My composition is about some elves that battle it out with some nasty trolls. These trolls bake troll house cookies, operate a phantom troll booth, and I don’t accept their calls as I only take troll free calls. They occupy a narrow strip of land and there is a bridge they controll which takes a heavy troll if you want to pass. The trolls are fond of puns and when they come out to fight you after warning you, they will all laugh and say “I trolled you so”. The elves like to sing and dance and are particularly fond of Jailhouse Rock and Heartbreak Hotel. Oh sorry, that was Elvis. Never mind. When a person who was denied access asked what he was supposed to do to get the other side the troll said “I just guess you will have to cross that bridge when you come to it.” Nasty piece of work that troll was. And then there was the troll who was supposed to play a trumpet solo during the part that connects two sections of music but he was missing so the trolls all laughed and said “I guess he must have fell off the bridge”. Then there was the guy who walked into a bar and saw G, B and D sitting at a table. The guy asked the troll bartender where A, C and E were and the troll answered “You know I can’t serve A Minor here, but G, B and D, there’s a major difference” and laughed hysterically. Terrible.
This contest seemed to have elements of epic, majestic and some Celtic folk jam in Santa Cruz, California. So my piece has some ominous stuff in it plus a bunch of happy Celtic type music that represents the happy go lucky elves and their incredible victory over the trolls who were severely punished. So I got some some penny whistle, accordion, bodhran, upright bass, oboe, French horns, bass trombones, harp and trumpets. With great imagination the key progresses from C minor to C major, The tempo somehow got set to 117. Not sure why but it seems to have worked. Most of the instruments came from Sample Tank, which is rapidly replacing the Spitfire Audio stuff as my go to source for virtual instruments. Bodhran was a loop from somewhere and the celtic melody was based on a loop a friend sent me from Logic Pro.
One of the great things about this piece is that it got me more into Celtic music more and now my acoustic guitar is tuned to DADGAD for you guitar aficionados out there. I love it and hope to get that guitar involved with future compositions, ran out of time on this one.
Thanks for listening and even if you can only get through the first two minutes I personally consider that a huge success, maybe my biggest accomplishment to date.
