One Day Wonder #274

For 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones and tuba.

I tried to rework the bland #273 in my head, but nothing came of it. The residual frustration caused me to have music dreams during the night. I always like when that happens, even though it’s generally brought about by futility. In the past, I’ve dreamed up maybe 25 or 30 pieces total, but this was the first night I’ve had two pieces come to me. It’s always been just one. I woke up in the middle of the night with the basic concept of this piece and the first two measures of another piece, which later becomes #276 - stay tuned. The strange thing is that this piece came to me only as sound and the other piece was only visual – and that was only two full measures. Well, that was enough to get me started. OK, this tune is all about echoes, as you’ll hear. I start with just a three-member repetition, expand it to four and end with five. I tried to incorporate as many clashing lines as possible. They exploit the echo-effect to the fullest. There are a few interludes before the echoes expand. They generally work well, although I’m not too happy with the end of the first section. But overall, I think this piece is really good. I might even consider it a greatest hit. It’s really quite trippy. It would be even moreso if I expanded it. Well, that’s for another day. I just have to mention that this was extremely labor-intensive. The whole thing took something like seven hours to write (I was actually planning to write both dream pieces today, but it didn’t work out), because Finale 2005, God bless it, is so buggy when it comes to dynamics that it carries all previous dynamic markings forward when you’re copying. This calls for a lot of deleting. A whole lot of deleting. Out of that seven hours, I guess I was nixing these unwanted dynamic marking for three hours. Anyhow, I just want to drive home that I haven’t spent seven hours on a two-minute piece for a long time. Just so you know, I spent a mere two-and-a-half hours on yesterday’s pedestrian effort. (But, in my defense, if I’d spent twice as much time on it, the results probably wouldn’t have been appreciably better. It was just not a good way to go.) So this is what you get. I’m surprised that I haven’t done anything like this before. Sure, there’s the much-revered #12; but that only creates the illusion of an echo. The dynamics hold steady throughout. This has actual retreating dynamics. There are no crescendos; only very measured diminuendos. I like what’s happening here. Enjoy.