Antonio Vettraino

MUS 2020
Ben Fuhrman
2/3/19
Composition 1 Reflection

• This piece for me makes me think that it’s about a few things. The overall sense of the piece is
supposed to give off a relaxing whimsical/dreamy vibe to it. I also used to play a lot of video
games, and the mallet arpeggiator I used in the beginning and the end kind of reminded me of
the game Portal. Because of this, the piece also is about this futuristic world with this almost
machine like vibe. I feel that I was able to capture these feelings into my piece by using certain
instruments, like the sitar for the melodies. When you put the sitar on a higher octave it sounds
more computerized which matches the overall tone of the piece. Because of this the piece for
me is about something personal since it reminds me of a very fun game that was a big part of
my childhood/middle school early high school time. The piece to me also gives me an ethical
vibe because while I would listen to it, I would feel a sense of future technology, and because
I’ve been watching a lot of Black Mirror recently, it reminds me a lot of what is right and
wrong with technology or upcoming technology.

• Composing this piece for me was the easiest to come up with ideas for out of all of the 3 pieces
we’ve done so far this semester. I feel personally that the reason for this was the criteria of a
slower tempo and making the song sound “ambient” and relaxing all together. My other two
pieces had a very uptempo style to them, so it was a nice refresher to have to work on a slower
tempo and think more legato throughout the whole piece. I feel that the piece ascetically works
and is cohesive throughout the entire piece, so I am proud of myself for that. I feel like the
piece can struggle with the fact of it might sounding too shallow at times, specifically the
beginning with adding no bass. For me, I felt the choice made sense, but to others it might not
be as pleasing to them, which is understandable. I feel like I want to use some of the
instruments that I used here for a future piece, I love the arpeggiator at the beginning on one of
my mallet instruments, it sounds so cool to me so that concept might come up one way or
another in one of my other assignments.

• When looking at my piece for this specific project, I feel like, as I started to highlight in my
first answer, that my piece isn’t necessarily something that tries to make a point/comment on
society, but something that is more personal to my life with video games. I feel as if it connects
to my personal life and almost serves as an homage to certain video game soundtracks I used
to play when I was an early teen, specifically soundtracks that were a part of the games made
by the company Valve. Valve’s games were very important/fun for me when I started playing
games a lot in middle school. I connected to them the most and put in a lot of hours into each
game, probably more than I’d like to admit now. I feel as if that’s why I am proud of the piece
and that it came pretty easily for me to write this, because I didn’t have to try and force out a
melody or try to think too hard about what chords to use, it was because of my once passion
for games like Portal, Half Life, etc, that it was natural for me to create ideas for this.