About
“Planet Layla” was the first piece I ever composed that was not simply for voice and piano. My inspiration for this piece was a prompt to compose music for another planet, and I chose to portray a peaceful and soft planet. I wrote this piece several years ago, however, I have revised “Planet Layla” recently in order to add more variation and nuance as well as incorporate some of the skills I have learned recently. As this piece was written very early on in my compositional journey, I wrote exclusively using my computer’s notation software, however, for some of my more recent edits I made use of the piano to find variation.
“Planet Layla” is inspired by a peaceful, soft planet with muted colored pink and purple clouds all over. I imagine the piece playing as a ship or hovercraft glides over the surface of this planet through the hazy clouds. I wrote “Planet Layla” for piano and cello because I love these instruments and thought they would best communicate the image of the piece. I decided to write a soft continuous chord pattern in the left hand of the piano with a melody in the right hand. The cello and right hand of the piano have a call-and-response relationship where one imitates the other with slight variation. The melody and chords create a very peaceful image. I think I captured what I wanted to and created a beautiful piece. As previously stated, I recently revised this piece after three and a half years of not working on it. I decided to add some variation in the repetitive lines as well as create some chromaticism and contrast in order to better capture the planet I am portraying. Additionally, I have learned much more about formatting and articulation recently and needed to add this information to the piece. ​​​