One day many years ago I was just thinking about random stuff, probably in the midst of reading a science fiction book where they referred to our solar system as the “Sol System,” and it occurred to me that while in SF it’s almost a cliche that interstellar civilizations have names for every star, and they end up saying the name of our star is Sol. But we don’t really have a name for our star. It’s just “the sun,” which is what people on other systems would say about their stars too.
This piece started out with the Stick part at the beginning. I was just playing around with patterns that incorporated both the treble and bass sides of the instrument, and stumbled across notes that made for an interesting geometric configuration on the frets. I started developing it, not thinking about its key signature or chord structure. Eventually it developed into what I think of as the A section. Then I set about trying to fit a melody to it, which was challenging because the chords don’t remain within a single key. I notated the Stick part and worked out a melody for the bari that fit in.
For the B section, I wanted to mix it up and give the melody to the Stick and have the bari take the bass part. A bari sax has a big fat sound in the low register, and I hadn’t been taking advantage of that often enough. I couldn’t resist dropping into 3/4 time for a little Classical feel (the C section).
A free improv section is one of my go-tos, so I threw in one of those. At this point, it was turning into a kind of mini-epic (talk about an oxymoron!), so I wanted to end it with a big finale. I came up with a march-like rhythm which was even more challenging than the A section to write a melody for. For the most part, it alternates between E major and F minor, all with a thumping E in the bass.
Sometimes when I’m writing a longer piece, I like to go for a structure I call a “journey” rather than a standard AABA or sonata form or the like. These pieces go through a series of sections and never come back to reprise the beginning section. I know that it’s often said the final recap in a sonata form provides a sense of resolution for the listener, but sometimes resolution isn’t what I’m looking for.
The structure of “Name of the Sun” could be written as AABCBCDEEEE, and it wanders around quite a bit in its tonality.
An old friend from Beijing provided the spoken word bits, which I chopped up and looped. She says 太阳的名字是什么？太阳有没有人名字？which translates as “What is the name of the sun? Does the sun have a name?” And at the end, she whispers 过来过来 我告诉你一个i秘密 太阳的名字是… or “Come here, I’ll tell you a secret. The name of the sun is…”
And for fun, here’s a mostly live demo of the track recorded in 2018.