One Day Wonder #275

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

I was a little hesitant to pursue the second “dream” piece. I only had the first two measures of it in my head. I decided to write another piece instead. That way, if it was still in my head the next day, I’d figure that it was meant to be written. For this tune, I had no specific ideas. I’ve started off many days like that. Often I grasp onto a single word and work from that. It can be as simple as “dissonant” or “fast.” Today’s word was a bit trickier – “Multi-layered.” Yeah, that’s one word, not two. OK, basically, I was thinking about an A section that had a built in countermelody (of sorts) in the horn and some moving lines in the bass and mid. This is what I came up with. About halfway through, I realized that I was careening really close to a plain-old AABA form, so I spiced things up with a third section in the horn and a D section that is both wacky and canonic. Yes, it really is a canon, albeit a very short one, first between the trumpet and tuba, then harmonized in thirds and played by the trombones and horns. After that little diversion, we’re back to the B theme and we exit with the repeat of the A theme again. This piece works out really well. It has a nice 5/4 groove to it, manages to sound like a lot is going on, but allow for the melody to do its thang, and it has some good contrasting sections. It’s really nice that I can still manage to put pieces like this together after being at this project for so long.