One Day Wonder #299

For 4 trumpets, 4 trombones and tuba.

This is the new version of #2. It’s been months and months since I listened to the original, and let me just say, wow, anything would be an improvement. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking when I wrote it. OK, sure, it was written during a phase when I was just throwing all assorted stuff against a wall to see what would stick. This piece not only didn’t stick, it ricocheted off the wall and rolled under the couch. Although it starts off nicely enough, it simply doesn’t go anywhere for its entire minute-plus duration. All I can recall about its creation is that I was rather confused about how to handle the disposition of forces. Sure, I’d written for brass before and I’d done a good job, but now I had all these instruments and what, oh, what, was I going to do with them?? Where did they belong and where should they go once I figured out where they belonged? That accounts for a lot of things not happening in this piece. The new version is better, but it’s strange that when I encounter these old tunes, I instantly recall my frame of mind and sometimes even the vast experience I’ve gained from all the previous pieces isn’t much use. I’m still the confused-yet-grimly-determined guy throwing things against the wall. What I did here was to write up an intro that is completely at odds with the rest of the piece, run the main part of the fanfare-like tune more or less as-is, scrap the entire second half of the original (the trumpets ascend into the ionosphere, because I felt that there was nowhere else for them to go) and present a series of adventures and less dense textures as a contrast. Yeah, this is a much better way to present it, but I’m still not completely satisfied with it. But hey, I’m one piece away from being finished, so it’s not that I don’t care, but rather that I can only care a limited amount. And prying beauty and power out of this piece’s very humble origins exceeds that limited amount.