One Day Wonder #265

For 1 horn, 1 trumpet, 2 trombones and tuba.

For today’s piece, I wanted to write something in 11/8. Well, that’s not exactly true. I actually didn’t have the slightest idea of what to write today, so I figured that working on something in 11/8 was as good as anything. OK, I’ve done a lot of palindromes, retrogrades and turn-arounds (they’re all the same thing) of late, but this piece wouldn’t have any of that. This will be a sort of vacation from that. Yeah, a vacation…where I’m in the same place, doing the same basic thing, dealing with the same difficulties…a vacation. Anyhow, this tune does start off a little oompah-riffic, with the trumpet playing a persistent little tune that’s a little too terse to be memorable. The tuba takes over with a little call-and-response with the rest of the ensemble. The A theme plays briefly and the trickiest part follows that. Everybody imitates the tuba’s line. The entrances will be tough, but the effect is pretty cool. The last A isn’t really the A theme at all. It may sound familiar, but it’s completely out of order. What I did was take the last two bars, and put them first, then I took the next-to-last two bars and put them second and so on. It’s not a retrograde at all, see? Anyhow, it all works out very nicely and this is a pretty pleasant piece.