Over the course of the last two years I’ve composed a ton of music.  I treat composing the way the Native Americans treated the mighty bison:  I don’t waste anything.  That means I probably release a lot of “filler” tunes, but I find that pieces I think of as throwaways compositions are sometimes the most popular.

I do not know if the pieces shared today fall into that category.  But for whatever reason, I like writing pieces with “Roll” in title.  These are always based, in part, on food.

The first of these was “Orange Roll,” an odd little piece in 5/4 time.  The “Orange” comes from the fact I used an orange pen to compose it; the “Roll” came from the rolling feel of the melody.

Later, I wrote “Tomato Roll,” a clarinet duet in 5/8 time.  I wrote the piece mainly because I spent way too much time drawing a detailed tomato in MS Paint as a way to illustrate a concept to my Economics students during a couple of days of online learning.

Finally, I recently composed “Crunchy Roll,” which is a bass guitar in 3/4 and 4/4, but with lots of odd timing.

But enough of my yakkin’—let’s boogie!

“Orange Roll: Three Harmonizations” – Three Versions

Three versions of “Orange Roll,” including the final electronic version, which features full, complex reharmonizations.  The bass guitar version is my favorite!

“Tomato Roll”

“Tomato Roll” is a duet for clarinet and bass clarinet in 5/8 time. It starts with a doleful G minor (concert F minor) theme, before morphing into a more optimistic (and tasty) Bb major (concert Ab major) section with a Baroque feel. Both parts get plenty of flowing, moving lines, with both musicians playing off one another in a juicy clockwork of motion and harmony.

“Crunchy Roll”

“Crunchy Roll” is a duet for electric bass and drums, based on a crunchy groove.

Thanks for listening to and/or scrolling past these tasty jams.

Happy Friday—and Happy Listening!

—TPP