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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ม.ค. 2025
- "Vision of Hope"
Composed by Gerard (November 2024)
For the Lord of the Flies book assignment, I composed an original piano piece.
I have been studying piano for eight years, so this was an exciting opportunity to write a piece describing a scene from the book that particularly resonated with me while reading it.
My vision for the composition was a description of the feeling of hope that goes unanswered. Specifically, the hope that the boys will be rescued from the island and brought home to their families. I am referring to the moment when Ralph sees a boat passing at sea and, because they had lit a fire to signal their presence, he believes that they will be rescued. However, all hope is lost when they realize that Jack failed to maintain the fire that had been established and instead decided to hunt.
The idea in the piece is to start from a feeling of despair and communal distress, which then momentarily turns to hope as Ralph and his friends identify the passing ship. The optimism turns out to be short-lived, since Ralph realizes that the fire has not been maintained and the ship will ultimately not be able to rescue them.
Musically, the piece starts with dark chords played slowly to evoke a sense of mystery and pessimism. Then, I introduce a richer melody and increase the tempo in a higher octave to inspire the idea of hope and optimism. Ultimately, the piece reverts to its darker character with a repeated use of minor chords.
With regard to the technical aspect of my musical composition, I set the piece in F Sharp minor key to create the above-mentioned pessimistic mood. I utilize an ABCBA structure, with the melody being the centerpiece of the composition. I keep weaving variations of the melody throughout and embellishing it progressively with each repetition, adding ornaments and dynamic changes. Harmonically, I use a chord progression of F#m, D, A, and E, which repeats for the whole piece. For the bridge, labeled as “C” above, I create a moment of hope by including a bright interlude that also incorporates major chords. I end the piece with a coda that resolves to an F Sharp minor chord in order to revert to a feeling of sadness and hopelessness.
In conclusion, I chose this moment in the book because it is one of the few situations where the group displays a sense of hope of possibly being rescued. The title I gave the piece is “A Vision of Hope” because the piece is inspired by the brief but intense sentiment of optimism due to the appearance of the ship at sea.
This was possibly one of the most exciting school assignments I have ever completed. I hope you enjoy this piece as much as I do.
Thanks for listening!
