One Day Wonder #279

For 2 horns, 2 trumpets and 2 trombones.

I was still very happy about all that non-repetition that I accomplished in #278, so I wanted to try it again in a different context. For this piece, I feature two choirs of the same instruments squaring off with each other. Since we’re dealing with the same instruments, I decided to separate them by register, with one group high and the other low. That way, there’s more distinction between their lines and might produce a very striking effect. It starts off sounding pretty fragmented with fledgling lines in the upper choir and short dissonances among the lower guys. Things come together and fall apart fairly often. I guess the mechanical effect might remind some listeners of minimalism, but that wasn’t my intent at all. What I was primarily trying for was non-repetition, which kind of runs counter to the minimalist aesthetic. I’m really happy with how it turned out. Sure, there’s not a hummable tune in sight, but, except for one section, I manage to avoid both form and repetition. This piece is just a blob that starts at one point and ends at another. So where’s the repetition? Actually, it’s just a variant. I’ve become really fond of running harmonic lines at each other by staggering when they begin. Does that make any sense? OK, so I take the intro and just let every player from each choir go a beat late. The trumpet goes first, then the horn, then the trombone. Instead of being fragmented, both choirs become disjointed, but they meet up soon enough and the whole shebang ends. Another reason why I like this piece is because it seems almost infinitely expandable. This particular version is about three minutes long, but I can see it easily lasting 10 or 15 minutes and all of this would also feature very little repetition – only textural adventures and the like. I'm still wary of concert-length pieces, as my one and only effort in that direction was my undoing, but I have nothing against expanding these tunes to fill a 10 or 15-minute gap in somebody's programming.