One Day Wonder #242

For 1 horn, 1 trumpet, 3 trombones and tuba.

OK, this piece kicks ass. Plain and simple. It’s the best thing I’ve written since #207. On the strength of the strangeness of #241, I decided to write a galop whose harmony dropped down a fifth every bar until I hit the dominant of the original key – F# minor. So after the brief intro, we start off in F# minor, then, in successive measures – we’re in 2/4; things happen quickly – we dropped to B minor, E minor, A minor, D minor, G minor, C minor, F minor, Bb minor, Eb minor, Ab minor and finally Db, which is the enharmonic dominant of F# minor. Ain’t that slick? It makes for an odd tune, but thanks to the driving pah-oom nature of the galop, both the melody and harmony plow through those changes like nobody’s business. I wanted to keep up the harmonic weirdness in the B section with the trumpet. I had this whole thing charted out where I would start on the major III of the tonic, go down to the minor I, then up to the dominant which would become the III of the III-i-V of the next pattern. Yeah, it was a cool plan, but it totally failed. So I just wrote whatever the hell I wanted. Following that episode, the A theme reprises with a horn countermelody, then suddenly we’re at the very curious C theme, which is really an AABA form (that stays mostly in F# minor) in disguise and serves as the piece’s high point, what with all that antiphonal (call and response) stuff going on and instruments doubling up and so on. That sets up the last return of the A theme, this time with a trumpet countermelody. The outro is brief and the tune ends. You know, I’ve written two other gallops, #15 and #82, but this is the best of the bunch. Sure, it resembles #82 the most because of the trombone lead, but there isn’t any system for its weird harmony; I just wrote an off-kilter melody and harmonized it. This time, melody and harmony work together in the same odd pursuit. I’m very proud of this piece. I couldn’t have written it 100, 50 or even 10 pieces ago. Its time is now. And for all of the talk about me being seriously burned out by this project, this is proof that there’s still a chance for quality. That’s what keeps me going. Have a listen and enjoy.