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Pastoral

Musical

Example

Pastoral

Secret

Score

Pastoral

Animated

Score

For centuries, composers have been trying to capture pastoral beauty with their music. There are as many ways of expressing this as there are trees in the forest. Sometimes nature is volatile and other times it is serene. Sometimes it is fragile and delicate and other times it is robust and lush. You need to consider all these elements when depicting pastoral music. For our example, we will find a middle ground by creating music that is delicate but also lush. We accomplish this by using delicate woodwinds to perform the melody while lush strings provide the harmony.

Harmony

For this musical example, we will proceed in a way that differs from most of our other compositional moods. We will start with our harmony first and add the melody later. We will build a chord with so lush a structure that we will not need another. We can then simply modulate this chord to different keys. We introduce this chord in bar 1. The basses and cellos provide the chord's foundation. The basses play an F, which is the root note. The cello section plays 2 notes, C and A.

A quick look at the bass and cello notes reveals that they simply play an F Major triad: