What Goes in the Night (5:30)

Grade 3+
By Julie Giroux
Performed at The Midwest Clinic 2000 and
the Texas Music Educators Association 2001 Clinic/Convention. 

A multitude of colors present themselves in What Goes in the Night, a both entertaining and challenging piece. The opportunity for expression is coupled with rhythmic intensity as the composer sets the stage with a somber, pulsating beginning, followed by an ever-intensifying pace to an exciting climax. Percussion enjoys an important role in adding subtlety to some passages and strength to others. Particular attention to the staccato of dotted eighth/sixteenth figures will help make that recurring motif speak clearly and add to the tension.

Under the cover of darkness, life goes on.
Sleep, work, passion, mischief, murder and mayhem.
Actually, the same things that go on during the day.
Yet, wrapped in a blanket of mystery and shadows
there is a certain power, a secretive nature that blurs the lines
between what is and what isn’t.
A trivial problem in the daytime becomes a tragic epic at night.
Love, seems more personal, almost magical. Work . . . endless.
Trouble has a cloak and Danger lurks behind every shadow.
Beauty. The moon and the stars.
Casting their light, hope and a promise of what could be.
A new day will come. Eventually.
But first, we must all deal with the night.

These notes, as well as the music, were written under the cover of darkness.
While creating them both, I heard many "bumps" in the night.
I investigated most of them. All but three made it into the music.

-J.G.