CREATIVITY IN PROCESS; `METAMORPHOSIS OF MY CAT FLETCHER' SHOWS STUDENTS THAT MUSIC CAN BE PERSONAL

Fruehwald created musical sounds from everyday kitchen items.

Myra Patnou listened and watched as composer Robert Fruehwald performed a musical composition based on the sounds his cat Fletcher makes.

Through the music video and live flute accompaniment Fruehwald showed students at Cape Girardeau Central Junior High School how the creative process works and that music can be very personal.

"You are supposed to write things that you know," Fruehwald told the students. "I know my cat, Fletcher."

The music video with live flute accompaniment is one of the original compositions by Fruehwald, composer in residence at Southeast Missouri State University. He was on the road last week performing for students thanks to an Arts Council of Southeast Missouri grant.

It wasn't a typical chamber choir or brass quintet performance. Even Fruehwald admits the musical piece is a little weird.

He tape-recorded mews and purrs from his cat, scanned those sounds into the Macintosh at the Southeast Missouri State University music department's computer lab and altered the noises to form the basis of his composition. The theme comes from Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Fletcher, Fruehwald explained, looks a little like the famous composer.

He added computer-generated sounds, "junk instruments" like metal mixing bowls, and cartoon drawings of the cat to make the video portion of the composition. He added the flute accompaniment to finish the piece called "Metamorphosis of My Cat, Fletcher."

The eighth-graders said it works.

"It's very intriguing," said Patnou, an eighth-grader. "He took something so small and turned it into something large and amazing."

Tia Meyer, also an eighth-grader, said, "I thought it was cool that he thought of using someone's pet to make music. He also related everyday things to music. That's where he got his inspiration."

Ross Redfearn, a trumpet player himself, listened for musical elements in the composition. "The video showed the tempo changes by changing to different colors," he explained. "The loudness varied and there was a flute solo that built to a climax."

Jay Augspurger thought computerized music was cool. "I never thought about using computers for music."

The performance was designed to stimulate students to the possibilities of music and the creative process.

Every year Southeast's music department brings some type of performance to the public schools, said Dr. Robert Gifford, director of bands at the university.

"It's a great opportunity for students to meet a real live composer," Gifford said. "Most they study have been dead many years.

Fruehwald led students through his creative process. Computers, he explained, have become a basic tool of composition and more and more are used in performance.

Even traditional music compositions are notated on computer, the same way letters are written on word processors.

A new work by Fruehwald will premiere Thursday at 8 p.m. at Academic Hall on the university campus.