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My Berklee Music Online Experience
Assignment for Week 5: Write a melody using the AABA form and the chord progressions from Weeks 3 and 4 - 7/28/11
We learned about melodic sequences, inversion, and variation. The instructor, who is fantastic by the way, always refers to the "toolkit" that composers must have. So, these are some of the tools that composers use to generate melodic material. I had a problem with some of the exercises leading up to the final at the end of the week. At this point in my compositional life, my toolkit is a messy one. Some people have all of their tools in their garage, neatly organized by type and size. I'm the guy who knows what's in his garage and where everything is, but to someone else it's a mess. My compositional toolkit has meshed together so my techniques have become hybrids of each other. It's hard for me to use a strict inversion because I'll add a little bit of transposition in there or whatever. So, that's why I had problems.
This tune is my end of the week assignment. I called it "That Sunday Afternoon Thing" because this is how I feel every Sunday afternoon at about 4 or 5pm. Every Sunday, I've felt like this as long as I can remember regardless of the weather or what city I'm in. The funny thing is that I wrote the tune on a Wednesday afternoon. Go figure.
"That Sunday Afternoon Thing" Lead Sheet
Assignment for Week 6: Write a melody using the AA' form, rhythmic and intervallic augmentation/diminution, and it must be uptempo (q = 180) - 8/5/11
The assignment also called for the motive to come from the first four notes of Johnny Green's standard, "Out of Nowhere." The chord structure was to be loosely modeled after "My Romance" (Rodgers/Hart). The first chord of every four measures were given and had to be used in that position. Finally, measure 16 had to contain a D7 chord to repeat back to the top.

This is what I wrote when I turned in the assignment: "Here's my Out of Romance assignment. I wanted to stick a 2/4 bar at the end of m. 16 (1st ending) to let the phrase breathe a bit, but I didn't know if that was allowed. I had a tough time making that repeat back to the top work."
"Out of Romance" Lead Sheet
Assignment for Week 7: Write a melody using the AABA form using the chord progression
provided (an altered blues). Create a melody for the A section that sounds the changes. Use
eighth notes, quarter notes, half notes and triplets. Create a contrasting bridge using one of the contrast techniques: harmonic style, harmonic rhythm, modulation, and melodic contrast. 8/14/11
This tune is called "When It Hits." It was tough since rests were called for in a certain place and the chord progression for the A section was also provided and couldn't be altered. The B section was to be composed (all original) and contrasting to the A section.
"When It Hits" Lead Sheet
Assignment for Week 8: Write a jazz ballad in AA' form. Use the first 8 measures of a jazz standard (I used "Django") by taking its rhythm, putting it in retrograde, map a melodic contour, and write a melody based on those guidelines. Then, select one of the 4 chord progressions provided. In a ballad, richer chord colors make the piece more interesting. Use the chord progression as a guide and fill out the harmonies with richer chord colors. Finally, write a bass line for the chord progression. Combine the three parts and make minor adjustments to each to make the three parts fit together. 8/21/11
This tune is called "In Part." This piece was difficult because it had so many restrictions to it and the chord progressions provided were non-standard. Another difficult restriction was the use of a retrograded rhythm from another piece of music. I think the instructor's intent was to get the students writing outside of the box and stretching their ideas of what jazz and jazz composition can be.
"In Part" Lead Sheet
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