Staying Focused

Well I finally stayed focused last night and got quite a bit done on my rendering/recording/mix of Ultra Dry. I finished up putting the solos together and the drums part is about 90 percent done at this point. Both the Flute and the Flugelhorn take one chorus to solo. But I am unsure at this time with the overall balance of the piece and wonder if I need to have the piano take a solo chorus too. And or have a drum/percussion break before heading back in to the head.

The form of the head is a bit unusual. Harmonically it is 16 bars repeated to form 32 bars. The melodic form is ABAC, a quasi rondo. The interesting bit is that The B & C sections are closely related and the first half (id est the first four bars of each) is identical only differing in the last half of the eight bar section melodically, but remain identical in their harmonic progression. It should also be noted that the first half of that half (id est the first two bars of the B & C sections) are identical to the first two bars of the A section. To summarize the opening two bar motif (if we may call it that) occurs four times in the 32 bar head.

The form of the piece can be further broken down into four bar chunks giving us: ab a'c ab a'd. (a' is used to indicate that the first half of it (a') is identical to a). So we have A(ab) B(a'c) A(ab) C(a'd) for our final form.

In the current recording we only play the last half (AC) of the head after the solos with a simple four bar “coda” to close the piece.

So as I stated I have remained focused on rendering/recording/mix of Ultra Dry. With only a few details left to decided on.

1. Should I add a hand drum (conga) part.


2. Should I play the full head after the solos. [Most likely no]


3. Should I have the Piano and or the Guitar take a solo chorus.


4. Should I have a percussion vamp/soli before playing the out head.


5. Electric Piano or Acoustic Paino.

Ursus Demens