Bill Troxler
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Using Human Speech to Create a Motive

The Power of Walnuts

Act 2 Scene 2 of the play Enchanted April ends when the most pompous character in the play, a toffee-nosed, elderly English woman, is loosened up by a young artist who presents her with her favorite treat – a bag of walnuts.  She does not speak these words.  But,  I assumed (that’s the intuition part)  that in her head she was saying to herself “I love bags of walnuts.”  That phrase became the motive for the music that would close Act 2 Scene 2.

Here’s how the composition unfolded.  

 The cellos sings:  Love bags of walnuts, I do I    love bags of walnuts I do I    love bags of walnuts .......

This phrase has eight pulses.  The cycle spans two measures.  That forces the downbeat to occur on two different words in the phrase. 

The downbeat of each bar occurs on either on the word LOVE or NUTS. 

Love bags of walnuts, I do.  I love

Or the second time:   -nuts, I do.  I love bags of wal

 
Simultaneously the mandolin sings:  I love bags of walnuts.

This phrase has six pulses but spans the same number of measures as the cello part. 

The mandolin phrase is "behind" the beat of the cello and doesn't catch up until the mandolin sings "of wal-nuts". Those are the only on-beat tones of the mandolin part.  The other tones are back beats.  That gives the piece its energy. 
 
The only concurrent melody-counterpoint tone occurs when the cello sings I do.  I.  With the cello downbeat shifting between two words (tones in the motive) the listener has a hard time predicting what comes next.  It sounds like an unstable melody.   But the instability is resolved by three concurrent tones. 

 The concurrence of melody-counterpoint happens this way:

Cello sings:         I      do       I

Mandolin sings:  of    wal - nuts

These three concurrent tones stabilize the piece.

 The ending is a mix of intuition, harmonic rhythm and the director's requirement that the cue last only about 30 seconds.

The Director, cast and crew really liked The Power of Walnuts.  So, this theme was used as the motive for the curtain call.  The words Breaking Free were spoken by the lead character in her final line.  This time the piece runs about 90 seconds.  Three iterations of the them allow for curtain calls for each level of characters.  The minor characters come on stage for their curtain call during the piano- drum version.  The mid-level players appear during the big-band version.  The lead characters appear when the all-voice chorus joins in the music.  The curtain call ends with a solo tuba to let everyone know the show is over.
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