Open Mic Adventures CLIX: “Dido’s Lament”

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Years ago, my dear mom found a copy of The Usborne Book of Piano Classics (that’s an Amazon Affiliate link; I receive a portion of any purchases made through that link, at no additional cost to you) at a book sale and picked it up for me.  I have used that book countless times over the years for gigs, piano lessons, practice, arranging, etc.  My High School and Middle School Music Ensembles have performed arrangements based on those in the book many times at the annual South Carolina Independent School Association Music Festival.

While it consists of piano arrangements of famous pieces from the Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods, I often play the pieces on saxophone.  I found myself pulling the book out in preparation for a gig this past Sunday (a wedding proposal—the client’s girlfriend said yes!), and came upon a melancholy piece from the Baroque composer Henry Purcell, “When I am laid in earth,” perhaps better known as “Dido’s Lament.”  It’s from Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas.

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Open Mic Adventures CLVI: “March of the Goliath Beetles”

I have a lot of great bass guitarists in my Music Ensemble classes, and I have always wanted to experiment with an electric bass ensemble—a small chamber group consisting entirely of electric basses.  I think it can be done (and probably has been done, if I took three seconds to Google it).

The challenge with basses is that those low tones can get awfully muddy, so composing for multiples of the instrument requires exploring the full breadth of the fret board.

Today’s piece, which I deem to be incomplete (although it does have a satisfying conclusion), is one such attempt at blending three basses into one.  I have yet to try this piece with my three High School Music Ensemble bassists, but I have worked individual parts with them with me playing one of the other parts.  I’m excited to see how and if the three will blend in Reality as well as they do in digital form.

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