‘Momentum’ is a piece composed for a brass quintet made up of two trumpets, a French horn, a trombone and a tuba. The main idea behind this piece is to create a sense of a forward driving motion throughout with reference to the lockdown in England throughout 2020.

Life became very repetitive for me in the early stages of lockdown and I found it very helpful to have a regular routine to structure each day. This caused me to fall into regular patterns that repeated everyday. I aimed to reflect this in the piece by the repeated cell that can be heard throughout the whole piece. Iit is present somewhere in every bar. This is created to make a pulse like feel as well as causing a sense of continuity though the three sections of the piece.

This piece uses quite simplistic material that is gradually added to as music goes on. I found that this layering of the material helped to create a gradually changing texture which to me represents the small amounts of variation in my days in lockdown. I found it was important for the piece to highlight not only the repetitiveness of living though lockdown but also how monotonous life became the longer it went on. This is why I chose to have the repeated cell as a simplistic melody that stays on one pitch.

Recording and video to come soon….