The Quiet Girl

This is a Brazilian groove, my newest. It is called "Partido Alto." I named it "Game Slow" originally, to make fun of putting the noun before the adjective. I learned that "partido" means game. I once went on a missions trip to Guatemala. The stop signs said "Alto", and you have to slow down to stop. This sounds like a straight dance to me, I added jumping staccato piano and an upbeat bass line. It changes from D minor to E flat minor. There are plenty of live shakers and maracas.

My Afro-Cuban groove does have some elements of African drums, but I was mainly thinking of Mexican music. I wanted it to sound like a Mexican restaurant, a little like Mariachis strumming their guitars and blasting their trumpets in the streets while people eat nachos.

I wanted to write an improvised jazz groove for class, so I wrote this. I improvised on the piano and used recording MIDI for the bass as well as the drums. I wanted this to be a simple, straightforward concept piece. I thought of driving down a calm, rural highway as what it sounds like.

I have always wanted to imagine a tough girl with a guitar. I like it when girls are playing in the band instead of being "fan girls". I played around with my guitar one night and this is what is the result of it. I also used Logic drums.

I loved recording this groove. I once saw a friend find a cat sound effect called "Catmosphere" for Logic Pro. I decided for this Hip Hop groove that I would record my cat and paste the meows into the groove. I did. I let Polly walk around the mic and it caught every time she meowed. I put the cuts into the song and now it is a cat rap! Thank you, Polly! I love you, baby cat!

I have never been familiar with funk music. It was before my time. However, my professor taught me what it was, and I only know from videos. This is my attempt at funk music. I liked modulating from the major to the minor, and back again. I added a trumpet interlude before the saxophone comes in at the end.

      "A Better Place" is a soul ballad with a bit of jazz thrown in. I put ballad drums in, recorded extended chords with my church's piano, and played the clarinet solo myself. I originally wrote lyrics, but wanted to play the clarinet instead to make it sound more jazzy. However, I saved the lyrics so I can someday record it with a friend singing them.

The first projects I worked on in my Groove Writing class were EDM tracks, or Electronic Dance Music tracks. Groove Writing is a class where you learn how to compose pop culture music, as opposed to classical music or band music. The first track is titled "Mill Mountain Star." I named it after the star in Roanoke, Virginia, shown in the video. It lights up at night. The second track is called "Festival Beat." I emphasized the electronic synth in this one and used thirty-second note percussion. The third track is called "Skate Center." When I wrote this track, I thought of disco balls and colored lights in a skating rink.

I arranged "Everybody Wants to Be A Cat" for the Clarinet Ensemble at my school. I love the Aristocats (and cats in general!) and this is one of my favorite songs. In the original, the improvised line underneath Scat Cat's voice is a clarinet. This is my favorite part, so I decided to keep that while arranging different parts to the clarinets. There are four parts for B flat clarinet, the E flat clarinet plays the loud, obnoxious trumpet parts, and the bass clarinet plays the part of Scat Cat as well as the drums and piano in the second section. The arrangement includes the first section, which is in C minor and has a swing tempo, then immediately goes into the second section, which is straight eighths and in F minor. I love all the changes and transitions in this song, so I arranged it accordingly.

This is the original score I did for the "Somewhere In Time" kiss scene. I wrote it from a nervous woman's perspective when she knows the man wants more than just a friendship. The other version, the "Soap Opera" version, as I called it, is more dramatic. My friend told me it sounded like a soap opera. This version is more quiet and contemplative. I especially wanted the piece to sound tense when the woman says "Oh my God, what's happening?", because that is the way I felt in a similar situation. This video made me laugh when I was scoring it, it was difficult to concentrate. I wrote it in a comedic way instead of the traditional romantic. Enjoy!

I did my own version of the kiss scene from "Somewhere In Time." I wrote it in a humorous way, from a nervous woman's perspective. I had a similar experience happen to me, and I wrote this piece based on how I felt when it was happening.  Life can get very dramatic. Score it accordingly.

My friend's brother asked me to score his film for him! I am so excited! He is studying Cinematic Arts. He will be a senior, and he has to produce and direct a film as a senior project. Students from the Cinematic Arts department collaborate with School of Music students for their music. I am very excited to compose for him! He is looking for mainly acoustic music, which I like. I had the opportunity to listen to music that was new to me, like Karen O and The Kids (Where The Wild Things Are). There was a lot of humming and strumming involved. My computer is back to normal again. However, my friend has all of my files (including all my music and composition softwares) at his house. The original hard drive died, so it had to be replaced. This is a rough cut of what he is looking for. Enjoy!

