I wrote this piece thinking of something that should flow as a river. I didn’t want the title to be “The River,” but rather something that was more creative and easygoing. The notes were supposed to, again, flow like a river. I wanted the specific timing of the melody to be in different places as the different parts of the music go on forward. https://youtu.be/PylubSzVPDI This is Justin Park presenting his composition to The New England Conservatory of Music at the Contemporary Music Festival. Here’s the full score of the piece. Try it out for yourself!
young composer
‘Misted’: music for saxophone and piano, by Abe Effress, 11
Abe Effress, 11, playing saxophone in Marina Del Rey I have been playing saxophone since I moved to Los Angeles from the mountains of Colorado four years ago. This year, I wrote a piece for piano and submitted it to the Composers Today program for young composers. I became very interested in making music, and have started to realize it is a passion that I want to pursue. I decided to really challenge myself with this new song, “Misted.” This is the first time I have composed music for two instruments, piano and saxophone. The saxophone that you hear was inspired by a spider that has been living outside of my windowsill in the room I share with my brother. This song is in a minor key because for one day the spider was not there and it made me sad when I thought my new friend had gone away. Many of my creations, especially my writing, are dark and gnarled, like the branches of my mind. In this song, I also included my love for music production in the form of a beat, which I added in GarageBand. When I started making songs on GarageBand this summer, my parents decided that I could get an Instagram account for my music, fiction stories, drawings, and any other art created by me. The positive response I have been receiving from real professionals in the music production industry has motivated me to work even harder. Here is a link to the full audio with the piano and drums; and this is the link to me playing the saxophone part out on the Pacific Ocean in Marina Del Rey, and to more of my work on You Tube. There is a video of the spider on my Instagram page, @wearing_a_wig. I really hope you enjoy “Misted.” I did my best to write down the notes for both instruments even though the piano is naturally in a different key than the alto sax. Thank you for taking the time to check out my work! From the Stone Soup Editors: Do you play saxophone? Download a printable copy of Abe’s composition, ‘Misted’, and try playing it yourself. Leave a comment for Abe below, and if you do try his music yourself, send us a recording of yourself playing his piece. Enjoy!
‘Glocken der Fantasie’ for oboe and piano by Justin Park, 13
I started to compose when I was about 9 years old and wrote about 5 pieces of music. Back then I had played the piano for about 5 years already. I started to play the oboe when I was about 12 years old and still play both instruments today. What inspired me to write this piece was another composition that had a rhythm as the bass and a violin that was playing out the melody much louder and unique. I decided to create a piece for the oboe and piano because I am familiar with them. It was to represent a melody that related to the calmness and the subtleness of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata left hand, which consists of the melody, and the right hand, which plays a simple yet iconic rhythm over and over again while the left hand plays different chords and keys. The piece is something that sort of questions and answers the melody (as you might be able to tell), and also has one instrument play most of the melody in the first section. My teacher helped me with what to do and the rules when doing this kind of piece. We decided to split up the piece into multiple sections and that is how we got the piano solo at the end. Why not try playing Justin’s piece yourself? You can get a complete pdf copy of the music here. If you make a recording of yourself playing his piece, send it to us using the submit button! Whether you listen or play, please a comment on this page.
