Professional Documents
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Time Elapsed: 1 hour
Location: Band Room
Today I decided to look through Scho’s music (solo music for all of the
instruments in band and then some). I went through every folder for every instrument at
least once maybe twice, and finally decided on seven pieces: three for the xylophone, one
for the baritone base clef, one for tuba, and two for the alto saxophone. They all had piano
accompaniments but to them, which gave me an idea of what sort of accompaniment I
wanted.
Date: February 27, 2008
Time Elapsed: 1 1/2 hours
Location: My home
I have just finished watching the movie “Requiem for a Dream” for my own
leisure and I believe I just heard the song I want to use for my project. It’s titled “Lux
Aeterna” (Eternal Light in Latin) and after I downloaded the song to hear once more, I
had to search out the sheet music. It took a while, and a few pages of Google, but I did
manage to find a piano arrangement, which looks like it might work. I then research all I
could find on Clint Mansell, the composer of the piece and all information I could find on
the song. It helps to know all there is to know about a piece when working so closely to it.
The original piece was written for a string quartet, but all I could find was a piano piece,
which shouldn’t cause too much of a problem.
Date: February 28, 2008
Time Elapsed: 15 minutes
Location: The band room
I met with Mr. Schofield, my mentor, today. I was just simply showing him my
piece and asking him basic questions. I told him that I wanted it to be a clarinet solo and
he suggested that it have an accompaniment part with it. I didn’t really want it to be piano,
and I voiced that opinion, because I was using piano music for my project. Scho
suggested the vibraphone, because I’ve been playing vibes since I joined the drumline and
he said that it’d fit with the mood.
Date: February 4, 2008
Time Elapsed: 2 1/2 hours
Location: My home
I began to transpose my music today. I began by transposing the base clef part into
the treble clef part for the accompaniment in the key of C, which would require me to
remove to flats and take the music up two half steps. Since I don’t really know much
about what I’m supposed to be doing, I pulled out my music theory book, a chords book,
and a paper keyboard. After I was about halfway through, though, I realized that I had
forgotten to remove the two flats from the music, so I had to go back and transpose the
flats out of the music. After I had finished with the accompaniment part, I began on the
clarinet part, but I got extremely confused and had to set it aside until I could talk to Scho
on Monday.
Date: March 11, 2008
Time Elapsed: 15 minutes
Location: The band room
I asked Scho about my music today. He asked me what I was planning on doing
and I told him that I wanted to transpose the piano music out of the key of Bb and into the
key of C. After that, I wanted to transpose it into a different key, possibly Eb or F#. He
seemed all right with that, and then proceeded to explain to me what I needed to do,
which started to seem so overwhelming. This project is beginning to become more and
more stressful.
Date: March 15, 2008
Time Elapsed: 1 1/2 hours
Location: My home
After I had both parts correctly transposed in the key of C, I began to transpose it
into another key of my choosing. I hit a speed bump though when I discovered that it was
a bit different that what I was used to. Normally, I just transposed notes for a Bb
instrument but now I was forced to transpose piano music in the key of C into clarinet
music in the key of A. I began transposing the music back down 3 halfsteps using the
same methods as before until I realized that the piano is a different keyed instrument that
the clarinet. So, with a small amount of frustration, I simply finished incorrectly
transposing the clarinet part. Then, I pulled out all of my music theory work and began to
study again.
Date: April 18, 2008
Time Elapsed: 15 minutes
Location: The band room
I met with Scho today. We decided to play what I had written out; him on the
piano, me on the clarinet. We only got through two notes though when Scho noticed that
the notes didn’t sound right. We looked over everything and Scho discovered that I had
begun transposing incorrectly, and therefore he had given me incorrect instructions as to
what I was supposed to do. So, with a bit of yelled obscenities, I began to fix the music,
but I was discouraged and frustrated and couldn’t do it at the time.
Date: April 20, 2008
Time Elapsed: 10 hours
Location: High school art room
I decided to spend the day with my friend who was also working on her senior
project in the art room. I brought all of my work and decided that I was going to finish
everything today. Throughout the day I worked on my music and I studied more music
theory, as well as doing more research about my song and composer. I even did research
about the movie “Requiem for a Dream” in order to find which variations to add or
subtract from my piece. We started at about 10 o’clock in the morning, and I decided to
call it a day on my project at about 8 o’clock. All in all, I felt extremely accomplished
with myself after I finished the piece. There was some frustration throughout the day,
with my transposing incorrectly and having to go back and figure what I did wrong in
order to fix it, but everything went fairly smoothly.
Date: April 22, 2008
Time Elapsed: 45 minutes
Location: My home
I began to look for a program to write up my music today. It took a bit to find a
program that was free and that ran on a Mac, but I managed to do so and I decided on
Finale Notepad. After a bit of fiddling around in order to learn the ropes, but after I had
an idea of what I was supposed to do, I had a lot of fun putting the music together. I had
to cut my fun short though because I had to work, but I finished off the day with a rough
final draft of my music.
Date: May 3, 2008
Time Elapsed: 15 minutes
Location: My home
I am freaking out right now. I have to give my senior project dress rehearsal
tomorrow and I can’t get my MIDI file on my iPod for the class/judges to hear. I’ve been
fighting with Finale and iTunes, but I just visited the F.A.Q. on the Finale website, and I
found out that iTunes actually just needs to import the music. I was freaking out a little
bit, but I got everything figured out and my project is now officially complete. I might go
back and touch things up or add things at a later date, but for now, I have “Lux Aeterna”
arranged by me.
Total time to completion: 18 hours and 15 minutes