On The Carousel In Central Park

I have had the good fortune to live on Central Park in New York for six years. I’ve had the place all to myself in the winter and have had to share it with tourists in the summer. It has many points of interest, such that each are singular and need no colorful qualification. There is The Lake, The Pond, The Meer and The Beach (yes, the park has a real beach). The Sheep Meadow, The Bridal Path, The Boathouse, and so on. One of each. And the Carousel. That too, unique, except for the children who are always the same at five years old. Their mothers bring them here to go around on the wooden horses as the motor cranks up and up and up and the jangly circus music begins, and all the many little hearts that beat so fast in their fearless joy … I wanted to share this little vignette with you.

Sorry, no score, but I can give you the instrumentation. 2 clarinets, 1 bassoon, 1 Horn in F, Bb trumpet, piano, harp, glockenspiel and strings.

This is so nice. Dreamy and with beautiful contrasts (the trumpet at 1:00). The combination of instruments sounds good.

There was a strange note at the end of the first phrase with the strings in it... not really sure how else to define it. Sounded like an augmented 5th in the tonic chord. 
But overall, incredibly lush with clear influence from the "source material". I love this; could easily work as video game music too. 

Blaire, this would be one of those cases where a score would really come in handy. I think the chord you are talking about is the fourth bar when the strings enter. The notes are G#,D,E,G. It’s a good jazz chord because it can be many things depending on what the bass note is. If it’s F then it’s Fm6. If it’s Bb then it’s what I would call Bb13, a dominant chord that could resolve to Eb. In this case it’s G# which is ambiguous because it goes up stepwise to another ambiguous Am9 chord that goes to Dm7-D7, and then finally to G.

 I hope this is the chord you are talking about. It’s used in this example too. Just for fun, see if you can identify the music.

This is very well done! Feels like a flashback or a dream, definitely captures your inspiration.

I especially like how you were delicate but present at the same time - very balanced. Like a good meal.

There were moments when I kind of wandered around as a listener, though. Not sure if that was intentional or not, but if you wanted to direct the listener each step along the way I was definitely "off-task" at moments. I'm trying to find those moments in my own music and find ways to hook the listener so they "go" where I want them to go.

Good music, keep writing!

Gustav Johnson

I am not responsible for listeners who go off track (It's in my contract). Thanks for listening!