Monthly Archives: July 2026

Belkin ch. 4 — “Playing”

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Main divisions of ch 4, “Playing”

1.Writing for solo instruments
2. Chamber Music
3.Orchestral Music
4. Accompanying the Voice
5. Orchestral Accompaniment of the Voice
6. Choral Accompaniment
7. Concerti

As a church musician I observed examples of many of the topics discussed in ch. 4.
We never had a case of the choir accompanying an instrument (6) or performed a concerto (7), but did perform 1 through 5.

In most of our church services, there was a meditative interlude before communion. This often featured an instrumental or vocal solo.

One of the settings for the Lent liturgy was accompanied not by the usual organ but instead by 3 musicians — cello, bass, and piano. I think that might be considered a chamber group. We also had a guest appearance by a local Medieval group, with one instrument on each part (one soprano recorder, one alto recorder, one tenor recorder etc).

There were two years we had “singalongs” of Handel’s Messiah, complete with full orchestral accompaniment. The instrumentalists were from a local high school orchestra.

Belkin ch. 3

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Main divisions of ch 3

Writing for the voice
Setting words to music
Recitative vs Aria
Musical form and the text
Composing for choir

Personal reflections on ch 3

I was a member of a Lutheran church choir for about 15 years. During this time I composed a 20-min piece for soloists, choir, and instruments called “Cantata for Lent”. A cantata is a sung piece, usually religious in nature. It resembles an opera, but without costumes or physical action.It includes characters who play different roles, with sung monologues, dialogues, and reactions from a group. Some sections are like opera recitative, in the form of exposition — “Here’s what’s going to happen”.  Other sections are like aria, expressing emotion –“Here’s how I feel about what is happening”.

In my cantata, most of the lyrics were taken from a modern translation of Psalms and other passages from the Bible, written in familiar, natural prose. The melodies I used followed the rhythms of normal speech. I often used “word painting” (voice raises in pitch when joyful, lowers in pitch for grief), and changes in texture to indicate emotion.

I had already been a member of this choir for several years while working on the composition, and so I knew what the choir was comfortable with. For example, splitting the choir into male and female sections singing an octave apart was a lovely way to change the timbre without taking up a lot of rehearsal time.

I used a variety of textures:
solo voice
unison choir
unison in octaves (women, men)
3 groups — soprano & alto, male
4 groups, homophonic texture (different pitches but same rhythm)
rarely — 4 groups, polyphonic texture (independent pitches and rhythm)

The composition was sung by choir and four soloists:
“Wisdom” — a “matronly” alto
Prophetic voice — a soprano with a dramatic timbre
The Devil — a spoken role
Jesus — a tenor

While writing the parts, I conferred with the soloists and changed things to suit their voices.

I feel very grateful to have been given the opportunity and to have received so much support from my choir director. The “Cantata for Lent” performance took place during the busy pre-Easter season, and she was working with limited rehearsal time and a very inexperienced composer! For me the experience was terrifying, and joyful, and included moments of skin-crawling humiliation which I still shudder to recall.

Afterward I was completely burned out and did a 180 degree turn away from church music. One day while wandering at a Rennaisance fair, I was attracted to a booth with beautiful bamboo flutes. It turned out that these flutes were made by a master musician, Peter Olwell. This led to several years of exploring Irish Trad music. But that’s another story 😉

 

 

The Belkin Project

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Some friends and I have been reading Alan Belkin’s book Musical Composition: Craft and Art. We are all at different stages in our musical journey and have found the homework problems to be different degrees of difficult!

I’ve been thinking about how I can make this book part of my music education. Yesterday I did a flying overview of the whole book (chapter names and subheadings). There is a chapter a little past the halfway mark called “Rondo Form” (ch. 14) and I realized that I would really like to compose something in Rondo form.

For the last 6 weeks I have started the day with time outside. I sit on my favorite park bench, write in a notebook, and frequently look up to enjoy the nature nearby. These morning park bench meditations could make good material for a Rondo composition. A rondo takes the form A B A C A D…   The recurring sunlight, park bench, bird calls could be represented by the “A section”, and the various other streams of thought could be the B, C, D etc.

So here is my plan: I will rush through chapters 3 through 9 (taking notes but not doing the exercises), skip chapters 10 through 14, and then pause to focus on the Rondo Form chapter (ch.14). For each chapter I will make an outline on a separate “page”  (visible at the top of the blog). I’ll put my questions and personal observations on each chapter in the daily entries here.