Download the score here.
In 2016-17, my spouse and I were living temporarily in Anchorage. We didn’t have a piano or any other instruments in our apartment, so she bought me a melodica. These eight pieces are the first I composed for my new instrument: in part character pieces, in part etudes for right-hand melodica fingering. The titles reflect my back-and forth existence over those months, with some pieces reflecting my home in Seattle, others reflecting on Anchorage and its environs. I’ll explain a few local references. “The Couches of Pinehurst” is a local Seattle FB group featuring photos of couches left alongside the streets in my neighborhood. “Constant Assembly” was the slogan on a large billboard near our Anchorage apartment. Chris Constant did in fact win his race for the Anchorage Assembly. “Center House Bubbleator” will be immediately recognizable to Seattleites of a certain age; alas, this spherical transport to the world of gummi bears at Seattle Center no longer exists. “The Park Strip Between K&P” is a section of a long and narrow urban park in downtown Anchorage, part of my regular walk to work there. “I Haven’t Broken Any Bones Yet” is a quote from me, from an interview about my new winter boots I gave to a reporter in Anchorage shortly after we moved up there. It is still true.
These pieces were premiered By Peter Nelson-King on July 22, 2023, at the Chapel Performance Space in Seattle, as part of the Wayward Music series. Here is Peter’s program note for these pieces:
“Aaron Keyt is a longtime Seattle composer, and a friend; I was thrilled to facilitate the premiere of his 4-hand suite Monsters last year, and am equally thrilled to personally debut his 8 Pieces for Melodica. The melodica is typically treated as a toy instrument, built for small hands and too reminiscent of harmonicas for the classical scene, but I enjoy the challenge of putting a new shine on a neglected instrument, and am terribly charmed by Aaron’s pieces. Each miniature works wonders with the modest dimensions of the instrument and sports an appropriately whimsical title; they are triumphs of form and imagination over windbaggery and ego”