Pocket Grooves

Pocket Grooves is designed with “small” in mind. The pieces are short and require small hand-held instruments for the percussionist while they also focus on simple harmony and simple melody. While these pieces present incredible challenges for the bassoonist, they are aesthetically light in nature and designed to celebrate three different traditional styles of music in the world (Joropo from Venezuela, Samai from the Middle East, and Choro from Brazil).

Program Notes

Pocket Grooves is designed with “small” in mind. The pieces are short and require small hand-held instruments for the percussionist while they also focus on simple harmony and simple melody. While these pieces present incredible challenges for the bassoonist, they are aesthetically light in nature and designed to celebrate three different traditional styles of music in the world (Joropo from Venezuela, Samai from the Middle East, and Choro from Brazil).

Pocket Grooves was written for bassoonist Jefferson Campbell as a request for a companion piece to Get It! (Item #18540), another work for bassoon and percussion by the same composer, in the same vein. Campbell asked for the same compositional approach here – a challenging work for the bassoon that stems from the “popular” music idiom and is accessible to a wide range of audiences.

The three movements in Pocket Grooves may be performed in any order and may be combined with Get It! to create a four-movement suite. In this case, all pieces should be considered movements of Pocket Grooves.

Grade Level: 4
Copyright: 2015
Number of Players: 2
Duration: 10:00 total

Listen to Recordings

Sample PDF

Instrumentation

Bassoon
Joropo Maracas, Riq, Pandeiro