Show Concept - 5

I decided on a show concept! Of the three concepts I outlined earlier, I settled on Le Petit Prince.

While there was a lot of great material for the other concepts, I already had an arrangement of some themes from the animated movie soundtrack for Le Petit Prince from conducting class last year. While its current form isn't orchestrated for marching band, I will be able to relatively easily swap some parts out and fill harmonies to create a marching band edition. The piece is roughly two and a half minutes long, which is an ideal length for an opener of an 8-minute marching band show. Even though most drill writers don't arrange their own music (production companies often have an arranging staff and a separate drill design staff), this can be an opportunity to make a more authentic product and practice working on both ends of constraints. 

From the creative perspective, this theme allows for a story to guide the development of the show, and there are ample sources for inspiration of guard choreography, props, color palettes, and other concepts. It's also a family friendly story with a fun history, but it still tackles some deeper thematic ideas which can be reinforced by musical and drill choices. I must say, given the opportunity to write a full show from this material, I would make different musical decisions with this arrangement. However, due to my time constraints and the nature of this project, the current arrangement will allow me to experiment with several different types of marching maneuvers in a short amount of time. I will likely follow up with another post reflecting on the process of writing to this arrangement.