Brianna Brown - 3B - Centennial High School

April 10, 2017

Topic: Musical Performance/Education

Overall Effort

Through my journey in ISM, I have faced many things: good and bad, easy and hard,
achievements and failures, yet all have led me to improve greatly in many different aspects of
both my personal life and my future career. It is because of this class and its high expectations,
that I have already achieved much more than I could have possibly imagined less than 10 months
ago.
My Original Work Project has been where I have grown the most, as it has been the place
where I have had to combine all aspects of the world of professional music into one compressed
package. First, there was composing. As somebody who struggles deeply with note recognition,
this aspect and experience was my biggest struggle. Within 18 hours I had composed and
arranged a 16 page (score wise) piece that was a combination of 4 songs (from the popular video
game Undertale). The process was a combination of listening, repeating, playing, writing, and
composing (I took some musical liberties when the transitions were awkward.) Overall, I was
very pleased with how the end result came out. The arrangement closely resembles that of the
original music, while also sounding appropriate for a orchestral arrangement. Now that piece is
written, the next step is teaching.
Teaching was something that had absolutely no experience with when I started ISM.
However, over time, I gained different teaching experiences for both individuals and groups.
Because of this piece being an original arrangement, I will have to teach them some of the more
complicated parts that may not fully translate from the paper. Taking from previous experiences
and mentor observations, I will use the skills that I have acquired to effectively communicate my
visions into reality. This will take at least a couple of rehearsals to make sure that everyone is
both together and in harmony with one another. Some teaching may come from me to the small
group (since I will be more familiar with the selected pieces, but ultimately their music selection
is up to them). Once the teaching and rehearsing is done, the final step will be the performance.
Although I am much more familiar to performing than I am to teaching and composing, this area
of my original work also gave me some problems. Gathering the players was difficult, but
manageable as I had to take into account different classes and assignments that might appear on
that day. After some debate and compromise, I was able to decide on a time that required
minimal interference with other classes. Pertaining to my own participation in performing in the
main recital, I have yet to decide on that officially. At the moment I have two options and no
other.
1.) I will perform in the first two songs (Beauty and the Beast and Ashokan Farewell)
and the conduct the final arrangement.
2.) I will perform in all three songs, taking the single violin solo of the third song.
The decision of which option I will choose depends heavily on whether or not I can get another
soloist to fill in. Admittingly, the violin solo part is more difficult octave and skill wise but less
difficult when looking at technicality and rhythm. I will have to find someone who is familiar
with the upper octaves of the violin and play the part confidently. (A scared or unsure player may
cause the higher register to sound screechy. This will clearly be heard to the audience due to the
violins higher register.)
This whole project leads to my main goal: musical expression. Although I have changed greatly
through my journey of ISM, there is one thing in which I have not changed: my love for music.
Through the performances, I will showcase both my music and the hard work and dedication of
many musicians. The whole reason I chose to pursue this career was so I could impact others
through both my playing and my teaching. Hopefully, I will achieve this goal not only in the
main and community performances, but also later on in my future career.