango, with music of old Greek cinema as my source of inspiration. Before this task I was not very proud of my compositions and I was always reluctant to show them to my friends, which eventually made me scared of composing. However, through this task I managed to overcome that feeling of mine, because I saw what I am capable of, even if it is something simple. I recognised that I should not shy away from composing, especially since it gives me a sense of peace."