Tchaikovsky Project: Week 1

Receiving the Commission

This week I started looking at Marimba Duet that I commissioned from JT Clancy IV.

I wanted to have multiple movements of Tchaikovsky's work for solo piano, "The Seasons", arranged for Marimba Duet because of the rich and warm tones that the marimba produces, which I feel will compliment this work very well. JT finished the arrangement of the movement titled "II. February: Carnival" and gave it to me this week. He is also arranging the third movement of this work which will be covered farther down the line of this project.

The First Steps

When I first receive a new piece of music, especially commissions, I will usually do some score analysis for the piece and follow along with the midi file or if the piece is an arrangement I'll find a recording of the original instrument. After I've marked up the score with interpretation and analyis I will then look for potential problems (technical, transitions, harmony) and test some of them out on the instrument to see if they are possible. I found a couple minor issues with the arrangement that luckily I was able to talk with JT about, small things like changing an interval in one hand from a Major 3rd to a Minor 6th, so that it sits in the hands a little better while still keeping the harmony of the original compostion as close as possible. Otherwise this week has been very little playing as I did commission this fairly recently and JT was able to get it to me in a short amount of time.

Keep looking back for weekly updates!