Whistling Dixie

This tune comes from an assignment from “Composing for Performers” class that i took while working on my master’s degree at the University of the Arts.

Here is an mp3 of the tune:  Whistling Dixie

The assignment had to do with Intervals.

An interval is the numeric term applied to the space between any two notes.  The larger the space between the notes, the higher the number is.

A 2nd is a small interval and a 7th is a larger interval.

My task here was to compose a melody that began with small intervals, increased the intervals gradually, and then came back to the smaller intervals as the melody finished.

Here is the sheet music:

If you’ve gotten this far, then you perhaps have some musical theory knowledge, so i will commence to write with that in mind.

the first measure starts out with 2nds and the intervallic distance peaks at measure 4 with the descending F# to G interval of a major 7th.  After this point, the tune gradually works it’s way down to smaller intervals.

The bass line was composed outside of the compositional constraints described above.  After that I decided on what the chord changes would be.

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