Sage Marshall

Second prize winner in Ages 15-18 division
Winning composition: 33 Seconds and Four Minutes

How old were you when you started composing?
8 years old

What do you love most about composing music?
It's an energetic release and a getaway from the daily grind and homework!

Tell us a little about your winning YWCC composition
At first I thought it would be really cool if I could create a piece that sounded like a scene in a Marvel movie, but I didn't really have a strict story or a fixed idea throughout my time composing which was how I got the title. It was really random. It was a bit like the random nature of the audience noises in John Cage's 4:33 except for me the randomness was what I came up with when I wrote. Similar to Cage's 4:33, I realized I needed an end goal. At that point the piece was almost 4 minutes so I picked the same time as an end goal and a similar name i an image to John Cage's ground breaking piece.

What was your process/approach to composing your piece for YWCC?
A little bit each day or sometimes a lot in a day. There would be times where I would only put down one note for the rest of the week but then sometimes a day where I'd have written a whole entire section of the composition.

What is your advice to someone who is interested in composing a piece but does not know where to start?
Don't overwhelm yourself but also push yourself to make that effort. I think it's a little uncomfortable at first but then once you get used to it, you never want to go back to not composing!

Tell us a fun fact about yourself!
I released my song Domino 1 on Spotify and most listening platforms (it's under iamsagsssssss)