riceonthebass

This tune is named in tribute to a 1985 Mercury Grand Marquis.

The car belongs to Kevin Roughton and we ride to gigs in it.

mp3:  the smooth

Here is the music:

I often will jot ideas down in a little music paper notebook, when they strike me.

They range from very short snippets to full songs.

This tune is like a sonic patchwork quilt.

It is several small ideas that i found in my notebooks, put together by my brain.

My brain is like the Bond-O that holds together the smooth.

Enjoy!

My grandfather’s name was Virgil Wilder Rice.

I wrote this tune the day that he died.

To me, he was one of the greatest people to ever live and i could never do justice to any of the stories about him.

click here to hear it:  VWR

Here is the lead sheet:

Theoretically, i don’t have much to share about this one.  When i wrote it, i was in college and really into Monk.

I heard from one of my instructors about Monk writing major blues tunes sometimes.

I also was just beginning to understand about chord substitutions, and how Bartok used harmony.

I misunderstood both of those things at the time and this tune came out of that combined misunderstanding.

That is a beautiful thing.

Hi there!

Thanks for stopping by.

What you’re reading now is the first of a few posts that I have planned where I will be posting some of my compositions in the form of sheet music and recordings.

This tune is titled “Toast for Breakfast.”

here is the chart:

if you prefer, a pdf file is here:  toast for breakfast

and here is a recording from my master’s recital on 11/18/2009.

Toast For Breakfast

I composed this tune as an assignment for my ‘Composing for Performers’ class in the spring of 2009.

The assignment was to experiment with the sound of different slash chords and/or pedal points, and compose something using those sounds.

The form of this piece is AABA.  The A sections are the first and last 8 measures.  The B section is the middle 16 measures, after the repeat sign.

A slash chord is one of two things.  If the slash notated is diagonal, the player is to play the chord indicated on top with the note on the bottom being the bass note.  sometimes it’s a chord member, sometimes it is not.  If the slash is horizontal, it indicates bitonality where the top is a chord and the bottom is a different chord, like two chords at once.

I used slash chords of the diagonal variety on the A sections of this one.

Pedal points refer to the act of sustaining a note(usually on the bottom in jazz) while the chords are changing.  This creates a sense of tension and release depending on how the chords change.

The pedal point is employed over the B section here.

The melody was inspired by the chord sounds and  developed right along with the changes.

The title came about when I asked Kirsten what she thought it sounded like as I was composing it.

She said:  ”Toast for breakfast, like you’re making breakfast and it’s toast.”

That worked for me.

thanks for reading!

Andy Rice