The Holidays come early for musicians

Not many people realize that musicians start preparing for christmas gigs roughly in late July. my quintet was no exception. Being the main arranger of the group, this means I had to get cracking! Since our quintet is doing a little holiday concert thing, and our collection consists of mainly just arrangements made for background music, there was a large task ahead of me. Christmas carols always come off as simple songs when most are quite the contrary. You run into multiple issues when you arrange for a brass quintet. Most chords are only three notes, so you have one voice with melody, but you still have 4 voices to spread those notes, so you have some doubling, which changes the structure of the chord. Take the carol Joy To The World for instance. First chord is the I chord, and you have the melody starting on the root as well. The style of the song also requires the chord to be in root position, so tuba is now on the root of the chord. So you have three voices to duel over the remaining last notes. Assuming, for style reasons, you start with the melody in the 1st trumpet part, you can't have the 2nd trumpet on 5th of the chord. This would result in an open 4th between the same voice. Your best bet is to put the 5th on french horn, in the alto voice, so its displaced by an octave and is in a different timbre. Now you have two instruments to deal with, and only one note in the chord left. You can't give the trombone the 3rd of the chord because then its only a third above the bass, resulting in muddy sound andif you take it up an octave you have a large gap in the voicing and an odd interval between horn and trombone. So you put the third on second trumpet, down an octave, to form a lovely minor 6th, and you put trombone in octave with tuba. Ok, so time for beat two...

I decided we needed a hanukkah song if we're going to perform in a public place like a library. What better option than the Dreidel song. I was concerned though, I was only familiar with the 4 bar section "Dreidel dreidel dreidel, I made you out of clay...". Little did I know there was a fast dance like section before it in D minor (the part I referenced before is in G Major). Now this is where it gets interesting. I frequently use midi's as reference for my arrangements. It helps me visual chord structure, and hear the accompanying rhythm better. Having just a chord progression to go off, doesn't help unless it sa church hymn, because the accompaniment rhythm is just as memorable as the melody, sometimes even more. So anyways, here I am confronted with a section of ethnic music, not familiar with at all. I want a klezmer sound so I always fall back on the open 5th and afterbeat patterns. So i work out the D minor section and come up with a real exciting, clap your hands, "Dreidel Dreidel Dreidel" thing. Then it hits me...Crap...I need to get from D minor to G major...A Folk tune doesn't normally require a transition like that, it has to happen fast. So I fell back on a modulation technique from theory 3 in college. D is the 5th of G major. The melody ends on D, so I have the melody voice hold the D, while a solo fanfare starting on D mimics the opening, which fanfares on A, which is the 5th of D, so the D fanfare reminds the ear of the opening, and the next tonic you expect to hear is G. So in two bars, I'm able to make a transition to the major 4th of the original key. I was happy. It fit the style and all. Crisis avoided.