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Framing musical creations around stories

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Framing musical creations around stories

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Incorporating musical storying is an approach to creating/composing for senior secondary students

Using this approach as a basis for developing musical ideas gives students tools to authentically and creatively adapt their stories into music, resulting in the creation of musical works

This idea is applicable to:

o All musical styles - popular, jazz, art music, folk, world music

o All modes of musical creation, from ‘real’ instruments to electronically generated sound sources

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·      Program music

·      Film music

·      Game music

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It is important for students to keep a journal of the compositional processes, as compositional statements are required for most composing subjects at senior secondary level. The journal:

o can be written or voice recorded

o  should include sketches and musical ideas

Include:

o   Initial ideas and inspiration

o   Decisions at different stages of the process

o   Musical fragments and/or written fragments, sound bites or any other musical ideas.

The journal can be useful to inform changes in compositional direction.

It is a place to revisit if the student decides to back-track to earlier thinking about the piece.

The journal can be used to assist in writing accompanying written reflections for both the VCE and the IB students

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Musical elements and compositional devices

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Musical elements and compositional devices

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·      As the student gains experience and expertise greater consideration of the musical elements and compositional devices can be incorporated into the creating process.

·      Alongside more common compositional devices (including repetition, variation, contrast and transition as explicitly included for VCE Composition), compositional devices including augmentation, dimunition, inversion and retrograde can also be explored, manipulated and incorporated

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From this point students develop and experiment with their motifs. This may involve:

o   Development of motifs into melodies

o   Creating longer themes

o   Rhythmic experimentation and exploration

o   Adding countermelodies

o   Harmonic contrasts

o   Musical mood changes

o   Use of articulation, tempo, and time signatures

·      All of the above contribute to building the musical story.

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Steps 4 & 5 can be considered concurrently.

·       Once the motifs/themes are set, and structural and textural ideas are considered, students explore and experiment with ideas related to harmony

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It’s important to remember that musical texture is understood differently in different curricula (VCE, IB).

Once students have developed motifs for their characters they can explore other ways of presenting the motifs and ways of winding them together using musical texture:

o   Monophony, homophony and polyphony can be explored as students use the interactions in their narrative to create their musical storying

o   Students can consider thick or thin textures as well.

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Step 3: Develop a structure for the piece

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Step 3: Develop a structure for the piece

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·      Using the narrative as a guide, decide on a structure for the piece:

o   Binary, ternary, rondo, through-composed, sectional,

·      The student could use a storyboard here, as they might when making a film, or music for a game

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Step 2: Motifs/themes for the characters · 

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Step 2: Motifs/themes for the characters · 

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Students now develop musical motifs/themes that will reflect the identified affective aspects of the characters. Think about:

o   Mode/scale

o   Rhythmic aspects (staccato, legato, cohesive/angular)

o   Melodic shape

o   Length of the motif/theme

o   Sound sources

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To start, students need to develop a narrative that will be adapted into a musical work

o   Using a stimulus word, for example ‘mystery’, develop a main character and 2-3 other characters

o   Develop a basic story around these characters

·      At this stage the narrative should be easy to follow, however, as the work develops there can be the inclusion of side plots and ideas

·      Isolate the different characters in the story and allocate affective elements to each

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At this level it is assumed that students:

·      Read and write music

·      Have an understanding of the musical elements

·      At VCE level, understand the concepts of Repetition, Variation, Contrast and Transition

·      Have access to working with music technology, especially a notation program