Ben W.

Ben was a student on one of our Level 3 music technology courses from 2009/11. A self-taught guitarist, Ben was a budding singer-songwriter when he joined us. Being self-taught he had limited but basically functional notational literacy: an awareness of note names, some diatonic chord relationships and keys. Ben's motivation was strongly linked to his own areas of musical interest within the indie-pop style and local singer-songwriter scene. While completing his Level 3 course with us, his professed vocational interest was to become a recording artist, performing and producing his own original pop music.

The assessment: piano solo in the style of Philip Glass’ ‘Opening’

With this task I want to introduce the first-year Level 3 students to the work of Philip Glass, the world of minimalist music. My aim is for them to compose an original piece for piano solo that bears similar musical and sonic hallmarks, using their critical listening skills to analyse the elements that define the style. Embedded within the task's completion are lessons about harmony and arrangement, polyrhythm, articulation, sound world emulation (focusing on timbre and environment), and score writing. Initially, the students are required to critically listen to the referenced example (‘Opening’ from Glassworks) and analyse the elements, in particular the harmony choices and voicing, the structure of the work and the articulation of the performance.

Sometimes students have a natural resistance to engaging with the world of ‘classical’ or art music, often citing it as too difficult to understand. The suggestion that I may require them to compose in such a style and produce a score concerns many and becomes a barrier to their motivation and engagement. The key to making this learning experience successful is in breaking it down to easily understandable tasks where technology can be used as an aid. Another important aspect of this assessment task that will foster motivation and confidence will be in making it sound effective – getting the performance right so that the end result does not sound flat and robotic like many MIDI realisations do (for example, when produced in software such as Finale and Sibelius), but rather a nuanced performance with appropriate articulation, set in a sound world/mix that is warm and reverberant. I want the students to be inspired by the potential that technology has to extend their ability as a musician; by composing and realising an effective original work for solo piano that they themselves might never be able to play, they not only produce a professional sounding demo of the work, but also a score that is accurate and playable.

The criteria assessed by this task included learning outcomes from both Composition and Working with Software Notation Packages modules from the BTEC Nationals specification. In grading the assessment I was specifically looking for evidence of the following learning outcomes:

Appropriate use of harmony for the style.

Appropriate structure for the style.

Understanding how to write and notate complex rhythm.

Producing a playable, publishable score.

Producing a work that will form part of a varied composition portfolio.

Ben's learning strategy

While guiding Ben through this task, at all points I would try to allow him to learn through discovery; where I needed to introduce new concepts directly, I would always try and build new knowledge from something he was already confident doing – for example, with composing a chord progression, I would encourage him to use his instrument in the way he knows how rather than struggle with the MIDI keyboard in front of him. This careful approach comes from years of experience in working with students that lack confidence with notational literacy and styles of music they are not familiar with; sometimes all it takes is a task that feels too complex or ‘impossible’ to achieve for a student to disengage completely. Once disengaged it is really difficult to get them on board with the task again. If the student feels confident at each step of learning, which leads to the completion of the task, not only might they surprise themselves with what they achieve but they will have experienced a positive experience of music-making and take the newly learned skills and a heightened sense of confidence forward to their next assessment task. Keeping students motivated and enthused about the creative tasks I give them is always a high priority in my teaching, and something that I think is vital when successfully teaching composition in a Further Education setting.

Step 1: Critical listening to ‘Opening’ and other pieces that have been written in a similar style, such as the piano works of Max Richter

From this listening, the signature elements of the style are identified; this was initiated by whole-class discussion followed by a worksheet that students completed either individually or in pairs. It is important that Ben and his peers discovered these ideas by themselves; given that the style of music was unfamiliar to him, it could have been intimidating due to sounding ‘classical’ and complex. It was important that Ben got a sense of deconstructing the work and came up with his own ideas about how he might be able to construct something similar with the resources that he had available to him. With some gentle guidance we agreed on a sequence of tasks that needed to be done, almost like a recipe to follow, and we began with the chord progression.

Step 2: Diatonic harmony in 4 part arrangement

Away from his guitar, at first Ben struggled to understand chord building and arrangement using any other method. We devised a system using major and minor 3rds, counting up the semitones (3 semitones apart for a minor 3rd, 4 semitones apart for a major 3rd interval) and used this method on the MIDI keyboard to build different types of chords: major and minor triads, extended chords (7ths, 9ths and 11ths).

