"Magical Morning"

Concert Band

Electronic demo here

There are lots of great pieces out there for middle school band. There are original pieces and arrangements galore! That being said, I've always felt like there are a couple pieces yet to be written to give kids a taste of the sort of upper level music they can look forward to playing later in band or even in orchestra if they keep practicing.

"Magical Morning," was the third of a set of pieces I wrote to try to accomplish just that. In this piece, I looked to the music of the great Impressionists... particularly Debussy. Unlike the work of the great French composer, however, I kept the tempos and rhythms fairly straightforward. It was some of the harmonic language and unusual scales I chose to adopt in writing this piece.

This piece is also programmatic, in a sense. I definitely had some ideas from, "Lord of the Rings," going through my mind as I started on this work and so I decided to paint a musical picture of a fantasy Wizards' Council meeting deep in a mysterious forest at daybreak. Long chant-like melodies backed up by militaristic percussion depict the council members marching their way into their magical circle, probably casting spells to light their way.

Scores

Magical Morning

Concert Band Score and Parts (PDFs) $60