The Juggler

There was a recent call for scores put out by the Edinburgh University Brass Band for a new concert march, and I'd been looking for an excuse to write something for brass band for a while. The march genre is one I've had quite a lot of experience in as a performer and so the style came fairly easily to me. I haven't submitted this yet, but I probably will fairly soon.

Having commented on zig-zag yesterday I noticed this piece further down the list and having a few moments (as the hangover from last night dissipates!) thought I'd give it a try.The kind of thing to liven up the day. Energetic and very in the march tradition. (I have contact with the RM Band and now and again run a few tracks from Canadian Brass.) Brilliant harmony; some nice trick modulations and good contrasting subjects. Superb contrasting textures in the scoring. It's very easy to imagine this played on the march. I particularly noticed the unison/doubled cornet lines leading up to the close. Adds a most rousing end. 

Great. Bests at getting it performed.

It's pretty good. I take a little bit of issue with the ending if not just for the bit of anti-climax I experienced. It goes a lot of places tonally, but not necessarily harmonically, except for modulation, which I think you could have had a little more fun with– the cross relation in the beginning got me excited. Either way, nice work.

On 3/23/2019 at 3:22 PM, Monarcheon said:

It's pretty good. I take a little bit of issue with the ending if not just for the bit of anti-climax I experienced. It goes a lot of places tonally, but not necessarily harmonically, except for modulation, which I think you could have had a little more fun with– the cross relation in the beginning got me excited. Either way, nice work.

 

I think I felt a little bit constricted by the march style in that way. I do like experimenting harmonically but I didn't want to go to my usual extent in this piece - also because the band might have found a more harmonically varied piece a bit more difficult.

The piece did end up winning the call for scores - there was only one other piece submitted to it as it happens and it just wasn't as interesting as mine, but the band members I spoke to did all say that they really liked my piece and I'm fairly confident it would have won even if more pieces had been submitted.

I took a fairly low-quality recording with my phone at the performance last week. They took it a little fast to begin with, but the second half came off quite well I think. I ended up having to make a few adjustments to the piece on recommendations from the conductor after I went to a rehearsal. In particular, I had overscored for the cornets (especially the soprano) which made the piece sound fairly top-heavy and a little unbalanced. I took out an occasional bit from the cornets here and there in the final score.

https://soundcloud.com/fotytoo/the-juggler-1/s-ssklN

Man, this is the start of something beautiful.  This starts as a american style march. I think it's DYING for either that recapitulated A section to either be in a different register or added counter melodies. Something needs to be different.

The modulation to Ab needs to be notated and the Coda needs to be MOLTO BRILLIANTE!  It's missing that final stab. you tweak this, this could be a standard!

My 0.02.