My composition is for a musical. It has been written to fit to one of Shakespeare’s, most famous sonnets. The basic story behind my composition is, a tale of two lovers, who cannot be together because of their roles in society, the musical is basically a modern version of Romeo and Juliet. I started my composition by finding the chords/ ground base. I started with the chords A, C, E, then moved on to the chords G, B, D and F, A, C. In the chord A, C, E I used a C sharp to offer a happier/brighter feel to the piece.

This would have made the piece in to a major chord. I changed my original chord without the C sharp; because it did not offer the right feeling to the effect I was trying to put across. To begin my melody again I used what I had for the chords but played them separately, my idea was to stick with as many of the same notes as possible, so the music had a sweet blend or harmony all the way through. This basically meant that I had to use simple chord structures, and a basic melody.

I have added a few sharp notes throughout the piece and one or two flat notes, this gave my piece a sweeter feel, and tied it more to the romantic feeling I was trying to get across, through the use of the lyrics in the sonnet. The romance in the piece offered my musical the effect I had desired for it. In one section of the piece I decided to add an Alberti Bass line, this helped to identify when the key signature changed and when the form switched from A-B then back to A.

I had to change a lot of the melody lines throughout my piece, because they did not fit in with each other, the notes meshed, and the melody became flat. To change this I added a few sharps and kept close the notes I had used for the chords, this kept my melody in sync. Each line of the sonnet lasted for 2 bars, and the last note of the line, should be on either the fifth or seventh degree of the scale, so I had to work the piece, so it would fit exactly how it was supposed to be presented.

To help add the desired effect to the composition, I had to choose carefully what instruments I was going to use. Two of the main instruments used were the harpsichord and the piano. These two instruments were used because they were used a lot in the romantic era, and the classical era. I also used strings in my piece because it gave the composition a thicker texture, in the area’s where the climax of the musical was about to happen. Overall when the composition was finished I felt it had given the romantic effect I had hoped for, to give my musical a better feel to the love story it presents.