It is a march. Written in November.
Simple innit?
An exercise in orchestration: combining instruments in ways that make the sound more attractive.
The piece was initially written on the guitar.
Simple C and F major chords were used to write the main riff. Some were then changed into the lovely, multipurpose, suspended second and fourth chords.
The final piece wound up written for a brass band or a marching band. It can also be sung by a quartet.
The notes in the guitar chords were assigned to brass instruments and the option was left open to sing the piece in four part harmony. The instrumentation is piccolo (soprano), trumpet (alto), trombone (tenor) and tuba (bass). Percussion acts as an accompaniment.
And, lo and behold, changing the instruments completely changes the feel. Makes it a different piece altogether.
It also makes the point that the guitar is an instrument of harmony, as is the piano. It must be ten times more difficult writing music if you are a tuba player because it is a melody instrument, you can only play one note at a time. Or is it that hard? Any tuba players out there writing band music?
One orchestration task for live performance or live recording is to check the instrument ranges. In other words, to check that the notes written for an instrument can physically be played by that instrument.
For example, the lowest tuba note in November March is F1. Digging around the internet unearths the information that the bottom note on a bass tuba is F1. Phew, relief. However, a contrabass tuba can play even lower. Amazingly, a BBb contrabass tuba can actually play a really, really low Bb0, which is nearly subaudio. Wow.
Title: November March
Key: C
Tempo: 112bpm
Length: 3' 30"
Track 1: piccolo soprano
Track 2: trumpet alto
Track 3: trombone tenor
Track 4: tuba bass
Track 5: drumset
Genre: Pop, Rock
