Time for some spy jazz! When I got my upright bass earlier this year, this was one of the themes that I was so excited to be able to play on it! The bassline in this song is just so wonderfully bluesy and groovy, and it's a lot o fun to really lay into it on upright!
This is the first of several Team Galactic-related themes that I plan to cover as part of the Year of Sinnoh. Team Galactic is probably my second favorite evil team, right behind Team Plasma of Unova! I think that Cyrus' vision and demeanor does most of the heavy lifting as far as establishing Team Galactic goes, as I always found that the grunts and Commanders (with the exception of Charon) weren't super well developed characters in the games, and were a bit forgettable. However, Cyrus is just such a cool commander that he makes up for a lot of that! Plus, a lot of the music associated with Team Galactic is so excellent - another plus in my book!
For this arrangement, I explored a few ways of tackling this theme, and eventually settled on a Pink Panther-esque \"spy jazz\" kind of feel. I was really inspired by Oliver Nelson's \"Stolen Moments\", and I borrowed a lot of elements from that, including some clustered horn voicings and soli texture! This original tune is pretty short (loop is about 40s long), so I lengthened my arrangement by adding some solos over a nice minor blues, and writing a shout chorus to add onto the tune!
You also might notice the trumpet in this video - this is my first time playing trumpet in a YouTube video! I recently got my own trumpet, and have been practicing it for the past month or so, and man, it is probably the hardest instrument I have ever picked up. A lot of the instruments that I learn are made easier since they're part of a family of instruments I already play (eg: bass clarinet is part of the single-reeded woodwind family, so it was easy to pick up!) Trumpet, on the other hand, is my first foray into the world of brass, and it is so so different from anything that I've played before. Brass reminds me a lot of weightlifting, in that progress does come consistently after tiring out your muscles and letting them recover. I'm studying with a teacher right now, but I'm certain it'll be a while before my trumpet range expands where I want it to - and that's okay! This is a great challenge, and it's really testing my abilities of learning new instruments. I don't know many people who can play both woodwinds and brass at at least an intermediate level, but I hope to be among them someday! It'd be great for expanding the pallete of instruments I can use in videos!
