Brithdir March was my entry for the RWCMD Band of the Welsh Guards Composition Competition 2026. My process for writing this piece started by closely following the suggested reading How to Write a March by Stephen Roberts and building up my musical material horizontally, starting with melody, bassline, accompaniment, melodic doubling, while closely studying key repertoire such as Alford’s Colonel Bogey and Sousa’s Stars and Stripes march. I found composing in such a prescriptive, straightforward way a beneficial exercise in composing with constraints (structure, texture and the role of instruments) – however, this did not come without its challenges.

Throughout the process, I made continuous alterations in response to feedback from the Band, such as adding a euphonium countermelody to the B theme (Fig.6/B.33-42) for idiomatic textural interest, and maintaining a stronger sense of pulse in the 4-bar transition between the break strain A theme repeat (Fig.7/B.138-142) by increasing use of percussion. The most important aspect of the process was ensuring its practicality in marching situations, achieved by keeping the material easily sight-readable and maintaining a strong, consistent pulse.

The concert performance by the Band of the Welsh Guards that I recorded for portfolio submission was overall a successful outcome, despite occasional pitch errors, perhaps due to more challenging rhythms and disjunct intervals than what players are accustomed to in their repertoire (e.g. cornets in Fig.8/B.22 and cnt. 2 in Fig.9/B.148). Furthermore, there is little possibility that the march will be performed at the Changing of the Guards in a marching situation because of this. I seem to have therefore composed a piece that sits somewhere between a concert march and a parade march in its difficulty and practicality, so it would require further revisions for it to be a practical parade march.