Chamber Group Reflection Name Courtney Kuhn Other group members Angelica Monclova

Angelica and I began by brainstorming melodies we could think of. Pop songs often have repetitive melodies that dont have much melodic content, so we decided to pick a different type of song. Since we are both from Texas, we chose Yellow Rose of Texas, and started to transcribe the melody. It was kind of difficult to decide what key we would play it in. I didnt want to pick one with a bunch of accidentals on saxophone, or that went into extreme ranges on either horn. Since flute and saxophone differ by a minor third, one of us would inevitably be playing in a key with 3 more flats or sharps. We decided on Ab concert, since that key was familiar enough for me on flute, and it would put Angelica in F on saxophone. Once we had picked a key, writing out the melody took a lot of melodic dictation skills. We also had to come up with a harmony, which required knowledge of chord progressions and basic voice leading. But to make it easier, our notation was slightly modified. We simply wrote out the rhythm of the melody with note heads, and instead of drawing out a staff, we just wrote the note names below the note heads. (Then, we transposed everything and wrote the saxophone pitches above the note heads.) This helped us because we decided to both play melody and harmony, switching after the first iteration. Plus, it was a notation that we could easily read that had both flute and saxophone pitches. This project was difficult mostly because of the limitations we had on our

secondary instruments. We could have brought more skills to the table had we been playing on our primary instruments, and we probably could have picked a cooler song. I did like being able to figure out a harmony all on our own. There was a lot to think about when writing this out- more than just getting the right notes and finding a harmony that sounded good; we had to consider tuning, register, voice-leading, and technical abilities. It was fun to see what goes into the small choices of arranging music. I can see this happening in my classroom in a more structured way, but only once I had gotten comfortable teaching at that school. This project would bring students out from behind their stands and learn how collaborative music-making can be. It opens the door to students listening across the ensemble to other sections. If I were to do this project again, I would definitely like to pick a cooler song. Maybe you could give suggestions of categories (Disney songs, tunes from musicals, radio hits, etc.). Also, a short lesson on creating harmony or condensing a piece into two parts could have been really helpful and informative.