Music Composition Brief 2

Brief I will compose a minimalist piece (Area of Study 2) for two violins which will be performed at a school concert. This will be played during the interval and should demonstrate the abilities of the violin in a short amount of time through minimalist music. Compositional Process To start off with, I decided on the tempo of the piece. I chose to use Allegro at crotchet = 120bpm as the piece would feature short and simple loops and I felt that a reasonably fast tempo would be suitable, as the rhythm and the notes played were not too complicated. For the first section, only three notes are used in both violin parts for the first 8 bars: G and F in the first violin; and D in the second violin. The first violin played crotchets and the second violin played a semibreve tied over four bars. I decided to use a minimal range of notes for this section to keep everything simple to start of with. I decided to make the first violin play pizzicato as this thin texture contrasts with some of the later sections which are played arco. The next 4 bars consist of the first violin playing two sets of quaver loops: G, A, D and C; and F, G, A and B. I decided to use them with every second bar having the order of the loops reversed, (i.e.: GADC, FGAB, FGAB, GADC) as it would be more interesting than having the loops played continuously one after the other (i.e. GADC, FGAB, GADC, FGAB) whilst

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  • Level: GCSE
  • Subject: Music
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