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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 excitedthrilled, and thought
that it would be a breeze. How wrongmistaken I was. I started off going back and forth between
a few ideasconcepts; 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 chooseselect, as I already had a foundation on which to grow.
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 joboccupation at St. Thomas
Aquinas Catholic Church. As a resident singervocalist there, I have plenty of music that has been
given to me. I thought that, since I was choosing selecting 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

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(1780-1910) periods eras of music. I was looking at these later compositions trying to
finddiscover what nuances that these composers keptpreserved from the Renaissance era, and
how later composers would incorporateintegrate 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 togethersimultaneously. I chose
selected this method of composition because it is far easier simpler to write than polyphonic
music. Had I chosen to compose polyphony, I would have been required to make every single
part sound like a melody of its own. Once I had this decision made, I could start my harmonic
plan. Most mass parts, from what Ive studied encountered, 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 endingconclusion 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 writecompose something
that was originalcreative, 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

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alter 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 instantlypromptly changed to something more sombersubdued, and I
was able to speed up accelerate the harmonic rhythm (how quickly the music goes from one
chord to another) by shortening the length duration 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 gooddecent 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. Ive found
that those composers tend to go for whats expected, and then defy what the listener thinks will
happen next. This is how we keep music interesting. 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. Many times in the process of learning this
literacy did I have to step back and take a breather. I would get too many ideas in my head, and
not all of them would work. In composition, there are very specific rules about how chords
resolve and how doubling certain musical intervals can be harsh on the ear. 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 exactlyprecisely what types of chords sound good in succession. I feel that it took
such a long time because while I already had the fundamental knowledge about the rules, I had
never put it to practice until now.
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. So many

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times I had to just stop and try to get my concentration back. When I dont know how to do
something, my mind tends to turn off. 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.