Hello and welcome to ‘Season 2’ of mad music mondays. In the first season, I explored the creative process that led to the release of my single, you should know. To go through that journey, I’d advise starting at episode 1.
In this season of mad music mondays, I’m doing a throwback. To my university days, and the music I wrote during my composition degree. One of my composition teachers once told me never to change what I wrote then; let it be who you were at the time. Therefore, in this season, I will be looking back at who I was, and see if there are any parts of me that I would rather like back. You can find last week’s episode here.
Episode 5.
To this day, this piece remains one of my favourites. Not for its finished product, but for the joy I experienced creating it.
This piece, entitled ‘In Which Pooh Goes Visiting and Gets Into A Tight Place’, is part of my A.A. Milne collection. As much as I love the other pieces, this is the piece that I have the best recording of.
I was fortunate to have as my housemate an excellent pianist, a much better performer on the piano than me, who agreed to play it for me. What this meant is that I had a constant reminder that it needed to be finished, so that she could perform it as well as possible.
The piece is based on the story from Winnie-the-Pooh (which if you know the story you can probably here). I had, typically, procrasinated from finalising any ideas, but the looming departure of my housemate for her parents’ house meant that I finalised this piece in just one evening.
After the concert, one of my composition teachers paid me one of the best compliments I think I’ve ever received.
“This piece sounds like you. Seems to be completely expected and charming, but is surprisingly quirky.”
There are two things that I am taking from looking back this piece. The first is to not think something is poor quality just because it was made quickly. The second is that I should make things that sound like me; no-one else is me, and that is what makes my creations unique.
Jena Ren, 2022
Jena Ren 
Leave a Reply