I already started composing when I was in elementary. Although I would love to share my work here, it appears that the compositions are lost in history. But to be fair, those aren’t my proudest works.
Elementary – Emergence of Passion
I still remember when I was young, I would occasionally sit in front of the family computer, open up Overture (a composition application), and just compose. It was a simpler time – I didn’t worry about structure, voice-leading, resolutions, or any other complex but important details. I just write down whatever that comes to my mind. People might think that it’s a representation of a more innocent time and start lamenting about how society has forced people to conform to norms. However, I was still an elementary schooler; I had no idea what I was doing; and transferring what was in my mind onto a composition application wasn’t a smooth process either. In the end, the product was something I would like to call “a cluster of notes”.
Those cluster of notes have their own uniqueness. Because I was still young, I longed for excitement, and music composition wasn’t an exception. I would fill my compositions with sixteenth notes – the fast-playing notes – and not put any rests in it. As a result, the composition looks even messier. Of course, little me didn’t know the power of putting rests or putting different notes in my composition, so it sounds very imbalanced. One thing I noticed in those earlier compositions is that they already sound somehow chromatic in some places, which would be reflected in a lot of my future compositions.
As parents who didn’t want to easily destroy my passion of composing, my parents, not surprisingly, told me I did a great job. I was happy to receive their compliment.
However, as much as I don’t particularly enjoy my very early compositions, it doesn’t necessarily mean that I despise those compositions. I was young, after all. I didn’t know how to make a composition with balance; I didn’t know how to write a striking melody; I didn’t understand how the icons in the application work. This was a period of the spark of passion. I developed a faint passion towards composition.
Middle to High School – Stagnated Development
During my middle and high school years, there was a lot of academic pressure on me. So, I didn’t have enough time to pursue my composing passion. There were only few compositions written during that period. However, some compositions actually pushed me to pursue a certain style of music.
When I was in summer school, the final project for my music class is to compose a piece (with little to none restrictions). I, aware of this opportunity to reignite my passion, composed a piece in 5/4. As opposed to the usual 4/4 beat in pop music, I went for an unorthodox 5/4 to emphasize the asymmetry in the composition. The composition is made up in three parts: A-B-A. The first part is focused on the C major whole-note scale, where I put a lot of augmented thirds in it. I would say this decision made me interested in continuing my path into a chromatic, near-atonal adventure. However, there was still quite an established key in the composition – C major – because of the emphasis on the bass and the use of C-major oriented (C-E-G#/Ab) augmented thirds. This composition in summer school unconsciously established the direction of my composition (at least for now). I also wrote other compositions, although those aren’t as atonal as the summer school one. There was one named “The Snowflakes”, which was a composition depicting the snow swiftly falling from the sky in winter. It’s in E major and was very diatonic – no complicated chord progressions – but had some irregular rhythms in the middle of the piece, involving a constant switch between 6/8 and 5/8, a compound duple and an irregular rhythm.
As I have mentioned, this period, although very stagnated in terms of production, actually established my direction of composition – a chromatic/atonal approach.
University – Finding My Own Style
Now that I’m in university, putting aside academic life, I start putting effort into composing again. Now that I’m more grown up, and that I have studied a good amount of music theory, I have a better grasp of approaching my compositions. Instead of just aimlessly and innocently clicking around in the application and being in constant amazement and confusion, I try to achieve consistency and creativity. I value consistency because it helps me establish my own style of compositions. People can listen to a piece and identify its composer relatively easily because of the consistency. Creativity is also important. Classical music has been developed for centuries. A lot of melodies, harmonies, and progressions have been thoroughly researched and expanded. The existence of 4-part harmony courses proves the thoroughness in the field of traditional classical music. Therefore, to compose a piece, one either has to further expand the harmony along the overtone series (from 4-part harmony to chromaticism to atonalism to the even more pioneering microtonalism, where there exists intervals less than a half step) or find more unique ways to play around with what we were currently comfortable with (4-part harmony till romanticism).
I chose the path of atonalism and chromaticism. I enjoy having a freer establishment of a tonic, which is little to none at all. In some pieces, the tonic is not strongly established and can be interpreted differently by different listeners. Although in some pieces the bass might give out strong hints of a key, the chord progressions and functional groups do not fit in – the key is established only because I used it in the beginning and the end, not because other chords are pointing towards it. This is, from my perspective, one way to play around with chromaticism. For atonalism, and even impressionism or minimalism, I would start develop those concepts along the way. For now, tonality still exists in my compositions, but I’ll eventually find a way into atonalism. Of course, in addition to atonalism, one of my compositions “Mount Universe” is my attempt on composing a minimalist piece.
Although it seems that I already know where I’m heading towards, I still need to firmly establish myself in those respective areas with my own style. However, since I am still relatively new to the field, it might take me a while to find my own style. Until then, I’ll continue composing to my heart’s content.
Yun-Fan Wu 