Creating Stories Through Music

Write a musical middle-grade book with Alexandra. Transcript from week 1 of Creating Stories through music. 

Click the image above to watch the episode on YouTube.

Over the next twelve weeks, I’m turning a short story I’ve written into a book and violin videos. Down the track I’m also planning a pantomime in the Italian Commedia dell'arte style. This means masks and costumes made out of clothes I own and some extra bits and pieces I’ve found at secondhand stores. Exciting!

Creating musical stories means a lot of elements need to come together. First there’s the manuscript - I’ll be doing some self editing in the next few weeks, but before publishing, I’ll send it to my amazing viola playing editor. 

Next there are illustrations. These are used in the books, but I also turn them into violin videos. This time I’m doing things a little differently. I’m creating them so they can also be used as a backdrop in the pantomime. At this stage, I’m thinking a projector might be easiest, but I love the idea of painting them like they would have done in the 18th century. I might need to make a cardboard version so I can test it all out. 

Then of course, there’s the music. For this book, that means a lot of Bartok. I’m arranging and recording the tracks for each chapter, and I’m also thinking about parts for beginner violinists. I’d love the musicians to be on stage at least for part of the show, and I have ideas for them to become animal characters!

I’ll need to make some masks, sew some costumes and then I’ll film the videos using the magic of our blue wall, painted by my husband. 

Turning stories into books you can hold in your hand, means there’s also work to do on formatting and designing covers, so hopefully I’ll get to that in the twelfth week too. 

Anyway, I hope you enjoy following along and here’s what happened this week. 

This week I started out by editing the first chapter and illustrating the theatre. We have a few lovely old theatres around here, so the frame will be provided already.

There’s a scene in the woods, and I created a fox to animate. Since then, I realised I might actually make the fox a real-life character in the videos, but it never hurts to have a couple. This is also the scene I imagine violin students could play in…dressed up as various animals and woodland creatures. When I go running in the bush, I’m always intrigued by the creatures who pop their heads out of bushes and dart across the path. Bunnies and wallabies form most of them, but there are so many types of birds, some tawny owls and of course dragonflies and butterflies. 

This means I need to arrange the first tune. I’m using the Fox from Béla Bartók’s Mikrokosmos and also the Swineherds Dance from the Hungarian Folk Tunes for the first chapter. I did some research, some practice and had some help from a creative student who is very good at improvising around tunes. 

This is what we started with and now it has turned into this. 

The next few scenes involve the wooden princess and the other toys of the castle. Again I’m not putting too much work into the characters at this stage as the ideas are still bubbling, but the good thing is that the first chapter is pretty much done. 

I added more dialogue so the pantomime is a bit more interesting and I’m just filing these things away for when I do the video. 

Next week the adventure goes back into the mysterious Hungarian woods so I’ll be putting that together. 

Until next time, happy creating and if you would like to find out more about Violetta's adventures, you can find some links below.

#violin, #musicforchildren, #classicalmusicforchildren, #animatedstory, #classroommusic, #musicalstories, #inspiringyoungmusicians, #creatingstoriesthroughmusic, #violinteacher, #violinstory, #childrensbookstagram #creativechronicles #creatingstoriesthroughmusic