Calibrating the Moon - Tuba and Piano
Instant Download
Share
Details
Description
SKU: A0.1002836
Composed by Kyle Vanderburg. Contemporary. Score and part. 33 pages. NoteForge #6113517. Published by NoteForge (A0.1002836).I spent New Year's Eve 2018 in Nye, Montana, visiting family and friends. One of those friends is an imaging specialist who regaled us with an explanation of his most recent project, which he described as "calibrating the moon". Specifically, he was talking about the NASA ARCSTONE mission to calibrate the moon's reflectance to use as an accurate reference, primarily in climate science. The idea is that we have all this data about global warming and atmospheric changes, and a lot of that data uses the brightness of the moon as a control variable, but we don't actually have a precise definition of how bright the moon is. Ever since I was a part of that conversation, I knew that I wanted "calibrating the moon" as a title, and everything that came after that plays with the idea of moon themes or of doing big impossible-sounding things. When Connor Challey approached me about writing for tuba, Calibrating the Moon was an obvious choice.
The work opens with Syzygy, a term describing the straight line between the sun, moon, and Earth that occurs every new and full moon. The movement starts dark and brooding, moves to an energetic middle section, and returns to being mysterious, kind of like a lunar cycle. Fun fact: This movement's theme is actually a tuba setting of the phrase "Calibrating the moon."
The Second movement, Spectral Reflectance, is slow and shiny. NDSU was fortunate to have portfolio tubist (and Connor's mentor) Sam Pilafian as a visiting guest artist for several years, and I finished Syzygy around the time of his passing. I spent a lot of time thinking about Sam while putting the second movement together, and I quoted a couple of his favorite tuba concerti.
The work ends with Libration. If you were to watch a time-lapse video of a lunar cycle, you'd notice that the moon not only transitions from new to full to new, but also sort of oscillates or wags. That's Libration. The movement is likewise off-kilter, playing with the listener's sense of time through alternating time signatures.
https://kylevanderburg.com/music/calibrating-the-moon/
This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard’s global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.
Digital Downloads are downloadable sheet music files that can be viewed directly on your computer, tablet or mobile device. Once you download your digital sheet music, you can view and print it at home, school, or anywhere you want to make music, and you don’t have to be connected to the internet. Just purchase, download and play!
PLEASE NOTE: Your Digital Download will have a watermark at the bottom of each page that will include your name, purchase date and number of copies purchased. You are only authorized to print the number of copies that you have purchased. You may not digitally distribute or print more copies than purchased for use (i.e., you may not print or digitally distribute individual copies to friends or students).