Teaching Music Through Composition

student assignment sheet

The Art Project: Rondo Form

In rondo form, a musical section is repeated with different music between the repetitions. This
order of letters is an example: ABACA.

Assignment:
Compose a piece of music that has been inspired by a painting, sketch, or drawing of your
choice using rondo form. Artwork can be viewed at www.art.com and must be approved by
your teacher.

Procedure:
1. Choose an image to be approved by the teacher.
2. Open a new file: File > New.
3. Name the file the name of the artwork followed by your two initials.
4. Choose three subjects in the artwork. A subject can be a person, an item, a shape in the
image, or an emotion evoked by the image or portion of the image.
5. When composing, consider the art:
a. How was the artwork produced? What is the medium and technique? Is it a watercolor
painting, a pencil sketch, a pastel drawing? Does this suggest texture that can be
recreated in the music?
b. What brush techniques does the artist employ? Are there long, smooth strokes,
pointillist dots, combinations of techniques? Can you emulate this in the music?
c. Do the colors or lack of colors suggest instruments (dark or bright) or registers (high or
low)?
d. Are there primary or secondary subjects in the art? Can you use themes, melodies, or
242 recurring melodic or rhythmic patterns to suggest subjects in the artwork or their
interactions with one another?
e. Consider how music can capture these subjects (major/minor, staccato/legato, specific
instrumentation and numbers of instruments, etc.)
6. Compose a melody for each of the subjects, keeping in mind that they will be used in rondo
form.
7. Compose accompaniments for each of the melodies as you like.
8. Arrange and edit your piece in rondo form.