Young Composer and Collaborators Help Listeners De-Stress

I always enjoy sharing good news and stories about the progress of my students. In this post, I’d like to recognize Matthew Metlitsky - a 9th-grade student who, along with me, composed and recorded a piece of music during our pandemic. 

Prior to our project’s beginning, Matthew had been keeping busy studying and practicing composition techniques while enrolled in the Music Makers program here at the studio. Among other skills, he learned how to write melodies, build chord progressions, and communicate his original ideas with other musicians. 

To help Matthew exercise some of his newly acquired skills, I suggested that we work on a project together - one that would offer him an opportunity to write for a real-world audience. I was happy when he accepted my invitation. 

When we began generating musical ideas, I noticed that Matthew was tending toward a more upbeat sound. Because we had already talked about applying our musical themes to a particular concept or cause, we thought that helping people relieve stress - in particular, stress brought on by COVID - would be a good idea. 

To help reinforce the piece’s optimistic mood, we decided to add a flute part to the solo piano arrangement. Luckily, my friend Sean Bailey - an excellent clarinetist and woodwind doubler - agreed to help out. 

Our recording, like so many others that were captured during the pandemic, took place remotely. Despite the distance between us (Rochester, NY and Philadelphia, PA), we felt good about how the separate performances synced up and how the instruments blended together. 

Since one of our initial goals was to share this music, we’re inviting you now to enjoy the sounds of A Sunny Day. Click on the audio player below to listen to A Sunny Day. If you like what you hear, please share this blog page with others. We’d love it if you joined us in helping others de-stress!

Kudos to Matthew and Sean - two collaborators who helped bring this project into being. Despite some minor frustrations during the composing and recording stages (to be expected), we had a lot of fun making this music. Thanks, guys!

To learn more about Sean Bailey and his music, click here: http://www.upbeatmusician.com/about.html

Piano Plus cello recording session (Part 2)

Part 1

Last month, I introduced the readers of my blog to a recording project that two of my students participated in. This post continues the story by inviting you to listen in on part of the recording session (see video below) and to request your feedback.

A little background

Last fall, Justin (pictured below) expressed an interest in performing a piece I had just written for solo piano. Since we happened to be in the planning stages of a new project series (Piano Plus 1), I suggested that we pair the piano for this particular song with cello.

Clockwise from left: Me, Justin & Elise discussing "Trance" during our recording session.

This decision actually ended up serving a double benefit. First, Justin gained some valuable playing experience (this was his first time performing with another highly skilled musician in a professional recording studio). Second, the singing sound of the cello ended up being the perfect choice to showcase one of the main melodies of the song.

How'd it go? 

All in all, we were really happy with the results. We all learned something new and had a lot of fun in the process. Okay, so . . . end of story and on to the next project, right? Well, not quite.

Feedback from others

Turns out that many of the people who have listened to this song like to comment on how they imagine the music supporting a picture theme or soundtrack. These thoughts and opinions have tended to sound something like . . . "You know, this music reminds me of __________." . .  OR . .  "I could really hear this music going with __________."

Feedback from you?

Long story short - The feedback of others gave us the idea to scout for even more feedback! Seriously though, we're hoping that your thoughts and opinions might offer us some clues about selecting a visual theme to use for our new "extended" music project.

It all starts with listening

No need to decide about providing feedback at this point - we'd ask that you simply watch and listen to the short video below. You'll notice a series of questions on the screen that will (hopefully) prompt your powers of imagination.  Enjoy!

Our Goal

As you might have already guessed, our goal is to combine a series of photographs with the full-length audio recording from this session (about four and a half minutes in length). Obviously, we're most interested in selecting images that, in our opinion, best capture the essence of this original music.

If you'd like to Participate . . .

Great! If you're interested in sharing your thoughts about the video you just watched, we'd love to hear from you! Please complete the contact form on this page ("Request more Information") or leave your comments below. Thanks!

Our Thanks

Once again, we'd like to express our thanks to cellist Elise Hughey and sound engineer Marc Webster for all their help on this project. You guys rock!