I challenged Ben to compose a progression of 4 chords that had a similar flow to the chords Philip Glass used in ‘Opening’, using his guitar in the first instance. Ben made a note of the chords he had chosen, listing out the individual notes of each triad (for example, D minor: D F A). Through a whole class discussion we looked at the idea of inversions and using Logic's piano roll (MIDI editor) to arrange triads in 4 note inversions that might sit well under a pianist's hands, and how to move from one chord to the next so that each note or ‘voice’ moves to the nearest note. The group then arranged their chord progressions in the Logic Pro piano roll by inserting the appropriate notes in with their mouse, one chord per measure.

Step 3: Understanding the use of polyrhythm (2 against 3)

This was one important element of the Glass piece that Ben identified: the gentle polyrhythm at work between the right and left hands. As a group I asked them to come up with ideas on how to create a polyrhythm in Logic's piano roll interface – something they had not yet done or covered in their sequencing module. Eventually, the group realised that by setting the ‘division’ of the grid to 8ths or 12ths, and using the scissor tool set to snap at ‘divisions’ they could easily cut their chord into quavers or quaver triplets. We listened to ‘Opening’ once more and the students identified which hand was playing triplets and which was playing straight quavers. They chose whether or not they wanted to copy this configuration exactly, swap hands over, or just employ it periodically amongst other accompaniment styles.

Fig. 1

A measure, F Major triad arranged for 4 notes, with oscillating polyrhythms (left hand in quavers, right hand in quaver triplets), as it appears in Logic Pro's piano roll MIDI editor.

Step 4: Performance nuance and the timbre/ambience of the performance environment and mix (sound world emulation using virtual instruments, velocities, reverbs and compression)

Shifting the focus away from the notes, chords and rhythms, I asked Ben to think about the sound world of ‘Opening’ and how he might be able to achieve the illusion of a realistic piano performance without capturing or recording a pianist playing his music. He identified lightness of touch as an important element and adjusted the velocities of his MIDI notes accordingly, until a gentler articulation was achieved, placing accents, emphasis and swells where appropriate. We added the sustain pedalling, tweaked the EQ curve on the piano sample instrument so that mid-range frequencies are slightly boosted, and applied gentle compression to the output – each action giving a warmer quality to the piano sound. Finally, Ben placed the piano sound in a reverberant space, using the Space Designer application.

Fig. 2

From left and clockwise – channel EQ is used to add warmth and ‘air’ (extreme high frequency boost) to the tone of the piano; compression settings to achieve a similar dynamic control as heard on the Glassworks recording of ‘Opening’; Space Designer convolution reverb plug in, to position the piano sound in the 3D listening space.

By then the piano solo was sounding rather beautiful and Ben was inspired to extend the work by incorporating melodic movement within the chord progression and adding low bass notes and a lingering high melody in the second half of the composition. This was an important breakthrough for Ben, as the composition had now grown from a mere sound-a-like exercise to something closer to a personal expression. At this point I allowed him a bit of extra time alone to work, and I left him to it while I went and worked with other students in the group who needed assistance.

Fig. 3

Ben's finished composition as it appears in Logic Pro's piano roll MIDI editor.

Step 5: Using Logic Pro 9's score editor to notate and publish a playable and accurate score for solo piano

Logic Pro has an integrated score editor that uses the data from the piano roll MIDI editor to create a staff notated version of the musical material present. Because of this, the students do not have to input notes directly into the score editor like they do in programs like Sibelius or Finale. This could be seen as a shortcut that circumvents some important learning opportunities, and I will discuss these ‘areas for concern’ later on.

On its own, the data do not translate to a readable or correct score for solo piano. In a dedicated lesson, I showed the students how to format the information: separating the hands into discrete MIDI channels, applying triplets, key and time signatures, phrasing, pedal markings, dynamics and expression. Once the notation was correct, the students looked at some piano scores and made note of the use of white space, necessary text and general formatting. Ben edited and formatted his score to his liking. He exported the score as a PDF document and added a title page and back cover to make a booklet. The final test is in giving the score to a pianist to perform.

The moment when the pianist performs Ben's score feels significant to me, as if the music has finally crossed the threshold from the technology world into the real world and the composition has suddenly become a legitimate composition for piano and not just a series of software tricks. I shared this thought with the students and I hope that they can appreciate the sentiment and sense it themselves also. Composition using technology opens up worlds of possibility, both musically and sonically; if you know the right techniques, there are no limits to what you can create – case in point, you don't have to be an accomplished pianist to write a beautiful piano solo.

Fig. 4

The score editor in Logic Pro, showing the first 4 bars of Ben's score to ‘Glasshouse’.