Learning objectives

• Each week Saisha learned and practiced a new composition skill, including melodic writing and harmonization; writing a melody over an existing progression; forming idiomatic chord progressions; using inversions, cadences, diatonic and chromatic non-chord tones, instrumental textures, basic voice leading, accompaniment textures, and incorporation of motive into the accompaniment.

What challenges did she face?

• When Saisha started the program, she knew how to transcribe rhythms, but was relatively new to transcribing melodies. She was also new to using notation software.

How did our program help her?

• Saisha learnt a lot about music composition – how to compose melodies over a chord progression, how to add chords to a melody, play some familiar melodies, how to add instrumental texture in the bass and add inversions, adding neighbor and passing tones, resolving d5 inward and A4 outward and more.
• At the end of the mentorship program, Saisha composed a 36-bar song for oboe and piano.

Matched professor

The mentor is an assistant professor of composition at the Berklee College of Music. Prior to that she served on the piano faculty of the Settlement Music School. Her compositions have been performed across the U.S. in a variety of venues, including NYC’s Areté Venue and Gallery and the Boston Conservatory. Honors include the Northridge Composition Prize and the Brian M. Israel Prize.

Excerpts of music scores from Saisha’s music composition