Leaderboard

Thank you for your words! I'm glad you enjoyed it, I've been told indeed it has the vibe of Satie's Gymnopedies, and I'm happy you noticed the introduction of the melody in the bass figure prior : )

Context for my answers: I have been having composition lessons in the pre-college department of a conservatoire from a professional composer who is also a tutor at that conservatoire's senior college composition department. 1. Does my teacher have a big influence on the way i compose? Yes. They were the one who encouraged me to start my pieces on paper at an instrument (I first used viola for this but now I mainly use piano as harmony has become much more important for me than it used to be). They have also encouraged me to think more about form and overall structure which I do to some extent but not much. 2.Do i consciously change the way i compose to satisfy my teacher? Sort of? My music has become much more chromatic since starting lessons and I think that could be due to my teacher's influence but I think it is more from how I have developed in my understanding of harmony with them exposing me to things like Riemannian theory and us discussing pieces of music that both they and I have chosen. My rhythms have started to change and become more complex, likely from their influence as that is the area they typically identify as most lacking in my pieces. 3.Does my teacher force his/her musical ideology upon me or am i free to discover my own ideology? Not at all, they guide me in discovering what I like and applying that to my own ideas. 4.Do i see a problem with my teacher adjusting my work and thereby not allowing me to express my own identity as a composer? My teacher has never really done that aside from when we were doing orchestration and my orchestration was horrifically unbalanced. 5.How does my teacher evaluate my compositions? (open question). They have to grade me for the pre-college so they do it using that which looks at understanding and use of: melody, harmony, rhythm, instrumentation, form, & musical style, notation skill, originality, and musical sense. In terms of feedback they mostly comment on what they think worked well in my work, what they think hasn't gone well, and how that can be addressed. I think my composition lessons are quite good and my teacher is excellent for me but other teachers may not be so good if, for example, students are forced into particular styles or techniques of composition and discouraged from exploring outside of that. I have 3 separate composition classes in the pre-college, my principal study lessons where I bring in a project that I am working on (what I have mainly discussed above), a seminar which is mainly on techniques, methods, and peer criticism, and a workshop class which is a project over 1 or 2 terms - the last one has been a piece for SSA and harp trio where each of us in the class (3 of us) wrote a movement and one before that was based around serialism. The principal study lessons and seminar are with a the same tutor and the workshop has a different tutor depending on the project but the same can apply to the tutors for that.