Platypus Dance

Platypus in the Creek by Melanie Hava

I don't often write music "just for fun," but this woodwind quintet is intended to be fun. Nothing deep or sophisticated here. Just enjoy.

Digital Performance

Platypus Dance.mp3

Downloadable Score

Platypus Dance Score examination copy.pdf

Digital performance generated using Finale and Garritan Personal Orchestra 5.

This recording is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC 4.0). You may share the recording with others and/or use it in derivative works as long as you explicitly credit me and do not use the recording for commercial purposes. In addition, you may not alter the metadata in the audio file identifying the title, composer, artist, or licensing information. The license pertains only to the audio recording and not to the underlying musical work, printed score, or public performances. This recording, the underlying musical work, and score are © Thomas S. Statler.

Permission to download and print the score is granted only for study purposes, and not for performance. If you are interested in performing this work, please contact me.

Listener's Notes

Platypus Dance is my small tribute to the studio musicians who wrote and recorded the soundtracks for the early Hollywood animated cartoons of the 1930s. This was a time before cartoons got "looney", when they were — let's be honest — more than a just little bit too cute. But the music was great, and impeccably performed. Whether there were any cartoons of that time that featured dancing platypi I don't know, but it doesn't matter. The title might be descriptive, or just suggestive. By all means feel free to imagine your own scene.

Instrumentation

Flute
Oboe
Clarinet
Horn
Bassoon

Composerish Stuff and Other Details

Writing this piece started off in a particularly odd way. I was working late one night, doing some pencil-and-paper theoretical astrophysics, and everything was going really well (which is often not the case in research). All the math was working, the results were coming out nice and compact, I was in the groove. And I realized I had this happy little tune going in my head. When I got home I wrote it down, and started playing around with it the next day. It felt so cartoonish that I had to commit to the concept. As I recall, the piece took a few weeks of occasional spare-time work to finish.

If this piece asks any question at all, it's "How repetitive can a melody be and yet not be utterly boring and pointless?" Because really, this is about the silliest little theme I can imagine writing. The same two-bar figure gets played three times, and then there's two more notes (II - I, i.e., E - D) and it's done. And then it repeats. All told, that silly little two-bar figure is repeated 24 times (OK, there's a little variation the last 6). And yet I think it works, because there's enough variety in the accompaniment to keep it amusing for the short duration of the piece, which couldn't possibly be any longer without overstaying its welcome.

Fun fact: the middle section's "sentimental" oboe melody has enough altered passing tones to hit all twelve chromatic pitches in 16 bars. Intentional or accidental? I'm not telling.

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