           I am proud to announce that a month ago, I ordered the full Finale 2014 software and it arrived before I expected it. I was so happy, I knew I could take professional composition software, as well as a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) with me wherever I go, not just leave the awesomeness at college. I put it on my computer, only to find out that it was registered under a different name.             How is that possible?! I purchased it new!             Well, the folks at the online music store I purchased it from were very kind and patient, and they sent me a new serial number to register it. As soon as I got back from vacation, I tried registering it again, this time with the new serial number. It finally worked, and from then on, FINALE WAS MINE!!!! I enjoy it so much, being able to compose at home or wherever I am at now.             Unfortunately, my computer shut down and now shows the Blue Screen of Death. So I took it to a friend (who is studying Computer S

                 This environment for me is very relaxing. There is nothing I like more to do than to explore with no end, compose music with my mind running around and around endlessly, and play music continuously until I literally am burned out. I wish I could do this more often: do what I love, and relax until I literally cannot stay awake any longer.                  Being alone many times makes me feel good. It has nothing to do with not liking people. It is that I think more clearly when I am left to myself to analyze, think through things, and create. I know people who would go insane if they were in the environment I like. But for me, it works and is absolutely necessary. ___________________________________________________________________________________                 It makes me very aggravated when I hear that people rely on Facebook for the news or what a person is doing in their lives. I quit Facebook because of self-esteem issues, and I will not rant and s

     When the spring 2015 semester began, my clarinet professor talked with the dean of the School of Music about a concert we would play for prospective students. The dean thought action and movie music would be good. My professor knew that the Thor movies are my favorite, so she suggested I arrange music from the Thor soundtrack.       There are a few coughs in this live performance recording. I apologize in advance.      I enjoyed arranging this. I also wrote an arrangement of this score for clarinet choir. They will learn it this fall. I am so excited to hear it and continue arranging!

              This is my first arrangement I wrote for a woodwind quintet. I arranged "O, The Deep, Deep Love of Jesus." My professor wanted an easy hymn to be arranged. This is a live performance recording.              A woodwind quintet is a five-member chamber music group consisting of a flute, an oboe, a clarinet, a bassoon, and a French Horn.             I have ordered the industry standard of music composition softwares. Finale is on its way to my house! After 2 years of school and using and mastering Finale, I can't wait to use it wherever I am at!

                    This is the video for my song "We Are The Millennials." The theme of this video is social media, and for this assignment, I had to write electronic music. When I think of electronic music, I think of Dubstep or Skrillex. The video was originally scored by my professor at a local church before he gave it to the class to score our own versions.  :)

                       This is a jazz score. It shows a Big Band era style stage, with people dancing all over the room. It also shows soldiers beating each other up. This is from the movie "1941."                       

                    The video clip that I scored for is from the movie "The Tango Lesson." It is about a blind man who makes many mistakes in his life and cannot be given a second chance. Eventually he learns from his mistakes. In this scene, he is shown socializing in a restaurant with a young man who works for him. The young man's fiancee is also present. The blind man asks the young woman to tango with him. She admits she is afraid of making a mistake in front of everyone at the restaurant. So he says that if she gets tangled up, to "Tango On."                 I at first thought of the tango as a Mexican dance. The first take of the score I wrote was a waltz. My professor showed me tango music, which was completely different than what I thought!  It was a challenge, but I am glad to be asked to write a variety of pieces in a variety of styles. Because life contains many different things for us to enjoy.

                 This is my first cue that I ever wrote in Film Scoring class. It was done during the fall of 2013, my first semester ever at college. I have greatly progressed since then.                  This was done on MuseScore, a software that you write music on, but it is free, so it has limitations. First of all, the MIDI sound is not that great, it is OK. My professor said that I could do more than the software could handle, in his words, I had "outgrown" the software. So he taught me to use Finale instead, which is much better.                 "The Shield Maiden Fights" is supposed to be an action cue, in 6/8 timing.

                         This was originally for a score in a social media based video. I had so much fun writing this that I decided to keep this version as it was, the "song version", and wrote another version of this, the "film score" version. I like how both of them turned out. I have not written electronic music since Electricks.                          It is a shame that Logic is made only for Mac. :( I have a PC, and I hate the thought of buying a MacBook for upwards of $1,500. Logic, WHY did you have to stop making yourself for PC? At least I can eventually get Pro Tools for PC.                                                  I love PreSonus Studio One, however. I think it does a very good job. I also learned to quantize to make it perfectly on the beat as well!                         

            I scored for a clip of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds. I know this movie is about haunted birds, but I imagined the scene rather comical and wrote comical music for it, making the birds look and feel playful. The music does turn dark as the number of birds grows.

              This is a painting I did in 2013 of my great grandparents. My great grandmother gave me an old, black and white picture of her and her husband and told me to paint it for her and give it to her before she died.            I accomplished this mission. I put it into a box and shipped it to her (she lives on the other side of the country). I later heard that she cried when she first saw it. I am glad to have done that for her.           Sadly, in April of 2014, my great grandmother passed away at age 90. She lived a good life and was a very artistic woman, she loved to sew and make jewelry. She also loved cats just like I do.          This painting is now at my grandparents' house and will always be in my family. 

  This is my version of a trailer for the video game Dead Space 3. I have never played this game myself (The closest I have ever gotten is Call of Duty when it comes to war games) but it was interesting and challenging to score a new composition for this video. It begins with a soldier in the cold, then memories flood into his head. There is footage of the game from there until the end.