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Sunday Night Blues
by Brooke Mooney, grade 6, The Grammar School
Teacher: Alli Lubin

Comment posted by Erik Nielsen, composer mentor:

Dear Brooke,

Thank you for posting the beginning of your trumpet melody. You have a number of questions and the best thing I can do at this early stage is to try my best to answer them right off and see where that takes us.

I like the title very much. However, I must confess that the first 3 bars you've written don't sound terribly bluesy to me. Part of the reason is that the blues is often in swing rhythm, that is, with uneven eighth notes, whereas what you have is in straight eighth notes. If you want to hear the difference, in Sibelius go to Create>Tempo and when the cursor appears type in Swing. The playback will automatically make the eighth notes uneven and you'll hear what I mean. If you like that, keep it. If that's not what you want, get rid of it. I just want you to hear what a melody in swing sounds like. It will certainly sound more bluesy.

In terms of the key, C works fine and the trumpet (and all brass for that matter) can play in that key. The trumpets and horn are transposing instruments, meaning that in order to get a C they must play another note, but that's not an issue once the parts are transposed, which Sibelius can do for you easily. So C is a fine key, in other words.

There are two things which concern me about what you've written so far. The first is that the melody doesn't have a real center at the beginning. It jumps from note to note like a bird without a nest in the first bar. After that you establish C quite well, but I'd suggest that you at least change the second note to an E as that will gives us a C chord in the first 4 notes of the piece, which will help a lot.

My second concern is that the melody uses only one rhythmic value, eighth notes. In order to give the melody character, using a pattern of rhythms will make the tune easier to remember and give you some real melodic ideas which you can use throughout the piece. For instance, if you used four eighths and then a dotted quarter and eighth in the first bar and then repeated the rhythm in the second bar but with some different pitches, you'd have already established a rhythmic pattern which would shape the melody and give it character. So think about this and try to create some patterns which will give your tune a real identity.

Brooke, your melody has the potential to be effective. Now you need to work to figure out what you want your piece to do and try to give the melody some character in rhythm and pitches which will make the mood you're trying to create clear. I look forward to your next posting.

Best wishes,

Erik Nielsen

Comment posted by Peggy Madden, composer mentor:

Hi Brooke - You made great use of Erik's suggestions. I think your melody works very well and the rhythm is great!

It is unclear to me just what you are thinking of as the A and B section. Is everything you've posted so far part of the A? That's what I'm thinking, but I want to be sure that you are thinking the same thing before I respond to your question.

You really can use any of the other instruments to accompany your melody. Right now I see that you have a brass quintet. Do you plan to use all of those instruments?

What I hear as a great beginning for an accompaniment to what you have is a descending quarter note line beginning on a C and played by one (or maybe even 2) of the lower instruments. This could work for 7 notes and then maybe on the eighth note jump up to a G. Maybe if you like this it will help you with ideas of what else you might do.

Good luck with your composition - you are off to a great start!

Peggy

Comment posted by Erik Nielsen, composer mentor:

Dear Brooke,

Thanks for posting the first revision of your piece. I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. You have done a really nice job revising your melody and then adapting it for horn in the second statement. Peggy has given you a really good idea for what's called a walking bass line to accompany the melody. It could be modified to accompany the horn as well.

Peggy asks a very good question about the instrumentation. You might consider making this a piece for a trio such as tuba, horn and trumpet. That way you'd have a bass instrument as well as a middle-range and a high-range instrument. Tuba can handle walking bass lines really well. In addition, when the horn has the melody you could use the trumpet to play short notes, such as staccato quarters, with some rests in between in a pattern like this: note rest rest note and then repeat the pattern but changing pitches as necessary. It's the sort of idea which fills in nicely behind the melody and helps out the rhythm but doesn't call too much attention to itself.

As to the drums, I'm copying the instructions I wrote out for the instruments we have. You can get your teacher to help you carry them out if they confuse you. Let me know if you have questions. Use “drum set” when choosing an instrument in the Sibelius menu. In order to achieve the woodblock and cymbal sound, however, the default sounds assigned to the spaces used in “drum set” must be changed as follows. Go to House Style > Edit Staff Types and choose “Percussion” and in the percussion menu go to “5-lines (drum set)”. Click “Edit”. A staff will appear with many stemless note heads. Click on the top space in the staff which is now a drum sound and then move to the “Sound” box below and choose “Hi Wood Block”. Click “OK”. For cymbal, follow the same path but on the staff choose the x on the space just above the staff (at present a hi-hat sound). Under “Sound”, find “Crash Cymbal 1” and click “OK”. One additional step is needed for the cymbal sound, however. When writing the part out, an ordinary notehead will appear when writing on the space above the staff. This gives the sound of the cuica, a Brazilian percussion instrument which sounds like a seal. In order to change the sound, click on the note and then press “Shift+Alt.+1” (for a PC) or “Shift + Apple +1” for a Mac. This will change the note head to an x and the sound to a cymbal crash. It is also possible to change all the cymbal notes at once by using filtering.

