216 - Jumping the Gun

Typically as I’m picking up the tablet or manuscript paper to start on a daily tune, knowing roughly ahead of time what the key center and modality will will usually kicks off some kind of generic starting idea.

Though it probably won’t be obvious I was thinking about the common practice in medieval chant of using the area around the dominant of the scale as a reciting tone. Chants frequently start on the tonic then leap to the dominant (in this case from C to G) where they hover for a while before finally descending back to the tonic to start another phrase. Rinse and repeat.

Thinking about applying that highly simplistic formula to a fast jig got me the first four bars of this piece, afterwards it went off on a tangent.

Also, if case you haven’t noticed, I rarely allow the melody to end on the tonic in any of these tunes.