Makin’ Pancakes is a solo flute piece about the joys of making pancakes with family and friends. The concept of this piece takes inspiration from genres such as children’s music and folk music, as well as a specific song called “Short’nin’ Bread”, a folk song about a mother making bread for her three sick children.  The song has a 120 tempo, in common time, uses swing rhythm and in the key of D major. This tempo, swing rhythm and time signature was chosen because I wanted the piece to have a leisurely pace to represent the leisurely, pleasant experience the song portrays.  Throughout the piece, a variety of techniques have been used to create feelings such as quirkiness, whimsicality, and nostalgia. Throughout the piece, accidentals are used to reinforce the quirky, whimsical feeling of the song. For example, in the first bar both F natural and F sharp are used to create a ‘quirky’ quality and in bar 20 chromaticism is used to invoke the intended feelings. The flute seemed to be the most appropriate choice for this song, as it is often associated with children’s music and the feelings that I was attempting to create. The simplicity of the piece is an intentional compositional choice, this is because I wanted the piece to be easily memorable and enjoyable for a diverse range of people, but the song is especially targeted at young children.

 

The piece starts and ends with the main theme, a light-hearted, jovial motif that is easily memorable thanks to its simplicity.  The beginning makes slight use of syncopation to keep the rhythm interesting, whilst still being simple enough to be easily listened to. Staccatos are used frequently throughout the beginning of the piece to represent the frequent of staccatos in children’s music, I took inspiration from the “Thomas the Tank Engine” theme song for this idea. The first four bars establish the main theme of the song, and the next four bars afterwards have a variation of it, with a slightly different rhythm to the first four bars, this theme and variation effect is used to create interest in the listener. Bar 9-12 has a similar idea of variation, where it takes the rhythm and melody of the past few bars and bases a new melody off it. Throughout the piece, grace notes are used to add extra embellishment, as I often associate grace notes with children’s music. This is shown in bar 13 and 17 where double grace notes are used for melodic interest.

 

Throughout the song, there are lots of abrupt, sudden rests such as in bar 15 and 16, this is an intentional textural effect that I have used that is reminiscent of children’s music, this was inspired by the sudden stopping and starting of background music in kids shows such as “Play School”. In bar 20, chromaticism is used to travel up to the D, by using semitones to travel up to the note it adds a quirky, strange quality to the piece due to using atonal notes. A wide variety of dynamics are also used throughout the song, such as in bar 24-29, where there is a call and response melody between each bar, as the dynamics increase each bar until the ending segment which imitates the opening melody, these dynamics are used to contrast different segments from one another and make it easy to identify one section from another for the listener. In bar 24, there is the unusual articulation of using a marcato accented grace note slurred into a martelato quaver, followed by a quaver rest, this unique articulation is used to create a “ba-dap, ba-dap” sound that resembles a note quickly sliding up and ending abruptly. Bar 29-35 of the piece are like the beginning of the piece as I wanted to have a melodic idea that the listener is greatly familiarised with. The last two bars decrescendo into an E, which is the third of the scale. This ending is used rather than ending on the tonic note to leave it open-ended, this is not common in children’s music but is often seen as a contemporary technique.