I have been working on an assignment for the Mastering Orchestral Composition with BBCSO course from ThinkSpace Education lately. I have been a little stuck with how to progress but am beginning to have a few ideas and thoughts on how to proceed.

What I have learnt about what makes a piece of music evoke uplifting feelings?

• Use of bright tonalities
• Rising melodic contours
• Rhythmic drive
• Gradual crescendos and layering of instruments to build excitement and hope
• Use of cadences to provide warmth and reassurance, and ultimately resolution
• Use of orchestration to provide lyrical uplift, resonance, heroic and triumphant color
• Harmonic devices

It is all well and good to have a list of different things that can aid in evoking a particular emotion, but then comes the hard part, the implementation of these devices and techniques in a coherent manner to build that emotional attachment with the listener. This is further compounded by the subjectivity of music and how different people will feel different emotions from the same piece of music.

I am currently playing around with a piece that is ostensibly in the key of C and uses the following harmonic progression

C – G/B – Am – G – F – C/E – Dm – G – C – G/B – Am – G – F – G – C

Now I need to explore creating that rhythmic drive required, look at the melodic aspects of the piece, which will no doubt be something rising in pitch to a crescendo resolving in an authentic cadence on the tonic.

There is still a lot to do, but I have taken the first steps and have a rough plan of where I want to go, before looking at the orchestration side of things.

I will continue to work on this piece and look forward to completing it and sharing the results with you.