Free! -Part 2 Composing the Sea!
Hello and welcome to the second day of November's blog week! Yesterday I shared the story of how I ended up writing my song called, "Free". In that blog I mentioned that I had written it while on my mission and had sung it acapella. Well, as you know from the August YouTube video for this song, it didn't remain acapella. By the time I finished my mission, I realized that the musical opportunities I had on my mission had impacted my life, and I wanted to improve my musical talents by pursuing a music degree in college. Two of those talents I needed to obtain were reading treble clef and putting together accompaniment to my songs.
At first, when I was taking Music Fundamentals in my first semester, I could only think of simple chords on the piano to add as accompaniment for a few of my songs. One of those songs was "Free". It wasn't until I got more experienced with music a year later that I had officially completed this song.
It was the winter break from December of 2019 to January of 2020. I started playing the simple note pattern I had come up with before, but at a faster speed. As I sang along with these fast notes, I felt like I was sailing on the sea. I had been inspired to write this song based off of my adventures in New Zealand, as well as the beautiful landscape I had the privilege of viewing each day. So the fact that this song's accompaniment was sounding like the ocean excited me. I realized at that moment that the piano part was supporting the story that I was singing by painting a musical picture. This new idea helped me figure out the piano part that the left hand would play. The low notes rocking back and forth represented a boat being tossed around on the stormy sea.
This was actually the third song at that time that had its complete accompaniment. The other two were Peanut Butter and Jam and another song that I haven't released on YouTube yet. Each of these songs had a story to tell and had a piano part to paint a musical picture. By the time I had completed writing "Free", I felt a desire to do more than just write songs. I was singing a story and musically painting a story. Why not go one step further and show the story? That's right! This song is what inspired me to do YouTube videos! It's also the first song I've put onto my channel that I had written during my mission.
During the school semester after completing this piano part, I was having a bad day and decided to relieve my stress by playing a piano in one of the school's practice rooms. I wanted to play and sing the song "Free", and I asked a close friend in the building if she wanted to hear it. She said yes and I played the song for her, trying to push out the negative emotions from the day. As I sang the second verse, I realized that college life was just like my missionary experience. It has its ups and downs, but it's totally worth the adventure. And eventually it's kinda sad to see it end… for those of you who are new here and haven't read my blog called School Is Over, well… it's just as the blog title says. I just barely graduated college. But no matter! I've had a missionary adventure, a college adventure, who knows what adventure is coming up next?
Thanks for reading another blog. There will be one more blog about this song which will be about the process it took for me to make the video of this song. That will be posted tomorrow. Make sure you check out the sheet music for this song if you're looking for a new song to play. In fact, feel free to buy the sheet music for any of my songs, as well as watch the YouTube videos I've made. If you are able, please consider donating to my website. Any bit of money is appreciated!
Do you think that instrumental music has the ability to "paint a musical picture"? Let me know your thoughts down below!
Thanks for reading all the way to the end!
