Dawn

Piano, Strings, Brass, Woodwind, Birdsong.

 

·  The Unfolding Light  ·

I rise early, still as night. I lay between the world of dream and wakeful flight.

 

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Dawn: the unfolding of something new; the beginning of an idea, or feeling; the gradual change from night until the first glimpse of sun on the horizon that announces the start of day.

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I live in Southern England where nature's dawn moves its period of start, end, and duration depending on the time of year. Whatever the day, I can walk out into the late night and experience the full stretch of dawn. The shortest length of dawn I have enjoyed was at the equator where it lasts around twenty four minutes, and the longest which I am yet to experience is at the poles where dawn can take fifty four days from the moment of first light to sunrise.

Dawn is a moving feast and begins somewhere on the earth this very moment. Life looks up as starry black turns to deep blue, and then, slowly, where the sky meets the earth, to the blush of salmon pink, then gold. At it's most beautiful the rising chatter of birds fills the air.

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The melody has been composed so that a child can play the piece with a single finger. For those more skilled, the piano harmony and melody can be played with a finger in each hand. The piece is in Cmajor, the easiest key to play on the piano as only the white notes are used. The supporting orchestral textures interweave their long arcs of sound as nature to land and sea.

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I ponder on the nature of what it is to dawn. My dawning is the period before I know, before I come to understand, before I come to love. It is my jewelled journey from dark to light.

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The music cover artwork follows, along with a full size extract and pre-finalized draft: