July 2024

A working demo!

It's been a busy and mostly productive few weeks since my last post.

On a quiet Friday afternoon the day after Independence Day, I sat at our Yamaha baby grand in the living room and "noodled" on some thematic ideas for the three movements. (Thank you Voice Memos app for capturing my thoughts!)

The noodling led to changes not only in the order of the movements, but also the relative keys. Lydian, originally the last movement, swapped places with Mixolydian to become the first movement. 

The Lydian samples were recorded in Bb. Lydian mode is based on the 4th note of a major scale. Bb is the 4th note in the key of F and that's where the noodling took me.

The Dorian middle movement samples were essentially recorded in Eb minor with the 6th note of the scale raised a half step. This movement decided to stay where it was.

The Mixolydian samples were recorded in Bb. Mixolydian mode is based on the 5th note of a major scale –aka the "dominant".  For reasons I'll never fully understand, a 3-2 (son) clavé rhythm took hold of this movement and the Bb Mixolydian scale decided to point to the key of Eb.

Even though the keys of the first and third movements are not how I originally envisioned, the melodies and the accompanying soloist loops still strongly reference their respective modes.

It's been great fun reviewing all the wonderful samples provided by the WSU Wind Ensemble students ... lots of diverse source material. 

I call the video below a "composite demo" – a "mini" version of the piece demonstrating the main themes, keys relationships, tempi, and interaction between the band parts and the soloist's loops.  

Sibelius (left) is playing the band parts and triggering the soloist's samples on the right.

With this example, I am now ready to work on the individual movements ... and there's no time to waste!