Beginnings and Endings

     Hi guys! I just wanted to talk a little about how the 4 pieces begun and ended. They all had the pattern of the end was grander or more majestic, except for the Adagio for Strings, which ended softly. The 2001: A Space Odyssey theme and the Adagio for Strings both started of softly and had louder parts in the middle. The Nutcracker and the Country Garden pieces both started loudly and suddenly and had a bouncy melody that as introduced in the first few bars. Those pieces also both ended loudly and majestically.
     I think that there are two main ways to begin: softly and getting louder, or Loudly and suddenly. There are also two ways to end: loudly and grandly, with a fermata on the last chord, or fading out to nothing.
I think I covered everything, so that's it.
-Simon_L

Final Piece

I would write a piece for all of our main instruments. (Piano, saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, bass clarinet, euphonium, etc.) I want it to be a cityscape of a sort. Jazzy street music, car horns key tapping for walking, maybe some wind at a point. It would span a whole day (Not last a day) going from morning to night. I think I would call it City Day. I am very good at creating original names like that. It would me maybe 3 minutes long, one minute for each time of day. It will start of quiet, and slowly build to a  busy morning. Bass clarinet an euphonium could be a boat horn that gets louder. Trumpet could be the street music. Piano could be birdsong in the morning. Clarinet could also do birds or help with jazz or car horns. Saxophone could be car horns or jazz. At night, there would be more car horns for rush hour. These are my basic ideas. The caveman composer was to show the basic technology. The rock can only play one note. The tuba thing doesn't seem to have valves, so it probably only has one note. Also, the cavemen are considered to be the loud grunting type, so the big not is probably played loudly.
I think that's all.
-Simon_L

This is the piece I selected. I can sort of play it on piano. It is called Fur Elise. It was written by Beethoven. The song was written about a lady named either Elisabeth Röckel or Therese Malfatti. It has threee main parts. The first one is the main theme and has a happy feel to it, the second one which is a little bouncier, and the third one which has a sad feel to it. Beethoven was probably thinking about all the aspects of this lady. The main theme is a happy part, so this lady was probably happy most of the time. The second one (the bouncy one) is when she felt excited. The third one is when she was sad. I think that Beethoven used a good set of notes for each part. Some of the notes clashed in the third part, which felt sad. I think that's it.
-Simon_L

$urpri$e Po$t!!

These are the answers to the questions about emotion:
1) When I feel surprised, I react in a big way. I often use words like "Whoa!!" or "WOW!!!" or crying (but only if it is a bad surprise, like your cat dying of cancer).
2) This is an emotion that starts slow and builds up quickly, like the theme from Jaws. I am thinking an intro with a lot of whole notes in a minor scale for 20 seconds, or a happy song for 20 seconds, followed by a second (the interval) at FFF. Then the song goes fast for a few seconds, and starts to die down.
3) The beginning would be legato and MP. It would build suddenly at the "surprise," and then die back down to silence. The surprise part would have carrot tops (the upside-down Vs) and the end would be a fermata at P.
That's it. Stay tuned for more!
-Simon_L

Hi Nichols Composers

Hi Guys,
Just set up my blog! This is cool and stuff. Yay.
-Simon_L