Once you've done this, keep in mind that the drums don't have to play all the time. Often, using just the hi-hat sound with an occasional snare hit or soft cymbal can be very effective. In other words, this isn't a rock piece with a steady drum set sound, so go easy on the percussion. If it's too thin you can always add more sounds.

Your final question has to do with the B section. One thing you can do is change the keynote so it centers on another pitch such as F and write a new melody with new rhythms and accompaniment. Perhaps the tuba will have the melody in the B section. Try to give it a different flavor from what you've given us in A by giving us a new melody and some different accompaniment. Then if you wish to return to A, change it a little so it isn't an exact repeat and it will sound fresh again after the B section.

Brooke, you've made a lot of progress in a short time. I really look forward to seeing your next revision and I'll try to respond to it in a more timely manner next time.

Best wishes,

Erik

Comment posted by Erik Nielsen, composer mentor:

Dear Brooke,

Thanks for posting the latest revision of your brass piece. You've really done a great job with the walking bass line and it's very effective. I also like the new B section idea. Let me see whether I can give you some advice which will help you to finish the piece with the little time left before the deadline.

First, although I dearly love the trombone (I'm a former trombonist myself), it's one instrument too many right now given how little time there is. I'd give the trombone line to the trumpet and keep this piece a trio. I'd back it up with half notes or something else simple in both the horn and tuba. I'd then repeat the line but end it on a G (chord and melody note) so that you can then return to the opening in C, but I'd just make the opening a single statement (without the horn line from bars 9-16) with a horn part added in between the trumpet and tuba. That way everyone plays for the end and for most of the piece.

My one small note-change suggestion comes in bar 16. I'd make the tuba part two quarters (D, low G) and then the C half note. That way we won't have both parts moving in parallel octaves from D to C and it will sound better.

Brooke, you've made terrific progress on your piece. If you can now confine it to a trio and finish off the B section and return for a final A where all three parts play I think the piece will be in pretty good shape. Time is now of the essence, so good luck. I look forward to seeing the next revision.

Best wishes,

Erik

Comment posted by Erik Nielsen, composer mentor:

Dear Brooke,

Thanks for posting the latest revision of your piece. I really like what you've done in the middle section. The piece is now much stronger. The only thing I'd like to see is the addition of the horn in the final four bars so the piece ends strong and all three players get to play at the end. Think about it. Congratulations on all the hard work and the improvements in the piece.

Best wishes,

Erik

Comment posted by Erik Nielsen, composer mentor:

Dear Brooke,

Congratulations on having your trio chosen for Opus 15. I think it's a charming work and I look forward to hearing it performed live, as I'm sure you do. However, there's work to be done before then and I've been asked to help you get your score ready for the players.

There are several basic things missing right now. The first is a tempo mark. The Sibelius default tempo is quarter = 100 and if you like the tempo as it is now, please go to "Create--tempo" and type in quarter (the note symbol, not the word) = 100. If you want it faster or slower, just type in a different number. Your teacher can help if you get confused.

The next thing the piece needs is the time signature 4/4 at the beginning. Again your teacher can help with this. After that, your piece needs dynamic marks (p, f, etc.) so the players know how loudly you want them to play. Whoever has the melody should be a little louder than the others (mf instead of mp, for instance). You can also add crescendi and decrescendi as needed. Just make sure they don't bump into the dynamic marks at the end of them (and DO make sure there are dynamics at the end of cresc. and decres. so the players know how loud or soft to get). The piece could also use some more articulations. You have a few slurs, but you might want to add some more in places where you don't want every note tongued (one possible example is the figure first seen in the trumpet in bar 4 where the 16th notes could be slurred if you wanted it)(or things like staccato marks). This is very much up to you; don't put in articulations you don't want.

I'd love to have the horn play at the end, even just something as simple as half note A below middle C in bar 31 followed by quarter notes B and D and then in bar 32 F above middle C as a half and E as a half tied to E as the final note. You don't have to do this, of course, it's just a suggestion, but it will sound better I think if everyone plays at the end. It will finish the piece better.

Finally, when you're all done, hit the transpose button on the top tool bar (your teacher can show you; it's a sign with 2 flats). I'm afraid all this must be done before the end of school TOMORROW (Friday the 9th) and then posted with "finalfinal" in the title. In addition, please send a 75-word biography to Sandi by next Friday, the 16th. And make sure to print out a copy of the score for yourself. Please get in touch right away if you have any questions. Congratulations again.

Best wishes,

Erik