One Day Wonder #277

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

When I’m writing one of these pieces, I often ask myself how much mileage I can get from any given theme. Since there’s very little melodic development that goes on (these are two-minute pieces, folks, they don’t need that), the answer is usually “not much.” If you feature a tune too often, it gets annoying, but, on the other hand, if you barrage the audience with all manner of tunes in a short space of time, that’s no good, either. This piece contains only two melodies. They are both initially introduced by the trumpet. The first is that little solo thing and the second happens right after it. Meanwhile, the rest of the band is doing this diatonic suspension-thing that I really like. I might use it elsewhere in these closing days of the project. Anyhow, those two tunes crop up and again and again in various forms before the end. Lots of times, some composers like to make it pretty obvious that a certain melody is returning. I’m not one of them. And this piece is all about masking that return, yet keeping the material familiar-sounding. Did I achieve that? I dunno, you tell me. All I can tell you is that this is yet another of many solutions to my problems with form. If your material is limited, disguise its repetition. That’s my advice for the day.