I decided that I wanted to write a minuet. Why? I have no idea. Actually, I had the title first – As It Ever Was. This is a line from one of my favorite books by Nora Roberts, in the Dragon Heart Legacy. The meaning is “as is always the case”, “as has long been true”, or “so it will be again.” That caused me to think old or vintage. And that led me to minuet.
So then, what is a minuet? The minuet is a graceful French baroque dance originating in the 17th century. Old – right? It is written in 3/4 time and according to the internet that knows all things, there are many rules about what makes a minuet a minuet. There are even youtube videos about writing minuets (of course.) I won’t pretend that this one is historically accurate but I think it does fit the basic premise.
Admittedly I struggled. My first several attempts were garbage but I was determined. It made sense to take a look at minuets from famous composers, so after looking through several examples that I thought were pretty fussy I picked one of my favorite composers – Beethoven. I looked at the chord structure and the rate of chord changes in his Minuet in G Major and used that as the starting point for my own composition. I wrote 3 different variations before deciding on this one.
As It Ever Was did remain in the key of D major but only includes Section I of the classical minuet form with 2 repeated sections. (From what I understand, a complete minuet has 3 sections.) It is moderate tempo, 3/4 time, and I believe (somewhat biased) that it contains “polite and refined gestures” that are associated with a minuet.
I hope to add a recording of the finished project here soon, but if you are interested it can be found on Musicnotes.