ChucKed Elephant Letters Overture
Contents
Background (Weeks 1-2)
The Elephant Letters (2015-16) is an in-progress children's opera that I was commissioned to write by author and librettist G.A. Bradshaw. The opera is based on a children's book, The Elephant Letters, by Bradshaw. The story tells of two elephant cousins living in Africa, Billy and Kani, who are separated through poaching when they are young. Billy is transported to a zoo, and the story focuses on the exchange of letters between the two elephants. Already translated from English into Swahili, Korean, and Chinese, the story teaches its audiences about the elephant poaching crisis, conservation, and the animals of Africa.
Music
The piece that this project is based on will serve as the overture to the children's opera. The point of the opera is it's playability- it is supposed to be easy enough for beginner children's orchestras to play, while fun enough for more advanced orchestras to play. To make it easy enough to perform, I minimized the orchestration as much as possible, to get the bare bones of each family instrument- one flute, one clarinet, one horn, one violin, one cello, marimba, vibraphone, djembe and a host of percussion toys (shaker, claves, maracas, triangle, castanets). I heavily used percussion since a) I play percussion and know it well, and b) percussion plays an extremely vital role in African music. The toys and djembe serve as the accompaniment, while the woodwinds, brass, strings, and mallet instruments make the melody.
Overture Form and Analysis
The piece begins slowly and quietly, in C minor, with just the cello and marimba playing. After a short introduction, the piece transitions into the main musical material, with the percussion toys and djembe gradually adding on to each other. After a djembe solo, the marimba enters with the main musical verse, followed by the cello, violin, and vibraphone. In the chorus, the vibraphone and marimba have rapidly moving sixteenth note lines, the violin and cello reprise material from the verse, and the djembe has various rhythms to give the piece a percussive feel. The second verse starts with the marimba and vibraphone, before adding the flute, clarinet, and french horn. The second chorus has all the instruments playing, before transitioning to the outro. As in the beginning, the cello and the marimba are the melody, but this time they are accompanied by the percussion. After a short ending, the piece concludes.
Score and Music
Elephant Letters Overture Score
Elephant Letters Overture Audio File
Performance Structure (Week 3)
The Final project will consist of the melodic lines (marimba, vibraphone, flute, clarinet, french horn, violin, and cello) being played through an iTunes aiff file through ChucK; me playing the djembe and a suspended cymbal live; and me also "playing" my laptop, where I will both program and play different shaker sounds, and program my computer keyboard to make randomly generated shaker sounds.
Chuck Scripts (Week 4)
Below are scripts of the five shaker loops; the read audio file of the melodic instruments; my shaker-keyboard instrument; the read audio file of the introductory part; and the score/initialization of what I have so far.
Elephant Letters Overture Chuck Code
First Performance (Week 5)
I will have a mid-quarter performance, in order to gain experience performing the piece and get feedback from the rest of the class
