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Phillip Hill

Elizabeth Caruso

UWRT1101

30 July 2016

The Literacy of Composition

****Numbers are represented by Roman Numerals.

When first assigned this project for learning a literacy, I was excited, and thought that it
would be a breeze. How wrong I was. I started off going back and forth between a few
ideas; from cooking, to Game of Thrones, and finally, composition. Since Ive had experience
with Music Theory, I figured that composition would be the most practical literacy for me to
choose.

I began by opening one of my binders full of music and from there I started digging. I
was looking for anything and everything that had to do with my job at St. Thomas Aquinas
Catholic Church. As a resident singer there, I have plenty of music that has been given to me. I
thought that, since I was choosing composition for my literacy, I should take a shot at composing
a part of a Catholic Mass. These older compositions fall within the dates of the Renaissance era
of music, from 1400-1600. Also in the binder were compositions that fell within the dates of the
Baroque (1600-1760), Classical (1730-1820), and Romantic (1780-1910) periods of music. I was

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looking at these later compositions trying to find what nuances that these composers kept from
the Renaissance era, and how later composers would incorporate these older nuances into the
newer standards of music.

With these things in mind, I began to start composing a Kyrie. A Kyrie is, most of the
time, the first sung part in a Catholic Mass. The text is Kyrie Eleison, Christe Eleison, Kyrie
Eleison. It means Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy. I knew from my
studies that I would need to make the piece either polyphonic (multiple moving voices), or
homophonic (voices moving together). I also knew that the text of a Kyrie repeats three times,
giving me a definite length for my composition. I decided to keep it in a standard chorale style,
meaning that the different voices would, for the most part, move together. I chose this method of
composition because it is far easier to write than polyphonic music. Once I had this decision
made, I could start my harmonic plan. Most mass parts, from what Ive studied, start by
introducing the key with a very simple chord progression of a I chord, followed by a IV chord,
followed by a V chord, and then another I chord. This allows the listener to familiarize
themselves with the notes in any given key, and sets up the expectation for where the music
begins, and also where it will end. Composers generally start in one key, and later travel into
distant keys before coming back to the original key for the ending of the piece. I used this
knowledge to go ahead and compose my first line of music. In this line, I tried multiple times to
write something that was original, but there are only so many ways to voice these incredibly
simple chords. I added In order to keep the spirit of the Renaissance style, I had to immediately
change the emotional tone of the music. From here, I experimented going into a higher major
key, and also going into the harmonic minor. I decided that the best choice would be to explore
the parallel minor. The tone instantly changed to something more somber, and I was able to

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speed up the harmonic rhythm (how quickly the music goes from one chord to another) by
shortening the length of the notes in this section.

I think that, overall, experimenting with all of the different harmonies in this composition
has given me a very good idea of how composers decide which notes to use, and how they figure
out exactly where to go next to elicit a response from listeners of the music. While learning this
literacy, I learned that I set a high bar for myself; and that when I dont perform to that standard,
I have to step away from whatever that activity is and revisit it later. Ive learned that writing
music is a lot like writing words. When a composers mind is not fully in it, it is easy for him or
her to lose focus and produce less than fantastic results. It has taken me a very long time to figure
out exactly what types of chords sound good in succession.

This project, overall, has taught me a lot of valuable lessons. I have learned that my socalled creative juices dont flow as well when Im unfamiliar with a certain activity. When it
comes to the literacy of composition, I feel that I have been given a greater insight on how
composers approach their work. The careful construction of harmonies and melodies seems
much easier than it actually is. It took me hours to get through even a rough draft of this piece,
and there is still much of it that has to be revised before it is anywhere close to what I want it to
be.

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Works Cited

"Music in the Renaissance | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan
Museum of Art." The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 July 2016.

"Palestrina, Mozart, Beethoven." IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library: Free Public Domain

Sheet Music. Petrucci Music Library, n.d. Web. 25 July 2016.