Klarinet Archive - Posting 001305.txt from 2000/12

From: Bilwright@-----.net (William Wright)
Subj: [kl] Dirge for a Lame Duck at the Bird Refuge
Date: Fri, 29 Dec 2000 03:21:28 -0500

I've mentioned before that, one day when I was practicing and doing
'stream of consciousness' with my fingers, I stumbled across a melody
that I liked. Over the past couple of months, I've 'mucked about' with
the tune and recently I added a line of harmony for bass clarinet. A
real composer wouldn't need a midi program to help him hear the second
part, of course; but it was fun.

The problem, however, was that the entire composition didn't hang
together. It had moments of interesting harmony and interacting
rhythms (imo) that were ruid moments laters by pedestrian scales and
obvious progressions --- exactly as you'd expect of someone who didn't
know what he wanted to do with a simple melody.

Today I happened to stop at an oversized pond in my town that is
called the Bird Refuge, where people bring their kids to feed the ducks.
I saw a lame duck who looked as miserable as a creature can look. All
the other ducks out-raced her (too dull-colored to be a male duck) to
the bread crumbs, pushed her aside or pecked at her even when there was
no food at stake. She looked ugly and twisted, she was generally a
miserable misshapen creature, and no male duck could possibly be
interested in her.
Then she took flight. It all came together for me. Part of my
composition resembles a dreary minor-scale dirge that plods along below
the staff in half-tone steps. The other part flits about in clarion
and alto major triads with runs of triplets and syncopations and dotted
notes and twelfth leaps. (I wrote it that way as an exercise) Yes,
suddenly I saw that the duck, who plods and limps and suffers on the
ground, could and did take off happily into the sky.
When I got home, I knew exactly what I wanted to do in order to
unify the whole mess into a single piece of music. Two variations,
despairing and joyous, of the same theme, trading places with each
other.
And I titled it (of course) "Dirge for a Lame Duck at the Bird
Refuge." At 63 bpm, twenty-five bars lasts long enough to be a
complete piece of music.
No, it's not a great piece of music, but I enjoyed it. In a way,
I'm sad that it's complete. Now I have to move on to something else.

Cheers,
Bill

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