Why I Should Never Let My Thoughts Wander Musically

So...since I've started working, I haven't felt much like writing. It's hard to motivate yourself to write when you are at work at night (and I seem to be mostly a write-at-night type of person; there's something weird about me writing in the middle of the day). However, last night was different. I have done some drum corps writing in the past, but never anything truly serious, you know, like full on corps books.

That is about to change.

Starting July 11th, I will start working on my first complete drum corps package, which right now is called "Three Cities". The piece has 3 movements and it's planned for about 10-12 minutes. I don't really know how this is going to turn out. I mean, I've been listening to corps shows for what seems like eternity, but can I actually put together a consistent, cohesive, interesting and descriptive 10-12 minutes of music? Well, I guess I'll find out.

Now what you're probably wondering is "why in the world set out on this venture?" Well, you can blame one drum corps show in particular. In 2004, Santa Clara Vanguard did a show based off of the music from Scheherazade (Rimsky-Korsakov). For some reason, during watching that show a few nights ago, a light came on. It was almost something asking me "Why haven't you gone that far?". So I'm going to do that.

With the exception of the second movement, I haven't decided on music yet. I think I know how I want everything as a whole to work, but not in its parts. I do have a whole shift of work to decide and maybe get to a piano and hack some things out. Hopefully I'll have it done sometime in mid-fall. Then comes the fun part.

Then I get to find people to help me play/record it. That won't be easy. I don't actually know many of the marching brass players here. Everything else should be easy enough. I'm sure I can scrounge up some drummers to help. I don't anticipate much of any of the movements to be insanely difficult (except maybe the last movement, which will purposefully be difficult).

I'll post updates about the piece as I complete parts, maybe even audio if I can figure out exactly what this blog can do.