Some Slightly Spooky Stuff

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$40.00
SKU:
OMW198
Composer:
Marsha Chusmir Shapiro
Instrumentation:
String Orchestra
Level:
1.5
Format:
Print
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Product Overview

I. Pixie Cat-Toe
Somewhat like the “Funeral March of the Marionette” by Charles Gounod which became a famous theme employed by Alfred Hitchcock, this ABA composition sets a calm, repetitive tone representing the Pixie, a mischievous, mythological creature from Celtic folklore. The sudden explosive sound effects conjure a cat's paw which can quickly extend vicious claws.

II. Tremble-O
Also in ABA form, the second piece employs chromatics and sustained tremolo notes to produce a creeping, eerie quality, like a poisonous potion bubbling in a cauldron.

III. Vamp-Ire Rondo
In music, one of the meanings of a VAMP is a repeating musical figure or section found in non-classical musical forms including musical theater. Sometimes these vamps are used as filler: repeated over and over before a solo, between verses, while someone speaks, under an improvisation, or while changing scenes. A vamp is usually open to the number of times it may be repeated. IRE means anger, but added to vamp, we have VAMPIRE!

RONDO is a musical form with a familiar theme/tune returning between new sections of music. It can be ABACA or extended to ABACADA, and so on. In this case (ABACA) each section of music is actually a vamp, rather than a well-defined theme. So, it is a rondo of vamps.

The progression of chords in the lower instruments stands for the vampire, a creature from folklore which is said to survive by sucking the blood from a living or undead person. The use of a minor key was chosen to make the music sound as if it was composed in the Balkans or Eastern Europe which is where vampires supposedly originated. The screeching sound at the end represents the death of the vampire.

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