I have used this chord before, now I am making use of it again in, of all things, a piece for a mixed middle and high school chamber ensemble. This is my "angry" chord, basically a restacked Eb #11 to use a crude description. It has a pent-up energy that can be released easily enough by resolving dissonant tones either up or down, the structure leaves places to fill in melodic motion. It rewards a driving rhythmic treatment, best using an irregular or compound meter of different pulse lengths. So far that has been 2/4 + 3/4, and 2/4 + 2/4 + 3/4.
I am taking something of a risk placing music of this sort in front of 8th through 12th graders, I know. Yet the little group I have this year has already proven that they can be much more than the sum of their parts, we have already performed a suite from Monteverdi's Orfeo using a harpsichord continuo. The challenge has been to focus them on the music and away from the usual adolescent immaturity and drama which that cohort is so prone to.
I have to pull my punches so much in the writing that it has been frustrating and slowed me down, since I am trying to balance what will be musically effective with what is technically possible. It's like writing for choir in that sense, pretty disciplined stuff. But as I like to say, who wants to do the easy things? Besides, this will be a good sketch for a longer piece for standard high school band, which I might be able to interest some publisher in. As my teaching phase draws to its close and my physical condition devolves, I have little choice but to go off the cliff and try to make my living by composing, finally.
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