PENGLAIS SCHOOL, ABERYSTWYTH, YEAR 8 COMPOSITION GROUP

'CRESCENDO OF ORANGE'

It all began with a trip to the Arts Centre on the University Campus in Aberystwyth. We wanted to look at some of the artwork in the hope that we would find ideas to start us off on our composition.

Our first stop was in a gallery displaying a selection of huge photographs taken of the valleys of South Wales by photographer Paul Seawright.  The gallery was brightly lit with white walls and we were hit by the dramatic colour contrasts between the black, white, red and yellow in the photographs. Eventually everyone gathered around one photograph.

These were some of the points that we noticed as we looked at the photograph:

• The pitch black colour giving way with a sharp contour to orange.
• A misty, cloudy layer just above the orange.
• Shooting stars: this was only an effect due to a four hour exposure used by the photographer.  We were all interested in this. This made us think of 'Star Children' by Alun Hoddinott which we had been listening to recently. We had been composing music based on it in class. Russell suddenly said that the photograph was a 'Crescendo of Orange'. Mrs. Leggett thought that this was a good description. It stuck!
• Mrs. Leggett reminded us that the valleys in South Wales were industrial areas unlike our countryside around Aberystwyth. Hugh remembered this when he wrote his riff for this photograph.

We then went to the Ceramics Gallery. We soon found a piece of pottery that we were all interested in.  It was shell-like and in the shape of a cone. 'Star Children' must have been on our minds again, because I suggested that it could be a 'star burst', and everyone was soon talking about black holes.

We were full of ideas by the time we got back to school and over the weekend we started composing.  When we met again, Russell and I had prepared a melody and ostinato and Hugh had written a Riff which he felt described the sound of an 'industrial beat'.

Soon everyone was suggesting ideas and we began to plan the way we would bring the sections of the piece together.  Hugh and Mrs. Leggett knew some music by Mussorgsky called 'Pictures at an Exhibition'. Hugh told us about the 'Promenade music' and we listened to a little of it.

We decided that Russell's and my music described  our cheerful walk to the Arts Centre and that a slower, more thoughtful version of the 'promenade music' could be used between the pieces of artwork.  We could end with the happy, bouncy version of the  promenade music which would describe our walk back to school.    

We now needed to put together some of our ideas for the pieces of art work. For the Seawright photograph, which we now called 'Crescendo of Orange', we used the notes C,D,E,G and A. These were the notes that Hugh had used in his riff and Mrs. Leggett told us that they made a Pentatonic Scale. These were the ideas that we tried to include in this part of the composition:

• Hugh's Riff - played at a low pitch. Hugh said that the strong beat made him think of the sound of industrial machinery. Teleri played part of the riff on her viola and Hugh played some of the riff on his cornet.
• My tune - on Tenor recorder.
• Russell made up his tune as he went along on the descant recorder. It was a bit different each time we performed.
• The celesta sound on the keyboard and the glockenspiel from Rachel and Ira - these were the shooting stars.
• The string sounds from Caroline and Tom on the keyboard were long sustained sounds and were meant to make us think of the misty layer above the orange on the photograph.

We had to decidehow we would put these sounds together. After playing through the music once ortwice we found that we could bring in and take away some of the sounds to create the effect we were looking for. We thought that this section of thecomposition worked well.

Next we needed to try to describe the ‘star burst’ piece of pottery with its cone shape and ridges.Asim said that it could be swirling around as it moved through space. He was still thinking about our work on Star Children. It was Asim again that suggested that we try a set of notes in a grid pattern. We eventually chose the notes G,A, Bb, C and E because these notes had worked in one part of our Star Children composition. Asim worked out the grid which included some silent beatsand the sounds of the notes we had chosen. He said that he wanted to copy aphase shift idea that we had done in class. It just would not quite work and Mrs. Leggett said not to worry but to try to use the idea in a different way.

So we ended up trying to use the idea in two layers, the second layer sounding one beat after the first. Then we started to get louder and faster as we got to the end of the section. Ira wanted to use a big Tam Tam at the end but a cymbal had to do. We were not as happy with this section but the cymbal gave the star burst effect and the music getting louder and faster made us think of a swirling effect as the cone travelled through space.

We all decided that the best  title that we could give to this piece was 'Crescendo of Orange', the phrase that Russell first used to describe the Seawright photograph. We also felt that the word 'crescendo' described our music for the 'star burst' pottery shell (just without so much orange!). We enjoyed working on our composition and hope that you will enjoy listening to it.

David Evershed
(helped by Hugh Parry and Tom Downes)

PUPILS INVOLVED IN THE GROUP
David Evershed - Tenor recorder
Russell Evans - Descant recorder and trombone
Hugh Parry - Cornet and keyboard
Tom Downes - Keyboard
Asim Skeete - Keyboard
Ira Edwards - Glockenspiel and cymbal
Caroline Peel - Keyboard
Rachel Varnham - Keyboard
Teleri Donnelly - Viola and keyboard