Okay, this is the last of the music projects I’ll be posting about for now. This one’s actually a jazz tune, a lead sheet and a little MIDI playback of the melody, for now, though I’m considering turning it into something bigger.
Back in 2021, my son’s favorite place to play was a playground a few minutes away from our apartment (by car). We called the place “Robot Park” (or “로보 공원” if we were using Korean with him at the time), because the play structure had this enormous robot styling at the top.
In March of that year, a tune came into my head while I was with him there, and when I got home I wrote it down, and set about trying to harmonize it. This has never been my strong suit: like a lot of non-pianists, I don’t have a strong connection between the intuitions I have about harmony and the theory I extensively studied as a student. However, after a little time, I managed to knock together a harmonic progression that doesn’t sound terrible to me. (I haven’t yet sat down to analyze each and every chord’s function, but I can hear that it mostly feels like it’s moving forward in the way I want it to.) I think the light, playful tone and the syncopation work pretty well to capture to playful bouncing around of a carefree toddler in a playground—and there are the little tumbles down slides in the bridge—because the Robot Park had so many slides, I guess?—so the title made a lot of sense to me.
I’m sharing the lead sheet here without any expectation that anyone but me will ever notice this, or if anyone does, that they will probably find it just a little too sweet and maybe a touch too showtuney or something… but if you do happen upon it, please do feel free to try it or even to perform it with your group… but maybe send me news, or a recording or something?
(Anyone who wants a lead sheet in Bb or Eb shoul just let me know: Musescore can generate them easily.)
As for me, I’m considering attempting an arrangement of this for big band, as I’m currently working my way through Dick Lowell and Ken Pullig’s Arranging for Large Jazz Ensemble. (I’m still just digging into Chapter 2 and taking my time, but it seems like it would be a good project to take on once I’m a little deeper into the book.) I have time, now that our toddler is in grade school and taking his first Tae Kwon Do green belt test as I write this. If the arrangement happens, I’ll post about it, you can be sure!