Skeleton Crew Stephen Dunstone

Skeleton Crew For - Mixed Ability 3-part harp ensemble Please click the "About this work & Performance Notes" heading below for further details This book is supplied as a score and set of 3 parts (Harps A, B & C)   Buy this music now £9.50 +p&p

Artist Profile and catalogue of works - Stephen Dunstone

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Skeleton Crew

There are three parts as follows::-

Harp A
Harp B
Harp C

This piece has a distinctly piratical flavour, owing to its somewhat rumbustious nature and the fact that it’s in the Aeolian mode. The Aeolian mode scale is the same as a harmonic minor but without the sharpened leading note, so if you’re at home in D minor (as Skeleton Crew is) the penultimate note of the scale isn’t C# any more, it’s C♮. This means that music in this mode ought to sound almost unbearably sad, since the chords you’d normally use in a perfect cadence would now be A minor and D minor instead of A major and D minor - and, indeed, a lot of Aeolian mode music is very sad. But the absence of the C# in the scale means that C major chords are now available, and if you use them instead of the A minor chord at a cadence (therefore going from C major to D minor) they give a bold and powerful feel to the music. I love modes.

The ensemble is mixed ability, but the Harp C players still get their chance to shine at letter D where the music is slower and they have the main tune.

I always get my pupils to keep both hands in play as much as possible because they’re physically more engaged with the music that way even if a passage is technically feasible in just one hand (and it looks better...). How you allocate the music between the hands is obviously up to you, but I’ve made suggestions in the faster passages for using the hands in a way which I’ve found seems to suit less virtuosic players well. I’ve notated them with the usual convention of tails-down left and tails-up right, but feel free to do what ever feels comfortable for you!

When I first wrote the piece, but before it had a title, one of my gentlerminded pupils wanted to call it “Fluffy Pirate Bunnies”. I’m sorry to disappoint anyone who thinks that would be a better title, but on the whole I think “Skeleton Crew” has a bit more edge...

Stephen Dunstone

Title:	Skeleton Crew
Composer:	Stephen Dunstone
Instrumentation:	3 Lever or Pedal Harps
Level:	Mixed Ability
Format:	A4 stapled score and set of 3 A4 parts
Weight:	115gm
ISMN:	9790570464364
Our Ref:	SD1032
Publisher:	Creighton's Collection
Printer/Distributor:	Creighton's Collection
Edition/Year:	2024
Origin:	UK